Texas Death-Row Prisoner Seeks Clemency; Doctor Who Called Him a Future Danger Now Says He Was Wrong

A teen offend­er whose spir­i­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion on Texas’ death row has caused a key pros­e­cu­tion men­tal health expert to recant his tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny, has filed a peti­tion for clemen­cy seek­ing a com­mu­ta­tion of his death sen­tence ahead of his sched­uled July 13, 2022 execution date. 

On June 21, 2022, lawyers for Ramiro Gonzales (pic­tured) sub­mit­ted a peti­tion for clemen­cy to Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Gonzales’ clemen­cy peti­tion describes the neglect and abuse he expe­ri­enced as a child, the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions pre­sent­ed at his tri­al, and his reha­bil­i­ta­tion and trans­for­ma­tion dur­ing his time on death row. The peti­tion also asks that, even if clemen­cy is denied, Gov. Abbott grant Gonzales a reprieve so he can donate one of his kid­neys as an act of atonement.

The clemen­cy peti­tion and an accom­pa­ny­ing video depict Gonzales’ upbring­ing as relent­less­ly abu­sive and neglect­ful. Born to a 17-year-old moth­er who reject­ed him, Gonzales was sex­u­al­ly abused begin­ning at the age of six. He was raised by his grand­par­ents in a house­hold in which, one of his cousins said, he was pro­vid­ed only ​“the bare min­i­mum of what a human being could have to sur­vive” and received ​“no love and affec­tion.” His aunt Loretta, the peti­tion says, was the one source of love and sup­port in his life, but she was killed by a drunk dri­ver when Gonzales was 15. He became addict­ed to drugs to numb the pain of her loss, and his addic­tion led direct­ly to the mur­der for which he was sen­tenced to death. He was 18 years old at the time.

Gonzales’ tri­al lawyers failed to inves­ti­gate his upbring­ing and failed to chal­lenge the prosecution’s false por­tray­al of him as hav­ing grown up on ​“a beau­ti­ful, gor­geous ranch” with ​“priv­i­leges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that a lot of oth­er kids don’t have.” Prosecutors also pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Edward Gripon, who diag­nosed Gonzales with anti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der and argued that he would ​“be a threat wher­ev­er he goes.” Under Texas law, a death sen­tence can only be imposed if the jury finds that the defen­dant is like­ly to present a future dan­ger. After meet­ing with Gonzales again more recent­ly, Dr. Gripon retract­ed his tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny, con­clud­ing that Gonzales ​“does not pose a threat of future dan­ger to soci­ety.” He said that the sin­cer­i­ty of Gonzales’ remorse is some­thing he has rarely seen in the 8000 eval­u­a­tions he has con­duct­ed. ​“If his sen­tence is com­mut­ed, I think that would be a pos­i­tive thing for all of us,” Dr. Gripon said.

The clemen­cy peti­tion also presents state­ments from cur­rent and for­mer cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials who have spent time with Gonzales dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion on death row. One said he ​“has nev­er shown any sign of aggres­sion.” Another described how Gonzales reached out to her when her moth­er died, offer­ing to pray for her and her moth­er. She said he ​“always thinks about the oth­er per­son. That’s who he is as a per­son.” During his time in prison, Gonzales has become deeply reli­gious, and com­plet­ed a bachelor’s degree through a cor­re­spon­dence course sem­i­nary. In Gonzales’ own words, ​“I’m def­i­nite­ly not the per­son I was 20 years ago.”

Bias in future dan­ger­ous­ness find­ings for Latinx defen­dants has recent­ly drawn scruti­ny. In an ami­cus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in sup­port of Arizona death-row pris­on­er John Montenegro Cruz, LatinoJustice PRLDEF focused on bias in juror assump­tions about the future dan­ger­ous­ness of defen­dants of col­or. LatinoJustice’s brief cit­ed a 2012 sur­vey that found 58% of respon­dents thought ​“vio­lent” described Hispanic indi­vid­u­als slight­ly or mod­er­ate­ly well. The brief also sum­ma­rized research show­ing ​“that jury-eli­gi­ble par­tic­i­pants strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed Latino men with ​‘Danger’ and white men with ​‘Safety,’ and that they held sim­i­lar dan­ger­ous­ness stereo­types for Latino men as they do for Black men.” 

The clemen­cy peti­tion stress­es that, at age 18 and 71 days, Gonzales was bare­ly eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. Noting that “[c]ontemporary research in devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science estab­lish­es that ado­les­cent brain devel­op­ment con­tin­ues well into the third decade of life,” his lawyers argue that ​“all of the sci­en­tif­ic and soci­etal ratio­nales for exempt­ing juve­niles from the death penal­ty apply with equal mea­sure” in his case.

During the course of his incar­cer­a­tion, Gonzales devel­oped a rela­tion­ship with a can­tor from Maryland who informed him that a mem­ber of his syn­a­gogue need­ed a kid­ney trans­plant. Gonzales under­went med­ical screen­ing to see if he could donate his kid­ney, and was found to be ​“an excel­lent can­di­date for dona­tion.” Gonzales was not a match with the intend­ed recip­i­ent, but learned that he has a rare blood type and that his kid­ney dona­tion could fill an urgent need else­where. His clemen­cy peti­tion explains, ​“because of the impend­ing exe­cu­tion date, TDCJ has been unwill­ing to allow Ramiro to make an ​‘altru­is­tic’ kid­ney dona­tion to a per­son unknown to him.”

Gonzales also has lit­i­ga­tion pend­ing in state and fed­er­al courts. Gonzales is chal­leng­ing his death sen­tence before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He argues that his death sen­tence should be vacat­ed because of the state’s use of false tes­ti­mo­ny about his future dan­ger­ous­ness and the facts of the crime and because of his age at the time of the crime. On July 6, a fed­er­al judge ordered Texas prison offi­cials to grant Gonzales’ request for reli­gious accom­mo­da­tions at his exe­cu­tion, which include allow­ing his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to hold his hand dur­ing the execution.