Ruben Gutierrez, 47, says he is innocent of Escolastica Harrison’s murder since his conviction in 1999. His lawyers hope DNA testing will exonerate him.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 16, suspended the planned execution of a man sentenced to death for the murder of an eight-year-old woman in 1998 in Texas, in the southern United States.
The execution of Ruben Gutierrez, 47, sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of an RV park manager, Escolastica Harrison, 85, whom he had come to rob with two accomplices in Brownsville, has already been suspended several times in recent years, including in 2020 by the Supreme Court.
He says he is innocent and for more than ten years has unsuccessfully demanded analysis of DNA samples collected at the crime scene that could exonerate him. Ruben Gutierrez assures that he did not enter the mobile home, unlike his co-conspirators, and that he was not aware that they intended to kill the victim, who was beaten and cut with knives.
When the convict’s final appeal to the Texas courts was rejected, his lawyers appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
A decision in several months
The court, in a ruling signed by Justice Samuel Alito, granted him a stay this Tuesday while it decides whether or not to take up his appeal, which should take several months. If she ultimately decided not to take it up, the suspension would automatically be lifted and the execution could be rescheduled, she stresses.
“We hope now that the court has intervened to stop this execution that we will finally be able to do the DNA tests to prove that Ruben Gutierrez should not be executed, now or in the future,” his lawyer responded in a statement, Shawn Nolan.
The three defendants were prosecuted for planning to rob the octogenarian, who, mistrustful of banks, kept about $600,000 at home, according to court documents. Each blamed the murder on the other two.
Of Ruben Gutierrez’s two co-defendants, one pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence, and the other, who is out on bail, is on the run.
His lawyers argue that there is no physical evidence of his presence at the crime scene and that he only confessed when police threatened to arrest his wife and take his children into custody.
