The Next to Die Watching death row

Joseph Christopher Garcia was executed on December 4, 2018 in Texas.



Case Updates
    Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
  • Joseph Christopher Garcia was executed today in Texas. More
  • U.S. Supreme Court denied all of Joseph Garcia’s appeals to halt his execution tonight in Texas.
  • Tuesday, December 4th, 2018
  • Lawyers for Joseph Garcia have 5 applications to stay his execution tonight in Texas in front of the U.S. Supreme Court at the moment.
More updates ↓

Joseph Garcia was sent to death row for the 2000 killing of a police officer after escaping from prison with six other men.

Garcia had been in prison for stabbing a man to death when he joined a notorious prison break-out. One of the so-called "Texas 7," Garcia and the other escapees who survived were all sentenced to die—some of them under the controversial law of parties—for the slaying of Officer Aubrey Hawkins, who in December 2000 was ambushed and gunned down outside of Dallas. Read More ↓

More than two weeks before the murder, the desperate prisoners busted out of the Connally Unit south of San Antonio, setting off a monthlong manhunt with a high-dollar reward.

It was George Rivas, a prisoner serving 17 life sentences, who masterminded the plot to subdue guards and tie up civilian employees and fellow inmates as hostages. Two of the escaping inmates dressed up like prison workers and snuck into the armory and took over the guard tower.

After stealing the keys to a prison truck, the men stocked up on guns and supplies and made their escape. Driving to Houston, they pulled off two robberies there before heading north to the Dallas area.

There, they held up a sporting goods store and snatched a stash of money and guns. But as they fled, they ran into Hawkins. The men surrounded his patrol car and shot him 11 times before running over his body and driving off, according to court records.

But Garcia has long maintained he was not one of the shooters, and his lawyers in a clemency petition argued that there's no evidence he was even outside when the shooting occurred.

After the slaying, the men fled to Colorado, where they were caught the following month. One of the escapees—Larry Harper—killed himself rather than be captured alive and returned to prison. The other six were sentenced to death.

Rivas was executed in 2012, apologizing to the slain officer's family with his final words. Michael Rodriguez and Donald Newbury were put to death in 2008 and 2015, respectively.

The others—Patrick Murphy and Randy Halprin—remained on death row, like Garcia, fighting their cases. On appeal, Garcia's attorneys raised claims of bad lawyering and alleged due process violations.

But courts turned down his appeals, and in May a judge signed off on a death date only to push it back a few months later due to a paperwork error.

"It's been almost 18 years," former prosecutor Toby Shook said afterward. "It's satisfying that the actual sentence will be carried out."

In the weeks before his scheduled execution, Garcia’s attorneys filed an appeal on his initial charge out of Bexar County, a crime that he’s long maintained was an act of self-defense. He was only convicted, his attorneys alleged, because of bad lawyering that led to a wrongful conviction.

That case ended up being a key part of his later trial in Dallas County, when prosecutors used it as added evidence to argue for a death sentence.

And prosecutors relied on something else the defense later dinged as problematic: the law of parties. Under Texas law, even the co-conspirators who didn't fire the fatal shot and never intended to kill anyone can be sentenced to death along with the shooter.

In a clemency petition filed in late 2018, Garcia's attorneys said the state shouldn't have used sentencing arguments based on the law of parties. Even though the law of parties dictates that everyone involved in a crime can be found guilty together, it doesn't mean they have to receive the same punishment.

"Although Joseph participated in the Oshman’s robbery, the fact remains that he never intended for anyone to die as a result, and no evidence shows that he was even close to Officer Hawkins when he was killed," his attorneys wrote. Though trial records show that the men offered different accounts of where they were and who fired shots, no evidence proved Garcia was a shooter.

"Our system demands mercy in such cases, where three of the men responsible for the murder of Officer Hawkins have already been executed, and the remaining perpetrators will never step foot outside of prison for the rest of their lives," his lawyers wrote. "But they do not each have to die to ensure that justice is done."


Context
Joseph Christopher Garcia was the 1,487th person executed in the United States since 1976, the 557th person executed in Texas, and the 1,311th person executed by lethal injection.
198019851990199520002005201020152020JOSEPH CHRISTOPHER GARCIAEXECUTIONS SINCE 1976 (1532)EXECUTIONS IN TEXAS (570)EXECUTIONS BY LETHAL INJECTION (1352)MONTHLY EXECUTIONS1613


Credits
The Next to Die uses data from the Death Penalty Information Center combined with reporting from The Marshall Project and our partners.
Additional research by Maya Bernstein
Additional development by Gabe Isman
Additional design by Elan Kiderman
This project created in conjunction with