Houston.– A Texas judge has halted next week’s scheduled execution of a death row inmate who has long said he is innocent so there can be more time to review his claims that he was convicted more than 20 years ago with false testimony and questionable evidence.
Iván Cantú had been convicted of the shooting death of his cousin, James Mosqueda, 27, and his girlfriend, Amy Kitchen, 22, during a November 2000 robbery at their north Dallas home. Cantu has long claimed that he is innocent.
Cantú, 49, was scheduled to be executed on April 26. But state district judge Benjamin Smith in Collin County, where Cantu was sentenced, withdrew the execution date Wednesday, saying more review of the inmate’s new claims is needed.
Bill Wirskye, first assistant district attorney with the Collin County District Attorney’s Office, declined to comment.
“Because Mr. Cantu’s case raises troubling questions that undermine the integrity of the sentence, the court’s decision to withdraw the execution date to allow for further review was the appropriate next step,” said Gena Bunn, Cantu’s attorney, in a statement yesterday Friday.
Sylvia Cantú, Iván Cantú’s mother, said she is hopeful that “all this new evidence will finally be heard in court so that Iván can come home.”
Two of the jurors who convicted Cantu have entered statements indicating they now have doubts about the case.
“I do not want the execution of Mr. Cantu to take place unless there is a careful and exhaustive review of the evidence,” Maurice Jacob, one of the jurors, wrote in a statement earlier this month.
Prosecutors said Cantu, who was convicted in 2001, killed Mosqueda, who trafficked illegal drugs, and Kitchen when he tried to steal cocaine, marijuana and cash from his cousin’s home. Cantu has claimed that a rival drug dealer killed his cousin.
In Cantú’s apartment, police found bloody jeans with the victims’ DNA, a key to the victims’ house and a key to Kitchen’s car.
Bunn has credited an independent investigation by Matt Duff, a private investigator, with uncovering much of the new evidence in the case. Duff has chronicled his findings on a podcast called “Blood Cousins.”
