The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency application filed by Ruben Gutierrez, paving the way for his execution for the murder of a woman over two decades ago.
Concretely, the board said that they "have completed their consideration" of the request and that after a "full and careful review of the application and any other information filed with the application, a majority of the Board has decided not to recommend a Commutation of Death Sentence to Lesser Penalty or in the alternative a 90-day Reprieve of Execution."
Gutierrez, who worked as a fork lift operator and was 21 at the moment of the crime, was convicted in 1999 of murdering 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in her trailer in Brownsville the year prior.
He believed along with two co-defendants that the woman hid over half a million dollars in a safe in her home. After repeatedly hitting her and stabbing her in the head, they ended up stealing $56,000.
Gutierrez has seemingly exhausted his appeals after receiving several rejections from state and federal authorities over the years. A prior execution date was halted just an hour before it was set to take place in 2020, after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an appeal seeking a religious adviser to be allowed in the death chamber. However, the process later moved on.
Should it effectively be conducted, Gutierrez's would be the third inmate to be executed in Texas this year. The latest execution took place in late June, when Ramiro Gonzalez received a lethal injection for the 2011 rape and murder of a woman in the state.
Gonzalez was killed with a lethal dose of pentobarital and pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. on June 27, the state's Department of Criminal Justice said. He was already serving a life sentence for the abduction and rape of another woman in 2002 when he confessed to the same crime of a Texas woman, Bridget Townsend, in Medina County, west of San Antonio, and told police where her remains were.
The crime took place in 2001, when both González and the victim were 18 years old and after she tried to prevent him from stealing drugs at her boyfriend's house. The execution day would have been Townsend's 41st birthday.
González issued a final statement in which he apologized to Townsend's family and thanked his loved ones and prison administrators for "the opportunity to become responsible, to learn accountability and to make good." He added that his life on death row had the purpose of making restitution and being responsible for his actions.
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