another innocent murdered in texas...

carlos de luna was murdered by the state of texas 16 years ago. the justification for this killing was that 12 citizens found de luna guilty of murdering wanda lopez with a folding knife in 1983. there was no physical evidence linking de luna to the crime scene...only two witnesses placing him in the parking lot of the gas station and running away from the scene and the lopez's identification of him as "tall" and "mexican" just before her call to 911 ended with her death. upon his arrest, de luna told police he did not commit the crime, but that he knew who did. prior to trial he identified carlos hernandez as the murderer, a man with a long history of violent attacks on women, a man whom his family members claim had a liking for a folding knife which he would constantly sharpen, a man who (as it would be discovered after his own death) bragged to at least 5 different people (including his brother) that he committed the murder and de luna was going to be executed for it.

the star witness, the only witness who was face to face with the killer, was not positive of the identification, but identified de luna only after police informed him the man was arrested hiding under a truck near the scene and was already cuffed in the back of a patrol car.

the premises of the death penalty was that the murder took place during a robbery. an analysis of financial records from the gas station shows no money was taken, yet the owner testified that $160 dollars was missing...a claim the clerk called in to finish lopez's shift disputes based on his knowledge of lopez's tendency to immediately lock up each $100 in sales. the last deposit in the save was a half hour before the murder and their were $55 in cash receipts . that would mean the station would have had to make sales of over $200 in 40 minutes, late at night, when the only two witnesses on scene were there at separate times and alone...in 1983. furthermore, lopez would have had to inexplicably have deviated from her normal routine and not deposited each $100 when it came in. receipts show de luna had just cashed a pay check of $149 dollars that day...the prosecution claimed it was robbery proceeds...yet the bills were neatly rolled.

the prosecutor argued to the jury that hernandez was a "phantom"...a figment of the imagination of de luna concocted to escape liability. this while another prosecutor on the case knew of hernandez and his violent past and them being well aware de luna was pointing to hernandez as the killer.

a detective working the case was informed by tips that hernandez was the murderer...those tips were not pursued. that detective, an officer familiar with both de luna and hernandez, now believes the wrong man was executed.

hernandez had a history of crimes like gas station robberies, knife attacks, and attacks against women.

a shirt of de luna's was discovered near the crime scene...there was no blood on it, yet the crime scene was covered in blood. the blood was not collected for analysis.

the gas station was cleaned and reopened within hours.

de luna and hernandez look similar. the only witness to see the murderer face to face has admitted his thoughts were "him being hispanic and all." the other witness was unable to identify de luna in court at a pretrial hearing shortly after the murder.

the jury system is imperfect. that is horrifyingly unacceptable when we are talking of taking a man's life. texas murdered an innocent man...and we want to expand capital punishment. god help us.