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Roberto Moreno Ramos Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP

Texas executes Mexican man who killed his wife and two young children

Mexico and human rights groups have long maintained that Roberto Ramos was not informed of his legal rights.

A MEXICAN CITIZEN on death row in Texas was executed last night for the sledgehammer killings of his wife and two children more than 26 years ago.

Roberto Moreno Ramos (64) was condemned for the 1992 deaths of his 42-year-old wife Leticia, 7-year-old daughter Abigail, and 3-year-old son Jonathan at their home in Progreso, located along the Mexico border.

When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Ramos thanked the Mexican consulate for assisting with appeals in his case and said he was grateful for “the humane treatment I got in prison in Texas.”

“I’m getting my gold watch that it took the governor 30 years to forge,” he said without elaborating. “Thank you God. Lord, send me a chariot. I’m ready.”

Ramos was then given a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital.

He became the 21st inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the 11th given a lethal injection in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. No friends or relatives of Ramos or his victims witnessed the execution.

Mexican officials had called for his execution to be stopped, arguing he was part of a group of Mexican citizens condemned in the U.S. who were never told when first arrested that they could get legal help from the Mexican government.

The U.S. Supreme Court last night cleared the way for the punishment when it denied two appeals seeking to halt the lethal injection.

Ramos’ attorney asked the Supreme Court to stop his execution yesterday, arguing that Ramos’ constitutional rights were violated as lower courts refused to fully review his claims that his trial lawyers failed to present any evidence about his mental illness and abusive childhood that could have persuaded jurors to spare his life.

Three retired justices who had served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals filed court documents with the Supreme Court yesterday in support of stopping the execution.

The ex-judges alleged the appeals court appointed an incompetent appellate attorney who early in the post-conviction process failed to investigate Ramos’ case.

A federal judge in Austin dismissed Ramos’ request to temporarily block the execution as well yesterday.

The request had been part of a lawsuit Ramos filed against the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a day earlier. The suit alleged the appeals court had not allowed Ramos to present claims he had ineffective trial and appellate lawyers.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had previously turned down requests to halt Ramos’ execution.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday declined to recommend either a commutation of his sentence or a six-month reprieve.

‘Diverse human frailties’

In court documents, Ramos’ appellate attorney, Danalynn Recer, had argued Ramos suffered from bipolar disorder most of his life, including during the time of his family’s killings, as well as brain damage that affected his ability to control his impulses and regulate his emotions.

Recer said Ramos was also brutally beaten as a child by his father.

Ramos was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and grew up in Guadalajara and Tijuana before his family moved to the United States in 1970.

“No fact-finder or decision-maker entrusted with Mr. Moreno Ramos’ life has ever been provided with evidence of (his) ‘diverse human frailties’ to assist them in dispensing the most severe punishment under law,” Recer said.

But the Texas Attorney General’s Office said Ramos’ death sentence was appropriate due to his “violent and dangerous nature.”

Authorities said Ramos bludgeoned his family members and then buried them underneath his home’s bathroom floor so he could marry the woman he was having an extramarital affair with at the time.

In court filings, the attorney general’s office highlighted testimony from Ramos’ then-19-year-old son, who told jurors at Ramos’ 1993 trial that his father “would continue to commit criminal acts of violence.”

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, found Ramos was part of a group of 52 Mexican citizens awaiting execution in the U.S. who weren’t advised of their consular rights under the Vienna Convention when first arrested. It recommended they be tried again to determine if consular access would have affected their cases. Then-President George W. Bush directed states to reopen the cases.

But the Supreme Court in 2008 overruled Bush’s directive, saying only Congress can require states to follow the international court’s ruling.

Including Ramos, six Mexican citizens have been executed since being named in the international court ruling and all the executions were carried out by Texas, according to the Mexican government.

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    Mute DaisyMay
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:10 AM

    So the argument was that there was migrating factors in murdering his wife and children not that he was innocent. Not exactly welling up with sympathy here. How much did that whole farce cost Texas.

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    Mute Al coholic
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:22 AM

    @DaisyMay: who cares what it cost them? He murdered a 3 and a 7 year old with a sledgehammer. ANIMAL

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    Mute Jumperoo
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:29 AM

    @Al coholic: I’ve long thought that the method of death penalty for murder should reflect how the culprit carried out the murder. So this guy would have bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer too. Still would have been too good for him. Matter of fact, they could have kept going with the sledgehammer even after battering him to death, since he swung one enough times to kill three people, not just one.

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    Mute Ian Phillip Creaner
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:32 AM

    @DaisyMay: migrating? A Freudian slip?

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    Mute John Mullin
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:59 AM

    @Al coholic: animals sometimes do that to other family units, not their own. I think you are upgrading his status by calling him an animal.

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    Mute Grotmaster
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    Nov 15th 2018, 9:17 AM

    @Jumperoo: “But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had—power.”

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    Mute John Walker
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    Nov 15th 2018, 10:28 AM

    @Al coholic: Special place in hell for him.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 10:38 AM

    @Jumperoo: “I’ve long thought that the method of death penalty for murder should reflect how the culprit carried out the murder”

    It’s funny how some Journal readers secretly love Sharia law;

    The tenet in Sharia law that suggests that the criminal should be treated in a manner similar to how they mistreated someone else is called Qisas (“retaliation in kind”). Qisas is the reason why a man in Saudi Arabis was sentenced to a surgical procedure to sever his spinal cord in revenge for paralysing a victim involved in fight.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11045848

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    Mute Jack
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    Nov 15th 2018, 10:39 AM

    @John Walker: metaphorically speaking I assume

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    Mute Jack
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    Nov 15th 2018, 11:55 AM

    @John Walker: metaphorically speaking I assume

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    Mute Jumperoo
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    Nov 15th 2018, 3:23 PM

    @David Jordan: pure coincidence if my view reflects Sharia law, since I know absolutely nothing about Sharia law. But it’s nice to know that somebody agrees with me!

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    Mute Frank Brennan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:44 AM

    Got what he deserved end of story.

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    Mute BarronVonVaderHam
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:34 AM

    Im not in favour of the death penality because that particulat power has been abused in the past, however, in a case where a father takes a sledge hammer to his own 3 and 7 year old children what recouse does a society have? Also, it’s shameful that bipolar personality should be brandished as some kind of mitigating factor, he murdered his own children when they became inconvenient, and then such noble dignity in his own death, disgusting!

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 10:11 AM

    @BarronVonVaderHam: Research has shown that just over 4% of people on death in the US are innocent. This is from examining the rates of successful exonerations, where a few people eventually proved their innocence and were released from prison, and that if there was enough time other would do the same, so that just under 1 in 20 would prove their innocence. In other words, some of those executed in the US are certainly innocent.

    Furthermore, capital punishment is not a deterrence, it does not degrease the murder rate, there is no relationship between the murder rate and States that have or re-introduced the death penalty (1976). Also, those who are poor, from a minority back ground and poorly represented in court are more likely to be sentenced to death rather than life in prison (or are innocent people found guilty).

    And lastly, it costs more to execute a prisoner than sentence them to life in prison, as the appeals process can last 20 years or more. Indeed, around 1/4 of death row prisoners in die of natural causes before execution. Don’t try to suggest speeding up the process, reducing costs, as that will only result in more innocent people getting executed.

    According to the The Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (in Gregg v Georgia, 1976), capital punishment is carried out as a Deterrence and for Retribution (Revenge). But capital punishment is not a deterrence, the only reason it is carried out is revenge.

    Ref.:

    Gross, S.R., O’Brien, B., Hu, C. and Kennedy, E.H., 2014. Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, p.201306417.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_v._Georgia

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    Mute Quentin Moriarty
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    Nov 15th 2018, 3:16 PM

    @David Jordan: where there is indelible evidence that the perp committed the crime like this bozo then there should be fast track 2 years appeal window followed by execution within the same after .

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    Mute John Mullin
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:58 AM

    In other words give his attorney more time to find a technicality to help him avoid the death penalty altogether. How someone can bludgeon their own family is beyond me. It takes a special kind of evil gift to have the capacity to do that to one’s own family unit that they helped create. The fact that he had the mental capacity to have an affair shows he did it out of pure selfishness and greed. Killing his wife after a heated row is absolutely disgusting & awful, bludgeoning her to death instead of divorcing her is inexcusable and he deserves what he got and then bludgeoning his 3 & 7 yr old shows that this was a human monster, not some mentally deficient down on his luck sort who acted out in a heated exchange. No mitigating circumstances.

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    Mute Rocky Stefan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 9:03 AM

    Much cheaper than keeping him in Prison for life.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 10:22 AM

    @Rocky Stefan: No. It costs far more to execute a prisoner than sentence them to life in prison (McFarland, 2016), the death penalty costs about $1.1 million more than life in prison. This is because the appeals lawyers are expensive and process can last 20 years or more (this guy was sentenced to death in 1993 and appealed his sentence for 25 years).

    The process is so slow, about 1/4 of death row prisoners in die of natural causes before execution. Don’t suggest speeding up the process, reducing costs, as that will only result in more innocent people getting executed. Already, about 4.1% of prisoners on death row are innocent (Gross et al., 2014).

    “Each death penalty inmate is approximately $1.12 million (2015 USD) more than a general population inmate.

    Ref.:

    McFarland, T., 2016. The Death Penalty vs. Life Incarceration: A Financial Analysis. Susquehanna University Political Review, 7(1), p.4.

    Gross, S.R., O’Brien, B., Hu, C. and Kennedy, E.H., 2014. Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, p.201306417.

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    Mute Jumperoo
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    Nov 15th 2018, 3:23 PM

    @David Jordan: death penalty wouldn’t cost that much if they did it my way….

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    Mute Pinkady
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    Nov 15th 2018, 9:42 AM

    Shouldn’t even have let him live for 26 years….
    AND he should have been given Ole Smokey !
    Injection too humane for him.
    How could you batter two babies with a sledge hammer unless you were the Devil ???

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    Mute Colm Lyons
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    Nov 15th 2018, 4:08 PM

    Should have executed the dirty fu(k 26 years ago.

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    Mute vfagan
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    Nov 15th 2018, 11:07 AM

    There will be no God waiting for you sir.

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    Mute Thomas Kavanagh
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    Nov 15th 2018, 8:50 AM

    Very humane story

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