Texas Jury Sentences ex-USBP Agent Who Committed Two Murders to Life Without Parole Instead of Death

On July 18, 2023, after about nine hours of delib­er­a­tion, a Texas jury sen­tenced for­mer Supervisory United States Border Patrol agent Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles, age 34, to life with­out parole (LWOP) instead of death for the 2018 dou­ble mur­der of Grizelda Hernandez, age 27, and their son Dominic Alexander, age 1. This sen­tenc­ing ver­dict occurred in a high-use death penal­ty state; Texas has car­ried out the great­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions, at 583, of any state since 1976. But over the last two decades, the num­ber of new death sen­tences in Texas has declined from a high of 51 in 1999 to just 2 in 2022, sug­gest­ing chang­ing atti­tudes in the lone star state about its use. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions has like­wise declined, from a high of 40 in 2000 to 5 in 2022. 

During clos­ing argu­ments, the expe­ri­enced defense team empha­sized that with either sen­tence, LWOP or death, Mr. Burgos-Aviles would die in prison; they encour­aged the jury to con­demn the sin rather than the man. 

Following sen­tenc­ing, Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz held a press con­fer­ence. ​“Mr. Burgos’ life will be a tough one, he will always be known as a baby killer and for killing the beau­ti­ful moth­er of Dominic. He will die in prison and he will nev­er see the light of day. It’s been a very dif­fi­cult tri­al and we are very dis­ap­point­ed in the out­come, but we respect the ver­dict,” he said. 

At the penal­ty phase, sev­er­al vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers shared Victim Impact Statements. The moth­er of Ms. Hernandez and grand­moth­er to Dominic addressed Mr. Burgos-Aviles direct­ly, stat­ing, ​“The same way you held Dominic to take away his life, that’s the same way I thought your life would be tak­en away too. … And in your Bible, have you already read where it says, ​‘Thou shall not kill?’ Have you? I hope that every time you close your eyes you see Grizelda and Dominic fight­ing for their lives. I will for­ev­er hold Grizelda and Dominic close to my heart where nobody, nobody will hurt them ever again.”