Texas Innocence Network

I’ve copied below the statement of two colleagues (who are part of UT’s capital punishment clinic), which was issued tonight on the ex*****on of their client, Ramiro Gonzales. I never met Mr. Gonzales, but I can tell from Thea and Raoul’s words below that that was my loss. I’ve copied what are reported to have been Mr. Gonzales’ last words in the comments below.

June 26, 2024
STATEMENT OF THEA POSEL AND RAOUL SCHONEMANN,
COUNSEL FOR RAMIRO GONZALES
Tonight the State of Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales for a crime he
committed as an eighteen-year-old boy. The man put to death for those acts
was a different person. We are heartened that so many of you saw this.
Without the tools, support, or guidance that many of us take for granted,
in the face of abuse and neglect most will never know, Ramiro floundered as a
lonely and directionless child and teenager. He made poor choices. He sought
escape through drugs. And he caused irrevocable harms.
He took the life of Bridget Townsend, and he attacked Florence Teich.
We grieve for these women and their families. So did he.
But the Ramiro who the State of Texas killed tonight was not the Ramiro
who committed these crimes twenty years ago. The Ramiro who left this world
was, by all accounts, a deeply spiritual, generous, patient, and intentional
person, full of remorse, someone whose driving force was love. He sought to
spread and embody love in all aspects of his life, even in the deprivation and
physical isolation of death row where he lived for the past 18 years.
He showed love through his ministry to the men incarcerated alongside
him—sometimes that looked like sermons and prayers, sometimes it looked
like silly jokes, sometimes it looked like purchasing food for those without
money in their accounts. He showed love in his relationships with many friends
across the world, from pen pals and spiritual advisors to many semesters of
our students, all of whom were touched by his genuine care for them and
interest in their lives. He showed love to his family and friends through his art,
his words, and his actions. And he showed love through his tireless efforts to
donate a kidney to a stranger in need.
Ramiro knew he took something from this world he could never give
back. He lived with that shame every day, and it shaped the person he worked
so hard to become. If this country’s legal system was intended to encourage
rehabilitation, he would be an exemplar.
Ramiro grew. Ramiro changed. May we all strive to do the same.

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“But perhaps there is something more. If the State of Texas holds that it’s impossible to properly vet and train spiritual representatives of the myriad faiths represented among its condemned, and it violates a person’s religious liberty to be refused a spiritual adviser at the moment of death, then the simplest resolution is that no person ought ever to be executed in Texas again.”

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Do you know about our Texas Innocence Network? TIN, established at the Law Center in 2000, is the oldest innocence program in Texas, and has two divisions. The Capital Division represents death-sentenced inmates at every stage of their state and federal habeas appeals. The Non-Capital Division works to exonerate inmates who did not commit the crimes for which they were wrongfully-convicted.

Want to know more? http://www.law.uh.edu/tin/homepage.asp

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