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Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 20, 2006 19:31:05 GMT -5
A state district judge in Waco set a Sept. 18 hearing date Tuesday to allow attorneys for death row inmate Ramiro Rubi Ibarra to try to prove that he is mentally retarded.
Ibarra, a 52-year-old Mexican citizen, was convicted in Waco in 1997 in the 1987 sexual assault and strangulation death of Waco teenager Maria Zuniga.
While Ibarra did not allege mental retardation during his trial, his attorneys have since filed briefs alleging he has an IQ of about 65. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded inmates are not eligible for the death penalty.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent the case back to the trial court to determine Ibarras mental status.
At the brief hearing Tuesday, 54th State District Judge George Allen gave permission for Gregory J. Kuykendall to practice in Texas and to represent Ibarra at the hearing, along with Austin attorney Russ Hunt Jr.
Kuykendall, an attorney from Tucson, Ariz., who said he is being paid to represent Ibarra by the Mexican government, asked the judge for a hearing date toward the end of the year.
He said he would need more time to find witnesses from rural Mexico, where Ibarra grew up, to "establish adaptive behavior deficits" from his childhood.
(source: Waco Herald-Tribune)
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