Skip to footer

In final moments before execution, Texas inmate finds forgiveness

The victim's family forgave Juan Garcia for the 1998 murder of Hugo Solano, a killing that officials say occurred while Garcia was robbing Solano of $8. 

|
Mike Graczyk/AP
Death row inmate Juan Garcia is photographed in a visiting cage, Sept. 2, at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas. Garcia, 35, from Houston, is facing execution Tuesday, for the 1998 robbery and fatal shooting of Hugo Solano. Evidence showed Garcia and three companions stole $8 from the victim.

Juan Martin Garcia was executed Tuesday for fatally shooting another man after robbing him of $8.

Mr. Garcia was pronounced dead from lethal injection at 6:26 p.m. in Huntsville, Texas, for the September 1998 killing of 36-year-old Hugo Solano. Mr. Solano had recently moved to Houston, Texas, from Guadalajara, Mexico, so his children could be educated in the United States.

Garcia apologized to Solano’s wife, Ana, and his daughter who were present at the execution.

“The harm that I did to your dad and husband – I hope this brings you closure,” he said in Spanish from the death chamber gurney, according to the Associated Press. “I never wanted to hurt any of you all.” 

Solano’s relatives sobbed from the death chamber witness room and told Garcia that they loved him. After the execution, Ana Solano said she wished the execution had not taken place because she accepted Garcia’s apology. It came “from his heart,” Solano told AP. “It’s about God. It’s about Jesus.”

Ms. Solano had testified at the penalty phase of Garcia’s trial, saying she did not support a death sentence. The widow said Garcia deserved to live so he could share the lessons from his mistakes with others in similar situations.

Garcia, who was 18 at the time of Solano’s shooting, already had a history with law enforcement. He was linked to at least eight aggravated robberies and two attempted murders only in the few weeks before. 

In a jailhouse interview with AP last month, Garcia seemed to accept his fate. “If it’s God’s will, it’s his will,” said Garcia. 

Eleazar Mendoza testified that Garcia, a street gang member, approached Solano as he was getting in his van to go to work, asked for his money at gunpoint, and then shot him when he refused. Mr. Mendoza was sentenced to 55 years in prison for aggravated robbery.

Garcia, Mendoza, and two other accomplices had already carried out a carjacking when they spotted Solano on Sept. 17, 1998.

Garcia claims that Solano, who was shot four times in the head and neck, was killed accidentally while the two struggled over Garcia’s gun. “He punches me,” Garcia said from death row. “First thing that came through my mind is that the dude is going to try to kill me. He grabbed the gun with both of his hands and it discharged.” 

Garcia denied the robbery of $8, an accompanying felony that made the murder a capital case. Garcia claimed jurors unfairly penalized him because he didn’t take the witness stand in his own defense trial.

The US Supreme Court refused to review Garcia’s case in March and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency request in a 5 to 2 vote last Friday.

Texas typically carries out the death penalty more than any other state. Garcia was the 11th person to be executed in Texas this year, meaning that the state has already carried more executions this year than any other single state within the past ten years. The Lone Star state has three more executions scheduled for 2015. 

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to In final moments before execution, Texas inmate finds forgiveness
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1007/In-final-moments-before-execution-Texas-inmate-finds-forgiveness
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe