Scott J. Atlas Collection of Legal Materials on Ricardo Aldape Guerra Case

Houston-based commercial litigation lawyer, Scott J. Atlas, collected the materials that comprise this collection through his pro bono work as a defense attorney for the capital murder trial of Ricardo Aldape Guerra. As then head of the pro bono committee at Vinson & Elkins law firm, he was approached by the Mexican Consulate to represent Guerra, a Mexican national on Texas Death Row. The Mexican Consulate contacted Atlas shortly before Guerra was scheduled to be executed on May 12, 1992. Despite him or his firm not specializing in criminal practice, Atlas decided to accept the case after reviewing the case files and finding patterns of police and prosecutorial misconduct. He proceeded to work on Guerra’s case until its successful conclusion in 1997. Atlas' numerous awards for both his pro bono work as well as his work in commercial litigation include the Distinguished Alumnus for Community Service from the UT School of Law Alumni Association, the Lola Wright Foundation Award for public service and legal ethics, and repeated listings in The Best Lawyers in America andTexas Monthly’s Top 100 Houston Region Attorneys.

The Ricardo Aldape Guerra case garnered international attention and support for the wrongful conviction, fifteen year imprisonment, death sentence and eventual release of an undocumented immigrant. Ricardo Aldape Guerra was born and raised in Colonia Moderna, just outside of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Like many poor and working-class laborers in Mexico, Guerra migrated to the United States to earn higher wages. In May 1982, twenty-year-old Guerra crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and found work in Houston, Texas within a few days. Two months later, Guerra was arrested and indicted for the capital murder of Houston police officer J.D. Harris, despite all physical evidence pointing to Roberto Carrasco Flores as the one who shot and killed Officer Harris. Flores died in a shootout with police on the night of the crime.

With no physical evidence implicating Guerra for the murder of officer Harris, Harris County prosecutors appealed to heightened anti-Mexican immigrant hostility in Houston by repeatedly emphasizing Guerra's undocumented immigration status to the jury in order to help secure his conviction and death sentence. Prosecutors told several jurors that they could consider Guerra’s undocumented immigration status when deciding whether or not he posed a future threat to society. Capital punishment procedure in 1982 required that jurors answer two "special questions" in the affirmative in order for a defendant to automatically receive the death penalty. The first question was whether or not the conduct of the defendant that resulted in the death of the victim was deliberate. The second question was whether or not there was a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts that would constitute a continuing threat to society [1].

Harris County prosecutors also sought to bolster in-court witness identification by commissioning the production of two lifelike wax mannequins of Guerra and Flores. The prosecutors displayed the mannequins prominently in the courtroom throughout the entire trial, despite Guerra's attorneys' objections that the mannequins would "inflame the minds of the jurors" [2]. In the motion for a new trial filed on behalf of Guerra, one juror from the 1982 trial submitted an affidavit to the court explaining her nightmares about the mannequins; "[T]he blood-stained one...was like a dead man staring back at me," she wrote [3]. Scott J. Atlas would later argue that "[t]he State used the mannequins to remind the jury constantly that Carrasco, who died a violent death, and Guerra were two of a kind: both Mexican, both violent, both to be feared." [4]

In October 1982, less than three months after the murder of officer Harris, the jury found Aldape Guerra guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to die by lethal injection (The State of Texas vs. Ricardo Aldape Guerra, No. 359,805). Asked by the judge if he had anything to say, Aldape Guerra replied "Yo no soy culpable" (I am not guilty). Aldape Guerra had maintained his innocence throughout his entire trial and incarceration period. Outside of the Harris County Court, the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated with signs that read: "Houston will not tolerate illegal alien crimes."

Guerra’s wrongful conviction and death sentence immediately mobilized Chicana/o and Mexican communities in the United States and Mexico. In Mexico, there were several protests and demonstrations against Aldape Guerra's conviction and death sentence, most notably in Tierra y Libertad, a popular colonia in the northern section of Monterrey. In Houston, Guerra's supporters organized protests, rallies, and marches, demanding his immediate release. One week after Guerra was sentenced to death, the Houston Chronicle reported that, "about 300 Hispanics staged a protest outside a Harris County jail where Guerra is being held" [5]. Protesters also converged on the Brownsville-Matamoros Bridge and, in a symbolic gesture of resistance, briefly disrupted the transnational flow of goods and people between the United States and Mexico.

Guerra's conviction and death sentence occurred during a period of heightened racial tensions between the Houston Police Department (HPD) and Black and Chicano/a communities in Houston, especially after the police riots at Texas Southern University (TSU) in 1967; the police assassination of Black Panther Carl Bernard Hampton in 1971; and the police beating and drowning of Vietnam veteran Jose Campos Torres in 1977. As Dwight Watson writes, "The evolutionary changes of the prospering city were on a collision course with the HPD's role as...the patron saint of Jim Crow practices" [6]. On a national level, Aldape Guerra’s case coincided with extreme anti-Mexican immigrant hostility that resurged across the United States in the 1970s. Just three days before jury selection started for Aldape Guerra’s trial, theHouston Postquoted an interview in which Clare Booth Luce, former U.S. Ambassador to Italy and widow of the founder ofTimeandLifemagazines, warned that "[i]nvading aliens posed a greater threat than the atomic bomb" [7].

In 1988, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Guerra's conviction and death sentence (Guerra v. State, 771 S.W.2d 453). The following year, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Guerra's petition for a writ of certiorari (Guerra v. Texas, 492 U.S. 925, 109 S.Ct. 3260, 106 L.Ed.2d 606). In 1992, a few months before Aldape Guerra’s scheduled execution, Sandra Babcock (an attorney with the now defunct Texas Resource Center) began work on Guerra’s case. Babcock quickly realized that Guerra's appellate case needed the human and financial resources of a large law firm. Following the recommendation of former Texas Governor Mark White, Babcock and representatives from the Consulate General of Mexico in Houston asked Scott Atlas, a commercial litigation attorney for Vinson & Elkins, to take over Guerra’s appellate case. Atlas had gained the respect of Governor White and other attorneys in the United States because of his work onRummel v. Estelle(1980), a Supreme Court case that challenged the constitutionality of Texas’ three strikes law.

Atlas and his team of investigators and attorneys uncovered additional evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct, including intimidation of witnesses; manipulation several witness statements by omitting information that exonerated Guerra or by inserting information that implicated him; and withholding exonerating evidence from Guerra's defense attorneys. In September 1992, Atlas filed an amended application for habeas relief in state trial court (Ex Parte Guerra, No. 359805-A) that significantly expanded the findings and arguments of Babcock's initial application. However, Judge Woody Densen unexpectedly rejected the prosecutors' request to postpone the hearing and recommended a denial of relief for Guerra without conducting an evidentiary hearing. The application for writ of habeas corpus was automatically forwarded to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals where, in a one-pageper curium opinion, the court denied Guerra’s right to an evidentiary hearing and denied habeas relief for him (Ex Parte Guerra, No. 24,021-01).

With Guerra's appeals exhausted at the state level, Atlas filed an application for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District In February 1993. Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered an evidentiary hearing for November of that year. Atlas sought to prove to the federal court that Guerra was denied a fair and impartial trial because of police and prosecutor intimidation of witnesses before the trial; improper identification procedures; the prosecutors’ failure to disclose exculpatory evidence; the prosecutors' use of evidence and arguments to the jury that the prosecutors' knew to be false; and, finally, the cumulative effect of prosecutorial error [8].

One year later, in November 1994, Judge Hoyt concluded that Guerra's right to due process had been violated because of police and prosecutorial misconduct and entered an order granting relief to Guerra (Guerra v. Collins, 916 F.Supp. 620). In the conclusion to his issued opinion, Judge Hoyt wrote:

"The police officers' and the prosecutors' actions described in these findings were intentional, were done in bad faith, and are outrageous. These men and women, sworn to uphold the law, abandoned their charge and became merchants of chaos...Their misconduct was designed and calculated to obtain a conviction and another 'notch in their guns' despite the overwhelming evidence that Carrasco was the killer and the lack of evidence pointing to Guerra [9]."

The United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Hoyt’s order (Guerra v. L Johnson, 90 F.3d 1075) and sent the Guerra's case back to the 248th District Court in Harris County, Texas. After a second evidentiary at state trial court, Judge Frank Maloney issued an opinion that incorporated verbatim Judge Hoyt’s opinion of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Maloney also granted Atlas' request to prohibit Harris County prosecutors from using information in a future trial that Atlas had demonstrated was false, coerced, or manipulated by police and prosecutors (The State of Texas vs. Ricardo Aldape Guerra, No. 359, 805). Within days, the Harris County District Attorneys dropped all charges against Guerra and ordered his release.

Guerra lived on Texas' death row for fifteen years, coming twice within hours of execution, until the state released and deported him back to Mexico in 1997. He returned to Mexico a national hero for overcoming what many Mexicans thought to be an unjust Texas legal system intent on punishing undocumented Mexican immigrants. Thousands of Mexicans gathered at the airport to wait for Aldape Guerra’s plane to arrive in Monterrey. "Ricardo was not ready for the emotional reaction he received from his countrymen," Atlas later recalled. "He was unprepared for the mass of humanity reaching out to touch him as if he could heal them" [10].

Only three months after his release from death row, Aldape Guerra died in a car accident on his way home from filming atelenovelabased on his life on Texas' death row. He was thirty-five years old.

References

1982 July 13

Houston Police Officer J.D. Harris is shot and killed by Roberto Carrasco Flores. Flores is shot and killed by police. Ricardo Aldape Guerra is arrested for the crime.

1982 October 4

The State of Texas v. Ricardo Aldape Guerra(cause no. 359,805) commences in the 248th Judicial District, Harris County.

1982 October 12

Guerra found guilty of capital murder.

1982 October 14

Guerra sentenced to death by lethal injection.

1982 October 26

Guerra's Motion for New Trial denied by trial court.

1988

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirms Guerra's death sentence (Guerra v. State, 771 S.W.2d 453, Tex. Crim. App. 1988)

1989

The U.S. Supreme Court denies Guerra's appeal to hear his case (Guerra v. Texas, 492 U.S. 925, 109 S. Ct. 3260, 106 L. Ed. 2d 606. 1989)

1992 May 11

One day before Guerra's scheduled execution, an appeals judge grants Guerra's attorney (Sandra Babcock) more time to prepare a writ of habeas corpus and moves Guerra's execution date to September 24, 1992.

1992 September 16

Guerra's attorneys (now led by Scott J. Atlas) file an amended application for habeas relief that significantly expands the findings and arguments of Babcock's initial application (Ex Parte Guerra, cause no. 359805-A, 248th Judicial District, Harris County, 1992).

1992 September 16

Guerra's attorneys (now led by Scott J. Atlas) file an amended application for habeas relief that significantly expands the findings and arguments of Babcock's initial application (Ex Parte Guerra, cause no. 359805-A, 248th Judicial District, Harris County, 1992).

1993 January

Judge Woody Densen denies Guerra's application for habeas relief without conducting an evidentiary hearing. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denies Guerra’s right to an evidentiary hearing and denies his application for habeas relief (Ex Parte Guerra, cause no. 24,021-01, Tex. Crim. App. 1993).

1993 February

With Guerra's appeals exhausted at the state level, Atlas files an application for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District.

1995 November

Finding overwhelming evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct before and during Guerra’s 1982 capital murder trial, Judge Hoyt orders that Guerra must be retried within 30 days or released from death row (Guerra v. Collins, 916 F. Supp. 620, S.D. Texas, 1995).

1996

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirms Judge Hoyt's ruling that Guerra's right to due process was violated due to police and prosecutorial misconduct (Guerra v. Johnson, 90 F.3d 1075, 5th Cir. 1996).

1997 April

After Harris County prosecutors argued that Judge Hoyt did not allow the state to present several police officers as eyewitnesses, District Judge Werner Voigt grants the state a new hearing. He appoints retired Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Frank Maloney to conduct it. Judge Maloney’s issued opinion incorporates verbatim Judge Hoyt’s opinion about police and prosecutorial misconduct in Guerra’s case (The State of Texas v. Ricardo Aldape Guerra, cause no. 359, 805, 248th Judicial District, Harris County, 1997). Within days of Judge Maloney’s opinion, the Harris County District Attorney’s office dropped all charges against Aldape Guerra. After being released from death row, Guerra immediately returns to Monterrey, Mexico.

1997 August

Guerra dies in a car accident on his way to Monterrey from Mexico City.