Texas Executes Juan Castillo Without a Hearing on His Claims of Innocence and Ineffective Representation

Texas exe­cut­ed Juan Castillo (pic­tured) on May 16, 2018, after its state courts stayed his exe­cu­tion to address whether his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for a botched rob­bery and mur­der had been a prod­uct of false tes­ti­mo­ny, but then denied him an evi­den­tiary hear­ing nec­es­sary to prove that claim. 

No phys­i­cal evi­dence impli­cat­ed Castillo in the mur­der, and he con­sis­tent­ly assert­ed his inno­cence. To con­vict him, Bexar County pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from sev­er­al admit­ted per­pe­tra­tors who had been giv­en favor­able plea deals, cor­rob­o­rat­ed by the tes­ti­mo­ny of prison infor­mant, Gerardo Gutierrez, who claimed that Castillo had con­fessed to him. But in 2013, Gutierrez recant­ed, admit­ting in a sworn affi­davit that he had lied ​“to try to help myself.” 

With Castillo fac­ing a December 2017 exe­cu­tion date, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant­ed him a stay on November 28, and direct­ed the tri­al court to resolve his claim that pros­e­cu­tors had vio­lat­ed his rights by pre­sent­ing false or per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny from Gutierrez. Two days lat­er, on November 30, the Bexar County District Attorney’s office sub­mit­ted pro­posed find­ings of fact and a pro­posed order to deny Castillo’s peti­tion with­out a hear­ing. The next day, on December 1, Judge Maria Teresa Herr adopt­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s pro­posed find­ings and order ver­ba­tim — chang­ing only the sig­na­ture line on the order — with­out per­mit­ting Castillo’s lawyers to sub­mit pro­posed find­ings or to respond to the prosecution’s submission. 

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the rul­ing, and with Texas pros­e­cu­tors argu­ing that defects in the state-court process were not a basis for fed­er­al review because pris­on­ers ​“ha[ve] no due process right to col­lat­er­al pro­ceed­ings,” the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. 

Castillo also asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to stop his exe­cu­tion. Greg Zlotnick, who rep­re­sent­ed Castillo in his clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings, argued that the treat­ment of Castillo’s case by the courts ​“had been marked by unfair and arbi­trary deci­sions” and the courts had ​“rub­ber-stamped” the denial of Castillo’s lat­est peti­tion ​“with no regard for his oppor­tu­ni­ty to be heard.” Zlotnick argued that Castillo’s tri­al lawyers ​“failed to active­ly inves­ti­gate the case, speak with wit­ness­es, ques­tion police, request addi­tion­al evi­dence from law enforce­ment and dis­trict attor­ney offices, and prop­er­ly plead legal claims in the courts” and that the post-con­vic­tion courts had denied with­out a hear­ing Castillo’s ​“com­mon-sense request for DNA test­ing on phys­i­cal evi­dence that could have point­ed to anoth­er per­pe­tra­tor.” Trial coun­sel’s per­for­mance was so bad, Zlotnick said, that ​“Mr. Castillo even felt com­pelled to rep­re­sent him­self at sentencing.” 

After the par­dons board denied the clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, the Texas Defender Service (TDS) — which became involved in the case close to the exe­cu­tion date — sought a 30-day reprieve from Governor Abbott to fur­ther devel­op evi­dence in the case. In a May 15 let­ter to the gov­er­nor, exec­u­tive direc­tor Amanda Marzullo wrote that TDS had dis­cov­ered addi­tion­al evi­dence that con­tra­dict­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en at Castillo’s tri­al, includ­ing a video of a woman telling police — con­trary to her pri­or state­ments — that Castillo had nev­er told her he was the trig­ger­man. Abbott did not act on that request. 

Castillo was the eleventh per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in 2018, and the sixth in Texas.