29 September 2020 :
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned the death sentence imposed on Mexican national Juan Lizcano, now 43, finding that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. The court initially upheld Lizcano’s death sentence, imposing an unconstitutional standard for assessing his intellectual disability. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the court’s approach in Moore v. Texas, the Texas appeals court returned Lizcano’s case to the trial court to reconsider his intellectual disability claim. The Texas Tribune reports that Lizcano is “at least the sixth death row inmate whose sentence was reduced after the U.S. Supreme Court slammed Texas’ methods for determining intellectual disability.” Lizcano was found guilty and sentenced to death in the 2005 fatal shooting of Dallas police officer Brian Jackson, 28, during a domestic violence call, according to court records. At his trial in 2007, evidence was raised on his mental deficits, but the jury still sentenced him to death.
