As evi­dence sur­faces that Texas may have killed an inno­cent man when it exe­cut­ed Ruben Cantu in 1993, recent edi­to­ri­als by the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News have crit­i­cized Texas’ death penal­ty and called on the state to take a clos­er look at its ​“flawed” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem.

The Austin American-Stateman wrote:

We all should remem­ber (Ruben) Cantu’s case and the lessons it offers as the coun­try car­ries out its 1000th exe­cu­tion since 1976 sched­uled for today in North Carolina. It now appears that Cantu was right. That means that Texas exe­cut­ed an inno­cent per­son. He was 17 at the time of the crime.

Cantu’s case should shock even hard-core death penal­ty oppo­nents. Cantu was no saint. He tan­gled with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem from a young age. But he appar­ent­ly did­n’t rob and shoot Pedro Gomez to death in 1984. Yet in 1993, Cantu was strapped to a gur­ney and inject­ed with lethal drugs for that crime.

Texas’ sys­tem is bar­barous. What else can be said of a sys­tem that fails to sort the inno­cent from the guilty? What else can be said of a sys­tem whose checks and bal­ances focus almost exclu­sive­ly on whether the process was fol­lowed and dead­lines met rather than the more impor­tant — and moral — ques­tions of inno­cence and fairness?

We’re not talk­ing about a few flaws, but rather deep inequities and defects that deny defen­dants the basics for a fair tri­al, includ­ing com­pe­tent lawyers and inves­ti­ga­tors and thor­ough and rig­or­ous appeals. Nowadays, the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed can be exon­er­at­ed via DNA evi­dence. Thank good­ness. But Cantu’s case demon­strates how the sys­tem fails when there is no DNA.

No cred­i­ble eye­wit­ness­es or phys­i­cal evi­dence tied Cantu to the Gomez mur­der. Witnesses who could have pro­vid­ed an ali­bi were nev­er ques­tioned, and it now appears that police pres­sured the lone eye­wit­ness who sur­vived the shoot­ing into iden­ti­fy­ing Cantu as the shoot­er. That eye­wit­ness, Juan Moreno, an undoc­u­ment­ed work­er at the time who was wound­ed in the shoot­ing, now says Cantu was nev­er at the crime scene. (A sep­a­rate wit­ness now says Cantu was hun­dreds of miles away in Waco.) Moreno has apol­o­gized to Cantu’s moth­er and gone pub­lic to help clear Cantu’s name and his own con­science. Cantu’s con­vict­ed accom­plice, David Garza, said Cantu was­n’t at the crime scene and has named anoth­er man as the killer.

…

We can’t bring Cantu back. But his case can yield con­struc­tive lessons about how to fix Texas’ cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem.

(Austin American-Statesman, December 2, 2005)

The Dallas Morning News edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed:

Texas lead­ers have long assert­ed that the state’s renowned death cham­ber has been error-free since rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

Now a lone voice con­vinc­ing­ly chal­lenges that claim. It’s the voice of the sin­gle eye­wit­ness who now recants tes­ti­mo­ny that sent a San Antonio man, Ruben Cantu, to the death cham­ber in 1993.

The Cantu exe­cu­tion should trou­ble any Texan – even cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment sup­port­ers – who expects the utmost stan­dard of jus­tice before the state takes a life.

…

During appeals, Mr. Cantu’s attor­ney – a novice in cap­i­tal cas­es – did not con­tact the star wit­ness to see whether his sto­ry held togeth­er. She told the Chronicle she had no mon­ey for an inves­ti­ga­tor to inter­view her clien­t’s alleged accom­plice despite receiv­ing a note from him that the ​“case withRuben is real messed up.”

Today, that assess­ment is shared by the tri­al judge, pros­e­cu­tor, jury fore­woman and defense attor­ney.

We could­n’t agree more.

For that rea­son, we endorse Sen. Rodney Ellis’ call that the gov­er­nor’s Criminal Justice Advisory Council review the Cantu case to see whether it rep­re­sents a trag­ic fail­ure of the sys­tem.

This page has pre­vi­ous­ly called for law­mak­ers to enact a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to repair intol­er­a­ble flaws in the sys­tem. The Cantu case is ample cause to renew that call.

Additionally, we ask the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to re-exam­ine each of the 410 pend­ing death-row cas­es to deter­mine whether each defen­dant received com­pe­tent, prop­er­ly fund­ed coun­sel. Extra scruti­ny is called for in any con­vic­tion based sole­ly on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny.

Texas has exe­cut­ed 355 peo­ple since 1982. Even one avoid­able mis­take is an out­rage.

(Dallas Morning News, December 2, 2005)

See Innocence and Editorials.

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