Texas Executes Man After Supreme Court Rejects His Last Challenge

When Ramiro Gonzales was sentenced to death in 2006 for the rape and murder of a young woman in Texas, it followed the testimony of a psychiatrist who suggested that Mr. Gonzales could very well commit a similar crime in the future if he remained alive.

But nearly two decades later, the psychiatrist, Dr. Edward Gripon, no longer stands by what he told the jury. In a subsequent report, he wrote that he had testified about a statistic that showed a high likelihood that those who commit sexual assaults will reoffend; the statistic turned out to be unfounded, he said, and after meeting with Mr. Gonzales a few years ago, he no longer believed he posed a threat.

The jury that heard Dr. Gripon’s initial testimony concluded that Mr. Gonzales should be sentenced to death. And the U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to take up a desperate effort by defense lawyers to highlight the psychiatrist’s new reservations and delay the execution.

Mr. Gonzales was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. Central time after a lethal injection. In his last statement, he apologized to the family of the woman he had killed and thanked prison officials for giving him the chance “to learn accountability and to make good.”

His legal case highlighted the unusual importance that Texas places on the contentious practice of predicting whether a person convicted of a capital crime is likely to be violent again.

Mr. Gonzales, 41, was accused of kidnapping the victim, Bridget Townsend, in 2001 when both of them were 18 years old and then sexually assaulting and killing her, a crime that went unsolved for more than a year. He confessed to the killing after he was sentenced to life in prison for the abduction and rape of another woman.