The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked Texas from carrying out the death penalty for a man convicted of stabbing a retired teacher as he seeks a DNA test to avoid death row.
Ruben Gutierrez, 47, was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of Escolastica Harrison and was scheduled to be executed Tuesday night.
in Simple instructions The Supreme Court granted, without any dissent, a last-minute emergency request to temporarily halt Gutierrez’s execution.
Gutierrez has separately filed a petition asking the higher court to hear his appeal, which, if granted, would revive his request to have certain evidence in the case subjected to DNA testing.
The justices have not yet acted on the petition, but the unusual move to postpone the execution suggests they may be open to taking up the case once they return from their summer break.
The newly issued suspension will continue until the court resolves the appeal in some form.
Prosecutors say Gutierrez and two others beat and stabbed Harrison, 85, at his Brownsville, Texas, home and stole about $600,000 in cash in 1998. Gutierrez claims he never entered Harrison’s home and had no idea anyone would be harmed.
Gutierrez has long called for DNA testing of evidence including the bloodstained shirt, the woman’s claw marks and a hair found wrapped around her finger.
His years-long fight recently reached the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Gutierrez did not meet the federal requirements for legal standing, meaning the right to sue.
Gutierrez’s lawyers said the decision was “wrong and harmful” and that the Supreme Court Last year’s ruling Regarding another Texas death row inmate’s attempt to seek DNA testing.
“The Fifth Circuit ignores this Court’s clear precedent and goes to the trouble of creating an unrealistic and burdensome litigation standing test that requires federal courts to meticulously examine the parties’ dispute and litigation history in order to predict state officials’ future contingent actions,” they wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.
In its response, the Texas Attorney General’s Office told the justices that the man had “failed to identify any error” despite having “litigated and relitigated” his case for more than two decades.
“Accordingly, his punishment was justified and his execution will be constitutional,” the state wrote.
