Moises Mendoza to Be Third Person Killed by State of Texas This Year

Come Wednesday Moises Mendoza is scheduled to be the third person executed by the State of Texas this year The -year-old has spent half of his life on death row In Mendoza was convicted of the murder kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of -year-old Rachelle Tolleson and sentenced to die by a Collin County jury He s one of people the North Texas county has sent to death row since the s Prosecutors sought an execution date last year and a judge signed the order in November Tolleson and Mendoza had been classmates at Farmersville High School and in early Mendoza attended a party at Tolleson s home where she lived with her five-month-old daughter Less than a week later on March Tolleson s mother discovered her daughter s house ransacked and the baby alone on the bed Mendoza was arrested on March after a friend informed police he d admitted to killing Tolleson In his eventual confession Mendoza informed police that Tolleson agreed to leave with him and had sex with him willingly then he choked her to death and stabbed her in the throat But officials didn t buy that Tolleson left of her own volition nor that the sex was consensual newspaper reports show Agents discovered that after being questioned as a suspect Mendoza moved Tolleson s body to a creek bed three miles from Farmersville then burned her remains A man reportedly searching for arrowheads in the creek discovered the body six days after the murder No matter what they read people think I m an animal I m a human being People make mistakes I m not saying that justifies it Mendoza communicated the Dallas Morning News in I know I took that little girl s mother away a mother a daughter cousin to others I want to send them my apologies I know it means nothing Mendoza and his Atlanta attorney did not respond to requests or declined comment for this story Population advocacy for Mendoza has been thin prior to his April execution date Multiple online petitions call for the execution to be stopped but mostly cite general issues with the death penalty We oppose this execution as we do every execution reads a Catholic Mobilizing Setup website urging people to write Governor Greg Abbott Capital punishment is an act of state sanctioned violence that violates the sacred dignity of every human life Others just now scheduled to be executed in Texas have generated more constituents aid Two won at least temporary relief based on innocence asserts In October Robert Roberson s execution was stayed after a bipartisan group of lawmakers intervened at the eleventh hour following weeks of high-profile outcry David Wood convicted of being an El Paso serial killer was granted a stay of execution in March after a flurry of media reports and legal efforts Even Steven Nelson the first man executed in Texas in had the full-throated backing of his spiritual adviser and wife ahead of his date Mendoza s attorneys have been quietly pushing appeals for twenty years based on issues with his trial including testimony presented at trial by one of the defense s own expert spectators psychologist Mark Vigen who called Mendoza s lifestyle depraved and suggested he was a dangerous man In Texas juries in capital cases are required to determine whether to impose the death penalty based partly on whether the defendant is likely to pose a danger to others in the future Mendoza s defense attorneys argued that he would live peacefully in prison but the state called a corrections officer who testified that Mendoza had attacked another man in the Collin County Jail while awaiting trial At the time Mendoza s trial attorneys didn t attempt to rebut the officer s testimony according to appeals documents Mendoza s appeals lawyers later learned a contradictory story from Melvin Johnson the prisoner Mendoza had been accused of fighting Johnson later signed an affidavit saying he was the aggressor and Mendoza hadn t fought back but lawyers weren t able to get any relief from the courts Mendoza s attorneys have continued his legal battle Earlier this month they filed a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals CCA that largely focuses on the allegedly false testimony regarding Mendoza s dangerousness They also moved to stay the execution The CCA denied both requests on April His lawyers subsequently appealed to the U S Supreme Court challenging the procedural reasons the CCA cited when refusing to consider Mendoza s asserts The appeal asks the court to determine whether criminal defendants have the constitutional right to effective appellate attorneys in addition to effective trial counsel The state has argued that Mendoza s arguments seek a new constitutional rule of law The appeal also seeks a stay of execution but the high court has yet to make any decision The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Mendoza s request for clemency April The post Moises Mendoza to Be Third Person Killed by State of Texas This Year appeared first on The Texas Observer