Man Who Raped & Murdered 3YO Taken Off Of Death Row For Being Stupid Now Eligible For Parole

[Sugar Cookie]

A monster who raped and killed a three-year-old girl has been taken off death row after a higher court ruled his intellectual disability made him ineligible for execution.

A Harris County jury in 2004 sentenced Gallo, then 28, to death in the 2001 killing of Destiny Marie Flores, who was the daughter of his girlfriend.

Prosecutors and Gallo’s defense attorney last April concluded that Gallo had an intellectual disability and the trial court agreed. The Court of Criminal Appeals ruling, either to uphold the judge’s conclusion or counter it entirely, took a year to come down.

The ruling takes Gallo off death row and replaces his sentence with life in prison. He is eligible for parole because a life without parole punishment did not exist at the time of his case.

A dissenting opinion in the 5-4 decision took exception to the intellectual disability claim and said a second legal claim in their legal arguments related to false evidence in the original trial should have prompted a new hearing instead.

Defense attorney Richard Ellis reviewed education records that Gallo had problems in school at a young age and later as an adult as part of preparing the claim.

“He performed badly in school and in work situations — he had jobs that didn’t require any intellectual capacity,” Ellis said.

A medical expert for prosecutors determined Gallo had an intellectual disability as well, leading to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to agree with the disability claim, he said. The findings sent to the appellate court also said a Texas psychologist's testimony during the 2004 trial would have been deemed false by current standards. The appellate court did not issue a ruling on that, saying that the disability claim negated that issue.

Ellis credited the district attorney's office “recognizing the injustice” in Gallo’s case.

“He should not have been on death row,” Ellis continued.

Gallo's trial attorney tried swaying jurors in 2004 that he had mental deficiencies. He also offered an alternative explanation of what happened in 2001, that the child's mother may have killed the girl before going to work.

A judge tasked the jury during that trial with determining whether Gallo had an intellectual disability during the punishment phase, when evidence favorable to the defendant is often shared. Although the jury heard evidence that Gallo had an IQ score under 70, they did not believe that he was disabled.

Gallo laughed and shook his head as the jurors settled on death as his punishment.

Gallo sought a disability claim in 2017 after the U.S. Supreme Court changed how Texas determines intellectual disability.

In the past year, two other Harris County defendants, Syed Rabbani and Joseph Jean, have been taken off death row without protest from prosecutors. Jean had an intellectual disability, while Rabbani's case languished for years despite an expert determining that he was incompetent to be executed.

MSN

 

[Angiebla]

This is bullshit. A toddler knows right from wrong. A person with a 70 IQ is not smart, but knows right from wrong.

Unless he has severe schizophrenia and didnt know reality from fiction, and had a psychotic break like Andrea Yates, he should be held accountable.

 

[agm8478]

So the monster gets to have a life??? Did his victim even get a choice???

 

[cubby]

If he knows that jumping into a wood chipper will kill him then he knows enough to know that killing a small child is wrong.