Ivan Abner Cantu, a 50-year-old convicted murderer, is set to be executed by Texas officials Wednesday despite concerns about his trial. His advocates argue that prosecutorial and defense misconduct, the discovery of physical evidence and a witness’s later admission to lying during the trial should be enough to pause the execution. Among those who have joined the effort to stay his execution are jurors from his trial and celebrities Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen.
The facts
- Cantu was found guilty Oct. 16, 2001, of capital murder after the jury deliberated for more than nine hours, the Dallas Morning News reported at the time.
- The Dallas native is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time, reports the Austin American-Statesman.
- The Texas appeals court on Tuesday denied Cantu’s request for a stay.
- Cantu’s execution was most recently stayed in April. At that time, two of the jurors who convicted Cantu had submitted declarations with doubts about the case.
- In Texas, Cantu is one of the two people with a scheduled execution. The state of Texas executed eight people last year, according to statistics from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
What is Ivan Cantu accused of?
Cantu was convicted in 2001 of shooting and killing his cousin, 27-year-old James Mosqueda, and Mosqueda’s fiancée, 21-year-old Amy Kitchen, at their North Dallas home on Nov. 4, 2000.
Prosecutors claim Cantu killed the pair while trying to steal drugs and cash from Mosqueda, who was a drug dealer, and Kitchen. Cantu has claimed that a rival drug dealer killed the two over money.
Why do Cantu’s attorneys say he shouldn’t be executed?
Amy Boettcher, Cantu’s girlfriend at the time, testified that he stole and later got rid of Mosqueda’s Rolex, but Cantu’s attorney said the watch was later found by Mosqueda’s family. (The watch was photographed by private investigator Matt Duff, who has since released a podcast about the case named “Cousins by Blood.”) Boettcher also told jurors that Cantu proposed to her the night of the killings with an engagement ring he stole from Kitchen, but Cantu’s attorney wrote in court filings that witnesses claim the couple had announced their engagement and showed off the ring a week before the killings.
Jeff Boettcher, Amy’s brother, testified that Cantu had said he planned to kill Mosqueda. But Jeff Boettcher told a district attorney investigator in 2022 that he “lied” and, according to court documents, was not a credible witness because of his history of drug abuse.
Defense attorneys wrote that prosecutors “failed to disclose impeachment evidence that could have been used to impugn the credibility” of Amy Boettcher, who at the time attorneys said admitted to being a daily drug user. Attorneys also argue that her brother Jeff’s admission he lied on the stand means Cantu was denied due process.
“I remain fully convinced that Ivan Cantu brutally murdered two innocent victims in 2000,” Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis reportedly said this week.
What are activists and jurors saying?
Kim Kardashian, who has taken to clemency work in recent years and has hopes of studying law, has pushed for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to issue a 30-day reprieve for Cantu.
“Urge him to use his power to allow time for new evidence in Ivan’s case to be evaluated, lest Texas execute a wrongfully convicted man,” she tweeted Wednesday to her 75 million followers.
Actor Martin Sheen and anti-capital-punishment activist Sister Helen Prejean appeared on CNN to make their case for saving Cantu.
Sheen said he was convinced of Cantu’s innocence from a YouTube video featuring Duff. “It’s critical that we get a stay for Ivan and that the truth come out. It can save his life and even exonerate him,” Sheen said.
Prejean said Cantu had a “miserable, abysmal defense” in 2001. She called on Abbott to issue a pause to look into Cantu’s case.
“He’s the safety valve in all this,” she said of Abbott.
Jeff Calhoun, foreman of the jury that convicted Cantu in the 2001, told the Texas Tribune that the Boettcher testimonies were the most impactful to the jury. So the fact that there is serious doubt being cast upon their testimony sparked him to call on Abbott to pause and investigate.
“By no means am I protesting the death penalty, by no means am I protesting our judicial system, and I’m certainly not protesting Gov. Abbott,” Calhoun told the Texas Tribune. “I’m simply asking that this be looked at a little deeper before the unripened fruit is taken off the tree.”
Calhoun also wrote an op-ed in the Austin American Statesman in which he says the jury did not hear all the evidence and he felt like he “was fooled.”
Kim Bellware and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
