Texas Plans To Execute Ramiro Gonzales, Despite Reversal From Doctor Who Helped Send Him To Death Row

After reevaluating Gonzales, psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gripon wrote that he “does not pose a threat of future danger to society."

In 2006, Ramiro Gonzales was sentenced to death in Texas as punishment for kidnapping, raping and killing Bridget Townsend when they were both 18 years old.

There were indications that Gonzales did not represent the “worst of the worst” kind of criminal that the death penalty is supposedly reserved for. Like many on death row, he endured horrific abuse and neglect as a child. He turned to drugs and alcohol as a teen to cope; he killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. After he was arrested for sexually assaulting a different woman, Gonzales confessed to the murder. He had turned 18 two months before the killing, making him barely old enough to be legally eligible for a death sentence.

In Texas, jurors on death penalty cases are instructed to predict whether the defendant is likely to commit future acts of violence. A psychiatrist, Dr. Edward Gripon, was pivotal in convincing jurors that Gonzales derived pleasure from sexual assault, was unlikely to stop, and was a poor candidate for rehabilitation. Fifteen years later, Gripon visited Gonzales on death row and reevaluated him. This led Gripon to reverse his opinion, citing a prior reliance on a debunked statistic and a witness statement that has since been recanted. In his second evaluation, Gripon wrote that “it is my opinion, to a reasonable psychiatric probability, that he [Gonzales] does not pose a threat of future danger to society.”

It was the only time that Gripon had ever issued a report changing his opinion in a death penalty case, the psychiatrist told The Marshall Project in 2022. Despite Gripon’s dramatic reversal, Texas plans to execute 41-year-old Gonzales on Wednesday, by lethal injection.

Gonzales has expressed deep remorse for his crime. “I know my apologies cannot even begin to bring you peace of mind and healing, but I feel that I should still tell you how sorry I am for all the pain and anguish you have suffered because of my actions,” he wrote in an apology letter to the Townsend family in 2022, which was excerpted in a petition for clemency filed by Gonzales’ lawyers earlier this month. “I am sorry, deeply sorry, that I took what was so precious to you and I know there’s nothing I can do or say to make it better.”