Ivan Cantu, a man sentenced to death in Texas for two murders in 2000, will be executed by the state at the end of the month after two cancellations, including a last-minute appeal less than a year ago, in which false descriptions were testimony during his trial that convinced a Republican judge to postpone the execution.
Cantu, 50, who was sentenced to death for the murders in Dallas of his cousin and his fiancée, James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen, assures that various evidence that emerged after his trial that found him guilty in 2001 is enough to overturn his fateful sentence, reported The Texas Tribune.
Cantu's lawyers, as well as private detectives, have managed to obtain such evidence that they consider illuminating, including a key witness who admitted to having lied while testifying, and the discovery of a watch that the convicted man was accused of stealing, expanded the digital medium.
However, despite this, Cantu's legal team has not been able to have any federal or state court fully review all of the recent information.
Even after his latest stay of execution, the Texas Court of Appeals
dismissed his request for an evidentiary hearing
without providing an explanation.
Cantu's execution is scheduled for February 28 at the Huntsville Unit.
Ivan Cantu was sentenced to death in Texas in 2001.TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) / Getty Images
The trial and a key witness
During Cantu's trial, Collin County prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of Amy Boettcher, the inmate's fiancee,
who claimed that he had committed the murders
and that he had even taken her to the crime scene before traveling. to Arkansas to visit his family, The Texas Tribune reported.
Prosecutors also claimed to have found bloody jeans in Cantu's kitchen that allegedly contained the victims' DNA and a Rolex watch.
The articles were taken as reliable evidence that he had committed the murders.
Boettcher testified that she herself had put the bloody pants in a trash can in Cantu's kitchen after the murders and that she saw him throw the watch, which belonged to Mosqueda, out the window of his car as the couple drove downtown. the city.
A day after police found the bodies, they also discovered Mosqueda's car outside Cantu's apartment, according to court documents cited by the news portal.
For more than 20 years,
Cantu has maintained his innocence
and has maintained that Mosqueda was murdered by a local drug dealer to whom he owed a lot of money.
"Isn't that crazy? I'm on death row, I have a wonderful lawyer who knows what to do to solve these problems with the court, and the laws are saying that her hands are tied behind her back," he declared. Cantu, quoted by The Texas Tribune.
The defense evidence
The legal team's doubts began with an affidavit signed by an agent who performed a welfare check on Cantu, which was requested by his mother after learning that his cousin had been murdered, and in which she stated that she did not see bloody clothes in the House.
The visit occurred when Cantu and Boettcher were in Arkansas.
Cantu argued that this sworn statement, signed in 2000, is proof that someone put the bloody clothes in his house to accuse him of the homicides, the news outlet indicated.
In addition, the convicted man's lawyers also discovered in 2019 that the police had recovered the Rolex watch in Mosqueda's house and returned it to his family, shortly after the murder.
However, the key element that the defense is trying to assert to overturn the execution is the
change of mind of a key witness during the trial
, The Texas Tribune reported.
Jeff Boettcher, Amy Boettcher's brother, also testified against Cantu during the trial, saying the man had told him about the murders in advance and had even hired him to clean up the crime scene.
However, everything changed with Amy's death in 2021, causing Jeff to call the police to recant what he had said at trial two decades earlier.
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The conversation that Jeff had in 2022 with an investigator and a lawyer, who traveled to Minnesota to meet with him, was recorded on video and shows the man distraught as he confesses to having lied during the trial.
Jeff admitted that he was having difficulties in his life at the time, that he frequently used drugs, and that he was outside of Texas at the time of the murders.
Filled with remorse, he regretted having contributed to Cantu being sentenced to death.
Gena Bunn, Cantu's attorney, told The Texas Tribune that the case was like a "house of cards" and asked that the execution be stayed.
"What is sustaining this conviction?" she questioned herself.
Bunn is not giving up hope of appealing the sentence to the Collin County District Attorney's Office to have the case reviewed.
"We are going to put a stop to [this case] and suspend the execution date," she said, quoted by the news outlet.
Meanwhile, the relatives of Mosqueda and Kitchen continue to support Cantu's execution.
"Let's hope that justice is finally served for Amy [Kitchen] and James [Mosqueda], and that the execution goes forward," said a message posted on social media on February 2 by the Amy Kitchen Emergency Fund, a fundraising group created in memory of the victims.
Without explanation
Cantu presented a writ of
habeas corpus
in April 2023 – a week before his execution – in which he claimed that he had been unjustly convicted.
A day later, state District Judge Benjamin Smith, who is a Republican, withdrew his injunction for the execution, saying the new arguments required review.
However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Cantu's appeal four months later, finding that the prisoner's request for a hearing
did not meet the necessary requirements for a review,
but did not explain why Cantu's testimony should not be reconsidered. Boettcher.
"They didn't give us much information about why we didn't meet the requirements," Bunn was quoted as saying by The Texas Tribune, explaining that the state has strict parameters so that subsequent appeals can be considered.
Despite this, Cantu intends to also appeal to the federal federal courts.
Additionally, he has until February 14 to file new litigation before the state's highest criminal court.
His legal team filed a clemency request last Tuesday.
Cantu stated that his heart goes out to the families of Mosqueda and Kitchen, and assured that the Collin County District Attorney's Office has the responsibility of
finding the person who really committed the murders
.