The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has stayed the sched­uled July 13, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Ramiro Gonzales (pic­tured) and direct­ed the tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim that his death sen­tence was a prod­uct of false expert tes­ti­mo­ny con­cern­ing his alleged future dan­ger­ous­ness. The stay order, issued July 11, 2022, marked the eleventh time since 2019 that the TCCA has halt­ed an exe­cu­tion to direct a tri­al court to con­sid­er new evi­dence or inter­ven­ing caselaw that could estab­lish the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of a death-row pris­on­er’s con­vic­tion or death sentence. 

Gonzales pre­sent­ed the TCCA with new evi­dence that the psy­chi­a­trist who served as a pros­e­cu­tion expert in his tri­al had recant­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny that Gonzales posed con­tin­u­ing threat of vio­lence if the jury vot­ed to spare his life. The expert, Dr. Edward Gripon, now admits that his opin­ion was based on false infor­ma­tion about recidi­vism rates and, after review­ing Gonzales’ prison record and con­duct­ing a new inter­view, con­clud­ed that Gonzales is not a future danger. 

The TCCA denied relief to Gonzales based upon Gripon’s recant­ed opin­ion, say­ing that ​“the deter­mi­na­tion of future dan­ger­ous­ness is made at the time of tri­al and is not prop­er­ly reeval­u­at­ed on habeas.” However, the court ruled that Gonzales had ​“also pre­sent­ed at least a pri­ma facie show­ing that tes­ti­mo­ny of recidi­vism rates Gripon gave at tri­al were false and that that false tes­ti­mo­ny could have affect­ed the jury’s answer to the future dan­ger­ous­ness ques­tion at pun­ish­ment.” The TCCA grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion and remand­ed the case to the tri­al court for fur­ther review of that por­tion of Gonzales’ claim.

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