Post by CCADP on Apr 16, 2006 14:36:09 GMT -5
Officials: Witness' credibility is key: Probe hinges on felon who says wrong man was executed in 1993, prosecutors say.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Houston Chronicle
Byline: Lise Olsen
Apr. 14--As the Bexar County prosecutors investigate whether an innocent man was executed in 1993, a key piece of their case involves the credibility of a key witness in the case -- a convicted accomplice and felon who waited more than 20 years before providing an account of the crime that could exonerate Ruben Cantu. David Garza, 15 at the time of a brutal attack on two men in a robbery-murder in San Antonio, told a homicide detective in 1985 that he saw the 17-year-old Cantu running from the scene after shots were fired, according to a police report that Garza says was falsified. Today, Garza, along with the lone eyewitness to the murder, and an alibi witness who never testified, all say that Cantu was wrongfully executed. All three men failed to speak out before Cantu's death by injection Aug. 24, 1993. "We know that he has credibility problems," said First Assistant District Attorney Clifford C. Herberg Jr. of Garza. "We know that he has not told you the truth ... we know that he lies about even the littlest things and he has given conflicting versions of what happened over the years."
Herberg said that Garza also gave additional statements about the crime that Herberg refused to disclose because of the ongoing investigation.
So far only the alibi witness, Eloy Gonzales, has provided a full statement for Bexar County investigators. The eyewitness, Juan Moreno, who was shot and wounded in the attack, has not been interviewed.
Garza has refused to cooperate. Case reopened last year
Late last year, the Bexar County District Attorney reopened the old capital murder case after the Houston Chronicle published an independent investigation of the murder. As part of its investigation, the Chronicle interviewed Garza and obtained a copy of a sworn statement in which he details his involvement in the crime and attempts to clear Cantu.
In an interview this week in prison, Garza told the Chronicle that he stood by that statement, which is being published today on Chron.com with Garza's consent. "I might be a criminal, but I'm no liar -- I have nothing to hide," Garza said in an interview Monday at the Stiles Unit in Beaumont. "I don't have anything against thedeath penalty if it's somebody that did the crime. But now you're talking about someone that's innocent and that's a different story." In his sworn statement, Garza admits for the first time that he entered the house on the night of the murder and assaulted one of the victims, though he says a different neighborhood teen carried the murder weapon and fired the fatal shots. "Although Ruben Cantu was also charged I would like to say that he was not with me that night and he was not involved in this robbery in any way," Garza said in the statement. Garza has given repeated interviews to the Chronicle about the case. However, Bexar County authorities say Garza has refused to provide the 2005 statement to them or to take a lie detector test. And when a Bexar County prosecutor and an investigator visited him in December, Garza refused to speak on the record. Garza has told the Chronicle that he felt prosecutors approached him aggressively and refused to identify themselves at first.
An audio tape of the first part of the December interview shows that the Bexar County officials provided their names and titles before Garza asked them to turn off their recorder, saying he wanted to go off the record "for now." Garza blasts DA office
On Monday, Garza said no one told him who was at the prison to see him before he was brought out of his cell for the December interview, though he acknowledged they later provided names. Garza said he remains convinced that the Bexar County District Attorney's office is too biased to conduct a fair review of the case. "What the DA's office is doing is making attacks -- shooting the messenger David Garza," said Keith S. Hampton, a prominent Austin defense lawyer who has volunteered to represent Garza. "They ought to reholster their gun and think a little more carefully. There is no reason for the crime victim and the man who committed the crime to be corroborating each other." Garza was charged in 1985 in connection with a robbery and murder in the South San Antonio neighborhood where he and Cantu both lived.
He pleaded guilty to the robbery and went to prison at 15 on a 20-year sentence. Cantu was sentenced to death and executed. In his 2005 statement, Garza admits that he and another teen snuck into a house under construction Nov. 8, 1984, and surprised the two men inside who were sleeping on mattresses on the floor -- Pedro Gomez, 25, and Moreno, 19, Mexican citizens who were building the house for a relative. 'Just went crazy'
According to Garza, Gomez woke up quickly and reached for a .38-caliber revolver hidden under his pillow. Then the teen with Garza "just went crazy" -- he emptied his rifle and then picked up Gomez's gun and fired at Moreno, who barely survived to testify. Some details Garza provided are corroborated by testimony and police reports about the case. For example, Garza says the other teen fired both the rifle and Gomez's gun, a .38-caliber. Inside the house, investigators recovered both .22-caliber bullets and cartridges, likely to have come from a .22-caliber Marlin rifle, as well as .38-caliber bullets likely from a Colt revolver, based on testimony from Richard Stengel, then firearm and tool mark examiner for the Bexar County Regional Crime Lab. The weapons were never found. Nearly four months after the crime, Moreno identified mug shots of Garza and Cantu. However, no physical evidence tied either man to the scene, trial records show. Garza did not testify. Moreno told the Chronicle last year that it was not Cantu who shot him or his friend -- but police persuaded him to implicate Cantu after showing him his photo three separate times. Attorneys who represent Moreno now say that the DA has made it difficult for him to cooperate with their investigation because they have said they may prosecute him for murder by perjury. On March 5, 1985, Garza, unaccompanied by a lawyer or by a parent, initially denied to a homicide detective that he was involved, according to a police report. But in the same interview Garza "told me he had been there at the scene, but that he had stayed outside," a detective wrote. "He said he heard some shots, then saw Ruben (Cantu) ... come running out of the house." In his 2005 statement, Garza admits he initially lied about being outside to protect himself. But Garza said detectives "were trying to connect Ruben Cantu to the robbery" and police fabricated the rest. "I never told police that after I heard gunshots, I saw Ruben run out of the house," he said. Herberg said he found the attack on the credibility of the homicide detective to be unbelievable. "To believe David Garza you have to believe that all the people who had hard-working lives in law enforcement ... are lying, and not David Garza," he said. Another teen not charged
In his statement, Garza says another neighborhood teen was his armed accomplice and that he never named Cantu. That person has denied his guilt to both the Chronicle and to Bexar County authorities. He is not being named by the Chronicle and has not been charged. That same man also is the only person who claims that Cantu confessed to him, according to interviews and court records. The man also took a lie detector test at the time and recently passed another test in which he denied his involvement, Herberg said. Herberg has refused to release records related to the lie detector tests in response to a public information request by the Chronicle because of the pending investigation. lise.olsen@chron.com
Copyright (c) 2006, Houston Chronicle
Article CJ144487470