A member of the "Texas 7" crime gang ready to be executed

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – The attorneys of a death row inmate who died on Tuesday must declare that he should be spared, because it was not him killed a policeman from the suburbs of Dallas during a robbery on Christmas Eve, 18 years ago, he was with other inmates on the run with him.

Joseph Garcia, 47, is about to die by lethal injection after 18 hours. in a state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was part of the notorious "Texas 7" gang of inmates who escaped from a South Texas jail in December 2000, before committing numerous robberies, including the one where they fired on policeman Aubrey Hawkins, an elderly man. 29 years old, killed 11 times.

Hawkins had just finished his Christmas Eve dinner with his family. The call regarding theft in a sports goods store was ambushed.

The escaped detainees were arrested a month later in Colorado, thus ending a six-week-old manhunt. One of them was killed while the officers were nearby and the other six were convicted of murdering Hawkins and sentenced to death. Garcia would be the fourth to be executed. The other two are on death row.

Garcia's lawyers asked the US Supreme Court to suspend his execution, claiming that he had never fired his gun on Hawkins nor intended to kill him. J. Stephen Cooper, one of his lawyers, said that prosecutors did not have any information showing that his client was one of the shooters.

"He has not done anything violent nor prepared nor encouraged anyone to do that," Cooper said.

Garcia was convicted under the Texas Party Law, in which a person may be held liable for the crime of another individual if he or she has helped or attempted to assist in the commission of this crime.

Toby Shook, the senior prosecutor who dealt with the case of Garcia and the other five detainees, said that although the authorities could not determine which detainee had used which weapon to shoot Hawkins, the inmates had acted team to commit the robbery and kill the policeman.

Shook says that Garcia's case is a clear example of why party law is necessary in some cases.

"He lived up to murder and heckling, he was actively involved in everything," said Shook. , now a defense attorney in Dallas. [19659007] Shook said that Garcia's execution would be another step to get the Hawkins family close and law enforcement.

"In the end, we can finally close the book on them when the punishments are all over," he said. He was serving a 50-year sentence for a murder committed in the San Antonio area when he and the other six inmates were released from prison. He would be the 22nd inmate killed this year in the United States and the 12th executed in Texas, which is the busiest country in terms of capital punishment.