Death row inmate Ivan Cantu is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas today.
Yet, once again, there’s considerable doubt about whether the state has rightly condemned someone to death and is on the verge of killing an innocent person. This time, questions swirl around much of the key evidence used to convict Cantu, now 50, of the capital murder of his cousin.
In 2007, this newspaper took a stance against the death penalty, saying it couldn’t reconcile “the fact that it is both imperfect and irreversible.” We lost confidence that inherently flawed human beings and the criminal justice system they control could rightly mete out the ultimate punishment. A punishment that, if gotten wrong, is as heinous as the crime it was intended to address.
But with Cantu’s case we not only reiterate our previous position, but also go a step further. In 2024 the death penalty is both unnecessary and morally wrong. The state of Texas should not be in the business of taking human life. That’s especially true in light of a 2005 state law allowing convicted capital murderers to be sentenced to life in prison without parole instead of being executed.
That law didn’t exist in 2001 when a Collin County jury sentenced Cantu to death for the murder of James Mosqueda, 27, during a botched robbery in Far North Dallas. Cantu was also indicted in the killing of Mosqueda’s 22-year-old fiancée, Amy Kitchen, in the same incident.
Cantu has always maintained his innocence. But those claims have gained national attention in recent years as his attorney and independent investigators have unearthed new evidence.
A key witness who testified that Cantu told him he planned to murder Mosqueda admitted in 2022 that he made up his testimony. And damning statements from Cantu’s girlfriend were also discredited after Mosqueda’s Rolex watch, which she said Cantu stole and threw out a car window, was found by investigators in the victim’s home and returned to his family.
In light of this and other new evidence, a Collin County judge in April withdrew Cantu’s execution date. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later declined to review the case.
Now Cantu’s lawyer Gena Bunn is scrambling to find other avenues to spare his life. She told us in an email she filed a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and appeals and requests for stays with the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Collin County trial court, and in federal court. We hope her efforts are successful. But hope and time are running out.
We don’t know for certain if Cantu is guilty; there’s clearly significant reason to doubt he is. Nonetheless, Texas would be wrong if it killed him this week.
The Dallas Morning News
