Althouse: "The 41-year-old inmate had garnered attention in previous years, including when he sought to donate a kidney in 2022 to atone for his crime

June 27, 2024

"The 41-year-old inmate had garnered attention in previous years, including when he sought to donate a kidney in 2022 to atone for his crime — a petition Texas denied...."

"During his trial, psychiatrist Edward Gripon testified that recidivism rates among people who commit sex crimes are as high as 80 percent — a statistic that was widely used at the time to justify punishment, but that has since been debunked. Gripon told the court that Gonzales would be a future danger 'wherever he goes' because he suffered from an incurable and violence-inducing mental disorder. Gripon relied on written statements from Gonzales’s cellmate saying that Gonzales had spoken about the crime and said 'he would do it again.' The cellmate in 2019 recanted his testimony and said an officer had threatened him with a harsher sentence if he didn’t help vilify Gonzales...."

From "Tex. inmate executed after expert recanted testimony on ‘future dangerousness’/Ramiro Gonzales was executed by lethal injection Wednesday after Texas’s Board of Parole and Pardons unanimously voted Monday to deny his clemency petition" (WaPo).

32 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...: "Townsend’s family supported his execution. Her mother, Patricia Townsend, told USA Today last week that she would attend the lethal injection. “He doesn’t deserve mercy,” she told the outlet. “And his childhood should not have anything to do with it. I know a lot of people that had a hard childhood...He made his choice.”

Good enough for me.; 6/27/24, 8:59 AM
Ice Nine said...: Recanted testimony on his ‘future dangerousness’? Oh no...anyway.

The recanted expert testimony is irrelevant - he raped and murdered a woman. It pleases me immensely that he was executed for that.; 6/27/24, 9:02 AM
Odi said...: The man kidnapped, raped, then murdered an 18yr old girl. He did it in Texas... I'm just surprised it took this long for them to execute him.; 6/27/24, 9:03 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The woman was 18 and more than 18 years have passed since she died.; 6/27/24, 9:07 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/27/24, 9:10 AM
Narayanan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/27/24, 9:14 AM
Birches said...: If I had raped two women and killed one and then became a Christian, I think I'd take my punishment and trust that all would be made right in the next life.; 6/27/24, 9:15 AM
Political Junkie said...: Happy to see the bad guy executed. The shame is it takes 18 plus years in TX to execute someone. GWB killed bad guys and bad gals (Karla Faye Tucker) quicker, it seems.

Cheers.; 6/27/24, 9:18 AM
Ice Nine said...: >Ann Althouse said...
The woman was 18 and more than 18 years have passed since she died.<

Yes...appalling that he drew breath about 18yrs longer than he should have.; 6/27/24, 9:21 AM
mccullough said...: He garnered lethal injection; 6/27/24, 9:45 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: I share the anti-death penalty advocates' skepticism of the reliability of expert testimony on the potential future dangerousness of a person and of the reliability of psychological/psychiatric expert testimony in general, however I disagree with their desire to prevent the execution in this case. Broadly speaking, in cases of murder, there are three types of murder I would favor the death penalty for: mass murder, murder of a child, and particularly heinous murders. This case seems to fall in that third category for me. The, now deceased, Mr. Gonzalez kidnapped, raped and then murdered a person. Though in the article it says Gonzalez was convicted of sexual assault so perhaps I am reading in too much when I said rape. While the murder victim was 18 that by itself isn't enough for me to want the death penalty in a case. If there was a different case where say an 18 year old gang banger murdered a 17 year old gang banger that age of the victim wouldn't be enough for me to want the death penalty in the case. When I say murder of a child I typically mean younger child. And while 18 years old is legally an adult, I suspect the murder victim in this case held a liminal (the word!) space in the minds of her family members that if anything probably still leaned closer to child than adult.; 6/27/24, 9:45 AM
Greg Hlatky said...: It's behind a paywall. How many paragraphs do you have to go through to learn the name of the victim?; 6/27/24, 9:49 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: Blogger Greg Hlatky said...
It's behind a paywall. How many paragraphs do you have to go through to learn the name of the victim?

Hmm... I'm not subscribed to WaPo and it wasn't behind a paywall for me. I wonder if that is because I earlier clicked on a free-access link from Althouse. The murder victim's name, Bridget Townsend, appears in the 5th paragraph which gives some facts of the case.; 6/27/24, 9:53 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Maybe it's true that people who rape and murder 18-year-old girls have a re-offending rate less than 80%, but people who prey sexually on children have a higher than 80% recidivism, so maybe some statistician was simply averaging sex crime stats to come up with that number. I don't care. Glad he's finally paid for his crime. All rapists should have at least the possibility of being put to death by the state providing the evidence is clear, contemporaneous and includes overwhelming physical proof.

So you E Jean Carrol fanboys can stop typing right now. I'm talking actual aggravated rape.; 6/27/24, 9:54 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Blogger Greg Hlatky said...
It's behind a paywall. How many paragraphs do you have to go through to learn the name of the victim?

You can read the entire post that Althouse wrote without learning the name of the young woman he kidnapped, raped and killed. Priorities, you know.; 6/27/24, 9:58 AM
Big Mike said...: Times are changing. Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) shared a chuckle with MSNBC host Joy Reid after the latter read a Fox News chyron describing the rape of a 13-year-old girl in New York City by an illegal immigrant aloud during Reid’s show earlier this week. In Houston a pair of illegals from Venezuela raped and murdered 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray while one of them was wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency ankle bracelet at the time of the crime. I’ll bet Reid and Jayapal regard that crime as a real thigh-slapper.; 6/27/24, 9:59 AM
Original Mike said...: He raped and murdered someone? I don't care if the re-offending rate is zero.; 6/27/24, 10:03 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: He raped and murdered a young woman. I don't care.; 6/27/24, 10:05 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: He can be put to death, statistics be damned.; 6/27/24, 10:06 AM
Leland said...: 100% certain that a kidney won't bring Bridget Townsend back to life, and mostly sure, had Gonzales not killed Bridget Townsend, that the offer a kidney wouldn't have made Bridget Townsend feel better about being raped by Gonzales.

Whenever I see these stories, the first thing I look for is information about the victim(s). As noted above, Bridget Townsend was 18. I guess both Gonzales and Townsend were roughly the same age, as both would have been 41 now. He confessed to her rape and murder. Two actual felonies with a dead body as evidence.

I understand "The Vault Dweller" above and agree with much of it. I'm not sure how much heinous the murder is to any murder, but rape is heinous and torture enough regardless of how her life was actually taken. So yeah, I'm not opposed to the death penalty for Gonzales even accepting issues with "expert" testimony and half gestures of atonement. The full gesture is acceptable.; 6/27/24, 10:09 AM
Paul said...: Well he now won't 'reoffend' 100%... cause he is in the PRISON OF NO PAROLE.. i.e. HELL.; 6/27/24, 10:21 AM
Yancey Ward said...: How many people, do you suppose, commit only one violent sex crime in an 80 year life span?

Of course, the entire excerpt doesn't mention that Gonzalez was executed because he committed a murder.; 6/27/24, 10:21 AM
Oligonicella said...: All of my softer emotions are spent entirely on the victim. I do not understand those who argue favorably for the perpetrator while ignoring or downplaying the victim.; 6/27/24, 10:40 AM
William said...: I didn't read the article. Dollars to donuts though the article didn't spend as much time describing the details of his crime as they did of the details of the flaws in the prosecution's case......Maybe the recidivism rate isn't 80%. Maybe some sex offenders learn the errors of their ways and go on to successfully commit more crimes for which they are never caught and they, therefore, are not counted as recidivists.; 6/27/24, 11:15 AM
Tom T. said...: He only led investigators to her body after he had received two life sentences for kidnapping and raping a different woman.; 6/27/24, 11:34 AM
dbp said...: Justice delayed is justice denied: He got to live 23 more years than he deserved.; 6/27/24, 11:36 AM
Alexander said...: Agreeing with liberals for reasons that would horrify them.

"Yes, I too agree that the prison population should be a fraction of what it is, and the average time felons spend 'behind bars' should be a lot less..."; 6/27/24, 12:45 PM
n.n said...: One less "burden" h/t Obama

Liberals support Capitol punishment. Liberals support the wicked solution for social, clinical, political, and climate progress. Liberals support excess murder rape, rape-rape through immigration reform under the social justice umbrella.; 6/27/24, 1:06 PM
n.n said...: ... and Progressives come tumbling after, and vice-versa. Another minor Spring.; 6/27/24, 1:08 PM
hombre said...: 80% may be an overstatement, but I prosecuted sex crimes exclusively for five years. Among hundreds of offenders the vast majority were repetitive. Among the very few "low risk" types to whom I gave "breaks," shorter incarceration and "treatment" every one of them re-offended. Every single one!

Social Justice Warriors who oppose the death penalty, including Soros prosecutors, are chronic prevaricators. Like other Democrats, for them the ends always justify the means.; 6/27/24, 3:16 PM
Richard Dolan said...: “Sex offenders are a serious threat in this Nation.” Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1, 4 (2003), quoting McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 32 (2002) (plurality opinion). “[T]he victims of sex assault are most often juveniles,” and “[w]hen convicted sex offenders reenter society, they are much more likely than any other type of offender to be re-arrested for a new rape or sexual assault.” Id., quoting McKune, 536 U.S. at 32-33.; 6/27/24, 3:33 PM
hombre said...: Birches: "If I had raped two women and killed one and then became a Christian, I think I'd take my punishment and trust that all would be made right in the next life."

Douglas Gretzler, who along with Willie Steelman murdered at least 17 people, did just that. After 22 years of absurd appeals he fired his SJW attorney, apologized to the families and submitted to execution. Wikipedia, naturally, says nothing about his conversion to Christianity, but it was well publicized, widely discussed at the time and given by him as the reason for his final actions.; 6/27/24, 3:37 PM