Execution delay sought to allow new DNA testing
UH law professor files motion in S.A. man’s case
A Houston lawyer acting on behalf of a San Antonio death row inmate is seeking a last-minute reprieve with a newly filed motion citing a need for more DNA testing on evidence from the 2003 lovers’ lane slaying.
Juan Castillo is set for execution on Sept. 7 for his role in the murder of Tommy Garcia during a bungled robbery. But on Tuesday, David Dow, a University of Houston law professor with the Texas Innocence Network, filed a motion to withdraw the execution date.
The case centers around the death of a 19-year-old rapper who was shot repeatedly after Castillo’s then-girlfriend lured him to a secluded spot with the promise of sex and drugs. Castillo was one of four people convicted in the crime, but he was fingered as the trigger man and was the only one hit with a capital sentence.
In April, Castillo’s counsel filed a motion requesting DNA testing on a knit cap sent to a crime lab back in 2003, a few weeks after the slaying. The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office filed a response opposing the testing, but the court has not yet issued a decision — and that’s why lawyers are asking to cancel the death date.
“Given today’s date, and the certainty additional proceedings will be needed to ultimately resolve Mr. Castillo’s motions, the court should exercise its power to withdraw the imminent execution date,” Dow wrote in the latest court filings.
“If the court grants the motion, more time will obviously be needed for the forensic analysis to be completed. Once completed, it will be necessary to determine whether, in view of the results of the testing, the outcome of Castillo’s trial would have been different if the results had been known to the jury.”
And, Dow notes, if the court denies the request for DNA testing, Castillo should still be entitled to an appeal.
Previously, Castillo had an execution date set for May, but Bexar County prosecutors asked to have it reset. “Notice to the defense of the scheduled execution did not arrive within the 90 day threshold required by law,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
The latest motion in Castillo’s case comes just days after an appeals court found in favor of a Texas inmate slated for execution Aug. 30.
Steven Long was sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of an 11-year-old girl in Dallas County. Long was convicted after he confessed when police found his bloody fingerprint near the body, stuffed under a vacant home.
But in light of claims of intellectual disability — at least one expert pegged Long’s IQ as somewhere in the 60s — and the Supreme Court’s ground-breaking decision in Bobby Moore’s case earlier this year, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week stayed the execution.