Court rejects appeal in double slaying case

Lawyers claim client is too intellectually disabled to execute

A Salvadoran immigrant convicted in a Houston double slaying in 2000 lost a late-stage appeal on Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court, moving him one step closer to a possible execution date despite his claims of intellectual disability.

Gilmar Guevara was sentenced to death 16 years ago after shooting two store clerks to death during an unsuccessful burglary attempt from which he fled empty-handed. But the 48-year-old’s lawyers are still arguing that he’s too intellectually disabled to execute.

“Texas courts used a now-discredited set of rules to determine that Mr. Guevara was not intellectually disabled,” said attorney Lee Kovarsky. “The only expert to evaluate him under the appropriate clinical rules has concluded that he has intellectual disability.”

At his trial, prosecutors described Guevara as “a person with no moral compass” when he confessed to the murders of two other immigrants — 48-year-old Tae Youk of South Korea and 21-yearold Gerardo Yaxon of Guatemala at the Town Market in southwest Houston. He also confessed to the killing of 22-year-old apartment security guard Freddy Marroquin, though he was not tried for that slaying.

“Whether it’s a death sentence or a life sentence doesn’t matter to me because I just lost my father,” Hang Youk, one victim’s son, said at the time. “And that’s not something that can be changed.”

Two others were charged in the shooting, but police identified Guevara as the triggerman in both the store robbery and the later slaying at a nearby apartment complex.

During the appeals process, Guevara’s defense held that his trial counsel was ineffective and that he was too intellectually disabled to legally face the death penalty anyway, citing cognitive testing and long-term evidence of mental defects. Those who knew him as a child said he didn’t start talking till age 4 and was still unable to tie his shoes by 7, according to court records. He scored a 60 on a full-scale IQ test for Spanish speakers.

Citing, in part, a landmark Supreme Court decision earlier this year in the Bobby Moore case, which found that Texas did not properly evaluate intellectual disability, Guevara’s defense asked the justices to reverse lower court rulings rejecting claims regarding his low intelligence. But on Monday, the Supreme Court denied his petition without comment.