HOUSTON - For the second time in as many weeks, Texas' highest criminal court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of an inmate after agreeing with findings that he was ineligible to be executed because of an intellectual disability.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed the death sentence that Gilmar Guevara had faced to life in prison.
Guevara, 50, of El Salvador, was convicted and sentenced to death for the June 2000 fatal shootings of 48-year-old Tae Youk, of South Korea, and 21-year-old Gerardo Yaxon, of Guatemala, during an attempted robbery.
"My faith in the criminal justice system is strengthened by the Texas courts' serious recent consideration of the claim that Mr. Guevara is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty under the U.S. Constitution," said Gretchen Sween, one of his attorneys.
Guevara's appellate attorneys have long argued jurors never heard about factors that led to their client's intellectual disability, including being exposed to toxic chemicals in utero and enduring poverty, violence and malnutrition as a child.
"Psychiatric experts from both sides agreed that he is intellectually disabled and therefore not eligible for the death penalty; his crimes were horrible and he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement.