Texas inmate wants to delay execution to donate kidney

HOUSTON — A Texas inmate who is about to be put to dying in lower than two weeks requested that his execution be delayed so he can donate a kidney.

Ramiro Gonzales is scheduled to obtain a deadly injection on July 13 for fatally taking pictures 18-year-old Bridget Townsend, a southwest Texas lady whose stays have been discovered practically two years after she vanished in 2001.

In a letter despatched Wednesday, Gonzales’ legal professionals, Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann, requested Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to grant a 30-day reprieve so the inmate might be thought-about a residing donor “to someone who is in urgent need of a kidney transplant.”

His attorneys have made a separate request to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for a 180-day reprieve associated to the kidney donation.

In their request to Abbott, Gonzales’ attorneys included a letter from Cantor Michael Zoosman, an ordained Jewish clergyman from Maryland who has been corresponding with Gonzales.

“There has been no doubt in my mind that Ramiro’s desire to be an altruistic kidney donor is not motivated by a last-minute attempt to stop or delay his execution. I will go to my grave believing in my heart that this is something that Ramiro wants to do to help make his soul right with his God,” Zoosman wrote.

Gonzales’ attorneys say he’s been decided to be an “excellent candidate” for donation after being evaluated by the transplant workforce on the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. The analysis discovered Gonzales has a uncommon blood sort, that means his donation may gain advantage somebody who might need issue discovering a match.

“Virtually all that remains is the surgery to remove Ramiro’s kidney. UTMB has confirmed that the procedure could be completed within a month,” Posel and Schonemann wrote to Abbott.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice insurance policies enable inmates to make organ and tissue donations. Agency spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez mentioned Gonzales was deemed ineligible after making a request to be a donor earlier this yr. She didn’t give a motive, however Gonzales’ legal professionals mentioned of their letter that the company objected due to the pending execution date.

Abbott’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to an electronic mail looking for remark.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is about to vote July 11 on Gonzales’ request to that company.

Gonzales’ attorneys have made a separate request asking the board to commute his dying sentence to a lesser penalty.

They additionally requested that his execution not proceed if his spiritual adviser isn’t allowed to each maintain his hand and place one other hand on his coronary heart throughout his execution. A two-day federal trial on this request was set to start Tuesday in Houston.

Gonzales’ request to delay his execution for an organ donation is uncommon amongst dying row inmates within the U.S., Robert Dunham, govt director of the Death Penalty Information Center, mentioned Friday.

In 1995, condemned assassin Steven Shelton in Delaware donated a kidney to his mom.

In 2013, Ronald Phillips’ execution in Ohio was delayed so his request to donate a kidney to his mom might be reviewed. Phillips’ request was later denied and he was executed in 2017.

“Skeptics will think this is simply an attempt to delay the execution. But if that were the case, I think you’d be seeing many requests,” mentioned Dunham, whose group takes no place on capital punishment however has criticized the way in which states perform executions. “The history of executions in the United States shows that people don’t make offers of organ donations for the purpose of delaying an execution that will still take place.”

In a report, the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that serves because the nation’s transplant system underneath contract with the federal authorities, listed numerous moral issues about organ donations from condemned prisoners. They embody whether or not such donations might be tied to prisoners receiving preferential therapy or that such organs might be morally compromised due to their ties to the dying penalty.