[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

April 6




TEXAS----execution

Texas executes inmate who said he drank 12-year-old victim's blood


An inmate in Texas convicted of killing a young boy in 1998 was executed 
Wednesday night, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined his request to 
halt the execution.

When asked if he had a final statement before his lethal injection, Pablo 
Vasquez, 38, looked at some of the victim's relatives and apologized, the 
Associated Press reported.

"This is the only way that I can be forgiven," he said, according to the AP. 
"You got your justice right here."

Vasquez was convicted in 1999 of murdering David Cardenas, a 12-year-old boy. 
According to court records, Vasquez told police he had hit Cardenas in the head 
with a pipe and cut his throat. Vasquez also told police that he had heard 
voices telling him to drink the boy's blood, these filings state.

Cardenas's body was "mutilated after death" before being buried in a field, 
judges with U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit wrote last year. In 
addition, they wrote that Vasquez took a gold ring and chain from the boy.

Vasquez's attorneys had said in the past that he had an intellectual 
disability. In a filing last month, an attorney argued that Vasquez had shown 
that he was mentally ill, writing that Vasquez had told a detective about 
hearing voices urging him to kill the boy and "drink, drink" the boy's blood.

In arguing for a stay, his attorneys said that Vasquez was denied a fair jury 
during his trial because qualified jurors were excused because they may have 
had feelings "against the death penalty" or "against judging others."

The office of Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, dismissed the claims 
about the jury, saying that Vasquez did not establish that the jurors were 
"improperly excluded from jury service."

Vasquez is the 11th inmate put to death in the United States this year. More 
than 1/2 of these have taken place in Texas.

Executions have declined nationwide in recent years amid a shortage of lethal 
injection drugs and legal challenges. Texas remains a persistent outlier. Since 
2010, it has carried out at least 10 executions in each of the past 5 years; 
only one other state during that window carried out 10 executions in a single 
year (Missouri in 2014).

Vasquez's application to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution was referred 
to the full court by Justice Clarence Thomas. The court declined the appeal 
without explanation Wednesday afternoon and there were no recorded dissents.

Vasquez becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas 
and the 537th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dewcember 
7, 1982. Vasquez becomes the 19th condemned inmate since Greg Abbott bewcame 
Governor of Texas in Jan. 2015.

Vasquez becomes the 11th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1433rd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 
1977.

(sources: Washington Post & Rick Halperin)

****************

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

20---------May 11-------------------Terry Edwards---------538

21---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------539

22---------June 21------------------Robert Roberson-------540

23---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------541

24---------July 27------------------Rolando Ruiz----------542

25---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------543

26---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------544

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)