Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts in Houston, Texas

May 3, 2007

Media Advisory: Jose Moreno scheduled for execution

AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information about Jose Angel Moreno, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. Thursday, May 10, 2007.

Moreno was sentenced to death for the January 1986 kidnapping and murder of John Cruz of San Antonio. A summary of the evidence presented at trial follows.

FACTS OF THE CRIME

After carefully plotting for months, Jose Moreno kidnapped John Cruz for ransom on the night of January 21, 1986. Moreno blocked the road leading to Cruz’s home with several large rocks. As Moreno had anticipated, Cruz drove up to the rocks and then got out of his car to remove them. At that point, Moreno, who had been hiding nearby, ran up to Cruz and ordered him at gunpoint to get back into the car. Having handcuffed and blindfolded Cruz, Moreno then drove to an open grave and shot Cruz in the head with a pistol, as the victim stood in front of the grave. Moreno stated that Cruz’s body fell into the grave face up.

Moreno proceeded to fill the grave with dirt and cover the area with trash “so they wouldn’t see that a grave was there.” Afterwards, Moreno called Cruz’s family demanding a ransom of thirty-thousand dollars for the safe return of their son. During a second telephone conversation, when it was explained to him that the money was in a trust fund and was not immediately retrievable, Moreno said, “You killed him, not us,” and hung up. The police had tapped the phone line and recorded the conversation.

After the neighbors of both the Cruz family and the Moreno family identified the caller’s voice as Moreno’s, the police obtained a search warrant for Moreno’s home where they discovered the gun used to kill Cruz. Moreno was arrested and signed a confession.

Moreno told officers how he obtained a high school directory in order to locate John Cruz and then dug a grave in an unpopulated area in order to conceal the body. Additionally, Moreno confessed to a total of nine attempts at kidnapping Cruz in the weeks preceding the murder, “but something always kept going wrong.”

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

April 2, 1986 -- A Bexar County jury indicted Jose Angel Moreno for capital murder in the kidnapping and murder of John Cruz.
January 7, 1987 -- A Bexar County jury found Moreno guilty of capital murder.
January 13, 1987 -- Following a separate punishment hearing, Moreno was sentenced to death.
April 7, 1993 -- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Moreno’s conviction and sentence on direct appeal.
November 8, 1993 -- The U.S. Supreme Court denied Moreno’s petition for writ of certiorari.
January 12, 1996 -- Moreno filed his first application for writ of habeas corpus with the state trial court.
April 14, 1997 -- An evidentiary hearing was held in the state trial court.
September 13, 2000 -- The Court of Criminal Appeals denied Moreno’s state application for writ of habeas corpus.
June 29, 2001 -- Moreno filed a federal petition for writ of habeas corpus in a San Antonio U.S. district court.
September 30, 2002 -- The federal district court granted Moreno’s motion to hold cause in abeyance to allow him to return to state court and exhaust state remedies on his claim that he is mentally retarded and thus exempt from the death penalty pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia.
June 20, 2003 -- Moreno filed his subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus raising his Atkins claim with the state trial court.
September 10, 2003 -- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Moreno’s subsequent state application for writ of habeas corpus as an abuse of the writ.
September 10, 2003 -- Moreno filed his first amended federal habeas petition with the federal district court re-asserting all of the claims from his previous petition in addition to his Atkins claim.
May 14, 2004 -- Moreno filed a second amended federal habeas petition.
March 17, 2005 -- The federal district court granted the state’s motion for summary judgment and denied Moreno the relief he requested in both of his amended habeas petitions. The court also denied Moreno a certificate of appealability.
October 11, 2005 -- Moreno filed an application for certificate of appealability with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
May 18, 2006 -- The 5th Circuit Court denied Moreno’s request for permission to appeal on all of his claims.
June 20, 2006 -- The 5th Circuit Court denied Moreno’s petition for rehearing by the full court.
September 18, 2006 -- Moreno petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.
December 7, 2006 -- Moreno filed a civil rights complaint, challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ lethal injection protocol. This complaint is still pending in a Houston U.S. district court.
January 8, 2007 -- The U.S. Supreme Court denied Moreno’s petition for certiorari.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

During the punishment phase of trial, the State introduced substantial evidence of Moreno’s potential dangerousness through testimony concerning his behavior while awaiting trial at the Bexar County Jail. The jury heard extensive testimony detailing (1) the discovery of numerous weapons in Moreno’s cell or on his person during his pretrial detention; (2) numerous instances of violent conduct toward jail personnel during pretrial detention and during the trial; (3) numerous instances of Moreno unlocking his own handcuffs or those of other inmates; (4) an escape attempt made less than two months after his arrest; (5) multiple instances in which Moreno jammed his cell door so that the door would not close and lock properly; (6) several threats Moreno made to guards and other acquaintances during his pretrial detention; (7) an incident where Moreno faked a suicide attempt; and (8) an incident during trial where Moreno successfully posed as another inmate in order to obtain access to a less-secure part of the jail.

 

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