Cesar Fierro

Cesar Roberto Fierro is a Mexican national who was on death row in Huntsville, Texas, until his sentence was vacated on December 19, 2019, for the 27 February 1979 death of a cab driver in El Paso. He was born on 18 October 1956.[1] He was 23 years old at the time of the shooting.[2] Judge Sharon Keller wrote the majority opinion for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, calling the circumstances of the coerced confession a "harmless error".[3] In 2003, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary injunction against the United States, ordering that Fierro not be executed while the Avena case was pending.[4]

The criminal case against him has been controversial because Mexican police in Juarez, Mexico arrested his parents and threatened to torture them unless he confessed. Speaking about the El Paso police, Fierro said: "He told me if I signed, then they'd let them go, and if not, they were going to torture them." [5] At Fierro's trial, Juarez and El Paso police denied any wrongdoing. No physical evidence has linked Fierro to the shooting. The conviction was based on his confession and the testimony of a "psychologically impaired" 16 year old.[6]

In February 1979, Texas law enforcement found the body of taxi driver Nicholas Castanon. Mexican police found his cab in Juarez, Mexico. The El Paso Police Department arrested two men suspected of the crime who were later released. In late July, Geraldo Olague told Mexican police in Juarez that he and Fierro had planned to rob Castanon. He also told police that during the robbery, Fierro had shot and killed the taxi driver. The circumstances under which Olague came into contact with the police are unknown. The police in Juarez notified the El Paso police, who travelled to Juarez to arrest Fierro.[7]

Fierro of was convicted of capital murder on February 15, 1980 and sentenced to death.[8] His sentence was vacated on December 19, 2019.[9]

Fierro is currently imprisoned in the W.J. Estelle Unit.[10]

Notes
  1. Texas Tribune.
  2. Brown & Berry-Dee 2012.
  3. Blakeslee 2006, p. 247.
  4. Quigley 2003, p. 181.
  5. Varhola 2011, p. 250.
  6. Otero 2005, p. 119.
  7. Dow 2006, p. 28.
  8. Otero 2005, p. 128.
  9. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/12/18/texas-death-row-cesar-fierro-sentence-tossed/
  10. https://offender.tdcj.texas.gov/OffenderSearch/offenderDetail.action?sid=02234913

References
  • Blakeslee, Nate (2006). Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-0-7867-3546-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Brown, Anthony Gordon; Berry-Dee, Christopher (2012). Monsters Of Death Row. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4481-3372-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Dow, David R. (2006). Executed on a Technicality: Lethal Injustice on America's Death Row. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-4419-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Otero, Ana M. (2005). "In Harm's Way - A Dismal State of Justice: The Legal Odyssey of Cesar Fierro". Berkeley La Raza Law Journal. 16 (2).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Quigley, John (2003). "International Attention to the Death Penalty: Texas as a Lightning Rod". Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights. 8: 175–190.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Varhola, Michael (2011). Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in the Lone Star State. Clerisy Press. ISBN 978-1-57860-459-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • "Cesar Roberto Fierro {Texas Prison Inmates". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2017-11-22.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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