Texas Court Stays Michael Gonzales Execution to Permit Review of Claims of Intellectual Disability, Prosecutorial Misconduct

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the March 8, 2022 exe­cu­tion of death-row pris­on­er Michael Gonzales (pic­tured, sec­ond from left, with his legal team) based on evi­dence that he may be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and that pros­e­cu­tors with­held favor­able evi­dence from the defense at the time of trial.

The appeals court’s order, issued March 3, 2022, halt­ed what would have been the first exe­cu­tion in Texas in 2022.

Gonzales filed a 169-page peti­tion in the appeals court on February 28, 2022, along with a sep­a­rate motion seek­ing a stay. His peti­tion set forth evi­dence of exten­sive flaws in the police inves­ti­ga­tion of the case and iden­ti­fied alter­nate sus­pects, sug­gest­ing that they framed Gonzales. The peti­tion also describes untest­ed phys­i­cal and fin­ger­print evi­dence that defense coun­sel argues could exon­er­ate Gonzales, and oth­er evi­dence favor­able to Gonzales that was with­held by pros­e­cu­tors, includ­ing the lead police inves­ti­ga­tor’s alleged his­to­ry of mis­con­duct and fabricating evidence.

Though the court per­mit­ted Gonzales to lit­i­gate his claims of mis­con­duct and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, it denied review of his claims that he is actu­al­ly inno­cent and that pros­e­cu­tors know­ing­ly pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny against him. The court also denied a sep­a­rate motion Gonzales had filed to con­duct DNA test­ing on fin­ger­nail scrap­ings, crime scene evi­dence, clothes worn by an alter­nate sus­pect, and hair col­lect­ed from the crime scene and from the oth­er suspect’s house.

Evidence Supporting Gonzales’ Innocence Claim

Gonzales was con­vict­ed of the 1994 mur­der of his next-door neigh­bors, Merced and Manuel Aguirre. The only phys­i­cal evi­dence against him was three fin­ger­prints on a stereo that had been stolen from the Aguirres’ home. Prosecutors also pre­sent­ed ques­tion­able tes­ti­mo­ny from a coun­ty jail­er that Gonzales spon­ta­neous­ly ​“blurt­ed out … ​‘I did it’” while the offi­cer was tak­ing Gonzales back to his cell from a bond hearing.

Just weeks before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion, the Odessa, Texas police depart­ment uncov­ered 136 fin­ger­print cards in Gonzales’ case that were pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be lost. Only six of the cards had ever been com­pared for prints. A fin­ger­print exam­in­er who reviewed the cards con­clud­ed that at least 60 oth­er fin­ger­prints ​“could have enough infor­ma­tion to iden­ti­fy other suspects.”

Richard Burr, one of the lawyers who is rep­re­sent­ing Gonzales, said the defense had been attempt­ing to obtain access to the fin­ger­prints for more than two years. ​“When the depart­ment found the prints in ear­ly February [2022],” he said, ​“they noti­fied us and have been very help­ful since then in get­ting the prints to us in a form that allows com­par­i­son to the prints of the known suspects.”

Police also dis­cov­ered blood stains on a flan­nel shirt belong­ing to an alter­na­tive sus­pect, Jesse Perkins. Perkins had been inves­ti­gat­ed as a pos­si­ble per­pe­tra­tor, but nev­er charged. Stains on the inner lin­ing of a shirt seized from Perkins dur­ing the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion of the crime have nev­er been test­ed and, Gonzales’ lawyers say, could pro­vide addi­tion­al evi­dence that Perkins com­mit­ted the crime.

“It is crit­i­cal that we be allowed time to con­duct test­ing on the shirt and to make com­par­isons of these prints to the prints of the known sus­pects,” Burr said in a state­ment released in con­junc­tion with the fil­ing. ​“Without this oppor­tu­ni­ty, there is a strong like­li­hood the State will exe­cute an innocent person.”

According to Gonzales’ peti­tion, ​“In 2003, police learned the shirt had the DNA of both vic­tims on it in two dif­fer­ent blood­stains on the exte­ri­or of the shirt. …No oth­er item recov­ered out­side the crime scene had even one of the vic­tims’ blood.” But a new exam­i­na­tion of the shirt revealed blood­stains on the inside of the sleeves, con­sis­tent with it being worn by some­one with cuts on their arms. ​“Police knew Jesse Perkins had wounds on his arms in the days fol­low­ing the mur­der — a major clue that he was one of the attack­ers,” the peti­tion explains. ​“If these stains con­tain blood and the DNA belongs to Perkins, then Perkins was certainly involved.”

“We think we have amassed a lot of evi­dence that Jesse Perkins is guilty and Michael Gonzales is not,” Burr told Odessa, Texas tele­vi­sion sta­tion KOSA. ​“It coin­cides with all of the evi­dence that police devel­oped with­in the case. The case against Michael was always pret­ty shaky, from a pros­e­cu­tion per­spec­tive. We think Michael Gonzales is innocent.”

The Claims of Police and Prosecutorial Misconduct

Gonzales also alleged that the pros­e­cu­tion sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and evi­dence of police mis­con­duct that would have impeached key pros­e­cu­tion tes­ti­mo­ny. The peti­tion presents evi­dence that the lead police inves­ti­ga­tor in the case, Detective Sergeant Snow Robinson, had ​“a his­to­ry of fal­si­fy­ing reports, jump­ing to unfound­ed con­clu­sions about sus­pects, man­u­fac­tur­ing evi­dence, and pro­vid­ing false testimony.”

Gonzales’ coun­sel alleged that Snow had pre­vi­ous­ly been forced out of the El Paso Police Department after mul­ti­ple inci­dents of mis­con­duct, includ­ing abus­ing sus­pects and lying on offi­cial doc­u­ments, then lat­er resigned from the Odessa police depart­ment after being accused of mul­ti­ple acts of mis­con­duct. During his time with the Odessa police, in which he had mul­ti­ple sus­pen­sions, Snow alleged­ly com­mit­ted mul­ti­ple acts of phys­i­cal abuse and fab­ri­cat­ed police reports claim­ing that sus­pects had ​“blurt­ed out” con­fes­sions to him that no one else had heard.

The peti­tion also alleged that the pros­e­cu­tion with­held a mem­o­ran­dum show­ing that Snow had tes­ti­fied false­ly when, in an attempt to con­nect Gonzales to the crime, he told the jury that he had con­sult­ed with a pep­per expert from Texas A & M, Dr. Ben Villalon, about chile pep­pers found beneath the body of one of the vic­tims and oth­er chile pep­pers found at Gonzales’ house and that Dr. Villalon told him that the pep­pers were ​“very, very rare for this area.” The mem­o­ran­dum, pre­pared by a staff mem­ber of the Ector County District Attorney’s office after she spoke with Dr. Villalon, said noth­ing about whether the pep­pers were rare for the Odessa area. Rather, it indi­cat­ed only that Robertson had asked Dr. Villalon to com­pare the pep­pers. Dr. Villalon con­clud­ed that ​“all he could say was that the pep­pers appeared to be the same to him” and he told the DA’s office that ​“he didn’t see how he would be use­ful” in the case when that was all he could say.

The Intellectual Disability Claim

In addi­tion to his inno­cence-relat­ed claims, Gonzales alleged that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty under the Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia declar­ing the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. He pre­sent­ed evi­dence from psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing that his IQ fell with­in the range of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, as well as hav­ing numer­ous qual­i­fy­ing deficits in adaptive function.

Gonzales’ dis­abil­i­ty, the peti­tion argues, made him par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to ​“becom­ing the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al tar­get for mur­ders he did not com­mit. … He had sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired social skills — hav­ing few friends, con­tin­u­ous­ly ridiculed by most peo­ple he thought were his friends, unable to under­stand how oth­ers per­ceived his behav­iors, sub­ject to being used by oth­ers to take the blame for wrong­ful things they did, and always will­ing to take the blame and not ​‘snitch’ on oth­ers. In short,” his coun­sel wrote, ​“Gonzales was a vul­ner­a­ble tar­get for a myopic police inves­ti­ga­tion in which his friends could assist the police in charg­ing and pros­e­cut­ing him with what they had done.”