HOUSTON — A man convicted of fatally shooting a Dallas police officer nearly 16 years ago faces execution on Wednesday.
Wesley Ruiz, 43, is set to receive a lethal injection for the March 2007 killing of Dallas Police Senior Corporal Mark Nix.
Ruiz had led officers on a high-speed chase after being spotted driving a car that matched the description of one used by a murder suspect. Authorities said Nix tried to break the vehicle’s passenger window after the chase ended and that Ruiz fired one shot. The bullet hit Nix’s badge, splintered it and sent fragments that severed an artery in his neck. Nix later died in a hospital.
The 33-year-old officer was a U.S. Navy veteran of Operation Desert Storm. He’d been on the Dallas force for nearly seven years and was engaged to be married when he was killed.
Ruiz’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, which was scheduled for Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. They argue that jurors relied on “overtly racist” and “blatant anti-Hispanic stereotypes” in appraising whether Ruiz would be a future danger, an element needed to secure a death sentence in Texas. Ruiz is Hispanic.
Last week, U.S. District Judge David Godbey in Dallas denied a request to stay Ruiz’s execution, saying his attorneys failed to show that jurors made statements during trial that showed “overt racial bias.” On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a similar stay request based on alleged racial bias. The appeals court did not consider the merits of the claim, but rejected it on procedural grounds.
Ruiz’s attorneys have previously argued unsuccessfully that an expert witness for the prosecution falsely testified at Ruiz’s 2008 trial about whether he would be a future danger. Defense attorneys alleged prosecutors knew about the false testimony and remained silent. In his ruling, Godbey said the expert testimony “was quite possibly harmless” and even if the…
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