The Mexican citizen, who was executed Wednesday night for the 1997 slaying of his 16-year-old cousin, wrote in a handwritten statement that he will be back for justice after his attorneys desperately tried to halt his execution.
Ruben Ramirez Cardenas, 47, was put to death by lethal injection for the February 1997 killing of Mayra Laguna in the Rio Grande Valley in far South Texas.
The high school student was snatched from a bedroom she shared with a younger sister at her family’s public housing apartment in McAllen and her brutally beaten body was found later in a canal near a lake.
Cardenas was asked by the warden to make a final statement, to which he replied: ‘No sir.’ As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he took a couple of breaths and then began snoring. After less than a minute, all movement stopped.
Twenty-one minutes later, at 10.26pm, he was pronounced dead, making him the seventh convicted killer put to death this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
In a handwritten statement released afterward, Cardenas thanked his family, attorneys and the Mexican consulate for their help, but said he will be seeking justice.
‘Now! I will not and cannot apologize for someone elses crime, but, I will be Back for Justice,’ he wrote. ‘You can count on that!’
Mexican citizen, Ruben Ramirez Cardenas (left), 47, who was executed Wednesday night for the 1997 slaying of his 16-year-old cousin, Mayra Laguna (right), wrote in a handwritten statement that he will be back for justice. ‘You can count on that!’ the statement read
Attorneys for Cardenas had filed two federal lawsuits ahead of the execution in a last-ditch effort to halt the punishment.
Just two befores Cardenas was executed, senior Mexican diplomats condemned the death sentence as ‘illegal’.
In a confession to police, Cardenas said he and a friend drove around with Laguna in his mother’s car, that he had sex with the girl and then fatally beat her as she fought him after he unbound her arms to let her go.
In a news conference held in Mexico City Monday, Carlos Sada, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, told reporters that Texas prosecutors did not follow due process in Cardenas’ case.
‘From the start, there has been a failure, and from our perspective, this is an illegal act,’ Sada said.
Cardenas was not given the chance to speak with consular officials in contravention of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Sada said.
The inmate’s lawyers filed a federal civil rights lawsuit late Tuesday in which they claimed his due process and civil rights were violated because Texas officials wouldn’t release evidence so it can undergo new DNA testing.
Attorneys for the state called the lawsuit improper and said state courts already refused the DNA request because Cardenas could not show that more advanced tests would exonerate him.
Diplomatic row: In a news conference held in Mexico City Monday, Carlos Sada (center), Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, condemned the death sentence as illegal
Sada accused Texas prosecutors of failing to follow due process in Cardenas’ case
The attorneys also appealed to the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking it to stop the execution and review the case, including the DNA testing arguments.
Attorney Maurie Levin also argued the eyewitness testimony against Cardenas was shaky, contended that little physical evidence tied him to the killing and said a confession from him was obtained only after 22 hours of isolation and intense police questioning.
‘All hallmarks of wrongful convictions,’ Levin said. ‘To permit his execution to proceed when there is potentially exculpatory DNA testing available violates the most basic notions of fairness and justice.’
In a separate federal lawsuit also filed late Tuesday, one of Cardenas’ lawyers argued she was denied a witness spot in the death chamber.
Levin also requested to have telephone access during the execution, saying she needed it to contact courts and the Texas governor before and during the punishment.
Texas prisons spokesman Jason Clark said no rules prevent an inmate’s lawyer from attending an execution, but that Cardenas previously had not indicated he wanted Levin to be there.
Cardenas told prison officials Wednesday he wanted her to attend, Clark said. But, the spokesman added, the attorney would not be allowed to have a phone in the chamber.
‘Witnesses to an execution have never had the ability to bring in a cellphone, as it is prohibited by policy and state law. Nor is there a landline phone accessible to those witnesses,’ Clark said.
Relatives of Cardenas were photographed as they waited information before Texas ordered his execution outside of the Cardenas’ family house in Irapuato, in Guanajuato state, Mexico, on Wednesday
Attorneys for Cardenas had filed two federal lawsuits ahead of the execution in a last-ditch effort to halt the punishment. His family stands outside as they wait for information ahead of Cardenas’ execution on Wednesday in Mexico
Levin previously contended that authorities acted improperly when not telling the Mexican-born Cardenas that he could get legal help from the Mexican consulate.
Being born in Mexico, which does not have capital punishment, made Cardenas eligible for legal help from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested, according to provisions of the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations, which is a 1963 international agreement.
The courts have allowed executions to move forward in several previous Texas death row cases in which the agreement was said to have been violated.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled in 2004 that the US had violated international law by failing to inform 51 Mexicans now on death row of their right to consular assistance, and said the cases should be reviewed.
Alejandro Alday, a legal advisor to the Mexican government, said Cardenas was one of the 51 covered by the ICJ ruling, and accused Texas of breaching the Vienna convention in failing to advise Cardenas of his right to consular assistance.
Rene Guerra, the former Hidalgo County district attorney who prosecuted Cardenas, said Tuesday that he ‘wouldn’t be able to live with myself’ if he believed the conviction was improper.
Cardenas became the seventh convicted killer put to death this year in Texas
‘I never would have authorized a case that was not there or was a flimsy investigation,’ he said. ‘This guy deserves the death penalty.’
On the DNA argument, state attorneys have said that the DNA test results presented at Cardenas’ trial were not false. Hidalgo County prosecutors had argued that the request for new testing from the inmate’s attorneys was only intended to delay the punishment.
The victim’s younger sister, Roxanna Laguna, told authorities she awoke in pre-dawn darkness to see an intruder in their bedroom. She said Mayra’s mouth was taped and her hands were bound, and that the man went out a window with her.
A woman at the Hidalgo County public housing complex where the Lagunas lived called police after seeing a man walking with a girl who was barefoot and only wearing a shirt and underwear.
Cardenas initially was questioned about the teen’s disappearance because he was a close family member who had socialized with the girl. He was released, then questioned again and arrested after authorities said information he provided conflicted with details from Jose Antonio Lopez Castillo.
In his statement to police, Cardenas said he was high on cocaine when he and Castillo drove around with Laguna in his mother’s car and eventually had sex with her. He said when he untied her to let her go ‘she then came at me,’ scratching him and kneeing him.
‘I then lost it and started punching her on the face,’ he told detectives. He said after he hit her in the neck, she began coughing up blood and having breathing difficulties. After trying unsuccessfully to revive her, he said he tied her up ‘and rolled her down a canal bank.’
Hidalgo County prosecutors argued the DNA request was intended to delay the punishment and ‘muddy the waters.’ Prosecutors also pointed out in court filings that Cardenas led them to the scene of the killing, providing information not publicly disclosed.
Cardenas’ friend, Castillo, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and is serving a 25-year prison term.