Today's San Antonio Express-News reports, "Inmate seeks overthrow of sentence. It's written by Guillermo Contreras.
A San Antonio man on death row who was hired by a member of the Texas 7 to kill his wife for insurance money is seeking a new sentencing hearing.
Rolando Ruiz Jr., 38, was sentenced to death in 1995 for his conviction in the murder-for-hire of Theresa Rodriguez, 29. She was shot to death July 14, 1992, in the garage of her North Side home.
In a hearing that began Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, Ruiz argued that Ruiz's trial lawyers were ineffective because they did not pursue mitigating factors that could have saved him from the death penalty.
Ruiz does not contest that he was paid $2,000 by brothers Michael and Mark Rodriguez to kill the victim, who was Michael Rodriguez's wife, so the siblings could collect $400,000 in insurance.
The Rodriguez brothers and two other accomplices were sent to prison after pleading guilty in 1995. Michael Rodriguez later escaped from prison with six other inmates – the group was dubbed the Texas 7 – and they went on a crime spree that included the murder of an Irving police officer. Authorities caught up with them in Colorado and Michael Rodriguez was later executed.
Ruiz's new lawyers, Chris Gober and Kathryn M. Case, argued that Ruiz's attorneys in 1995 decided not to follow leads in a psychologist's report that could have helped him.
The report, which was not introduced at trial, claimed that Ruiz was abused as a child and it led him to alcohol and/or substance addiction, that he had trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality, and that he probably killed Rodriguez during “significant reduced mental capacity resulting from the effects of alcohol or other intoxicants.”
Ruiz's lead lawyer at the time, Karen Amos, has since died. Her co-counsel, Don Mach, defended the decisions he and Amos made during Ruiz's trial and sentencing.
Related posts are in the mitigation and post-conviction review indexes.
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