Juan Garza - History

History

In 1993, Garza was convicted of murdering three people while running a marijuana smuggling and distribution ring based in Brownsville, Texas. He was sentenced to death and appealed on the basis that the jury were apparently not told that they had the power to recommend life imprisonment instead of the death sentence. Garza's lawyers also claimed that it was unfair that the jury were told that Garza was suspected of four murders in Mexico given that, although a prime suspect in these crimes, he had never been charged or convicted of them. On July 13, 1999, federal authorities moved Garza, who had committed the crime in Texas but was under a federal death sentence, out of the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and into Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody. Garza was one of three condemned inmates moved from the Texas state male death row on that day due to the opening of the new federal death row wing in Terre Haute, Indiana. Garza had the TDCJ ID 999074. Garza had the BOP ID# 62728-079. All appeals failed, and on June 19, 2001, Garza was executed at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute by lethal injection.