Gonzales, 41, was killed by lethal injection as punishment for kidnapping, raping and murdering Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. At the time, Gonzales was struggling with drug addiction. He killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. He had turned 18 two months before the killing, making him barely old enough to be legally eligible to be sentenced to death.
Ramiro Gonzales was sentenced to death after a psychiatrist predicted he would pose a future danger. The psychiatrist later reversed his assessment.Like most people on death row, Gonzales experienced abuse and neglect as a child. His mother, who was 17 when he was born, struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and turned Gonzales over to her parents, according to a petition for clemency, which the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected earlier this month.
Gonzales was previously scheduled to be executed in 2022. Shortly before his execution date, Gripon provided Gonzales’ appellate lawyers with his reevaluation report, in which he acknowledged errors in his trial testimony. During Gonzales’ 18 years on death row, “He has earnestly devoted himself to self-improvement, contemplation, and prayer, and has grown into a mature, peaceful, kind, loving, and deeply religious adult,” his lawyers wrote in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Gonzales was ineligible for execution because there was no risk or probability of him posing a threat to society.
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