The state of Texas has executed 50-year-old Ivan Cantu, who was convicted of murdering his cousin and his cousin's fiancée.
His death by lethal injection came just hours after Idaho delayed the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech because a team of doctors reportedly couldn't find a vein into which they could insert the IV containing the lethal dose.
Cantu died more than 20 years after his conviction, while Creech, 73, is one of the country's longest-serving death row inmates.
Until his final moments, criminal justice reform advocates including Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen advocated for a halt to Cantu's execution.
His legal team has argued that Cantu was framed for the double murder in 2000 and that new evidence proved his innocence.
The state of Texas has executed 50-year-old Ivan Cantu, who was convicted of murdering his cousin and his cousin's fiancée
The execution of Thomas Eugene Creech, 73, was postponed Wednesday in Idaho after the medical team failed to find a vein eight times
Cantu died Wednesday evening by lethal injection. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, his time of death was recorded as 6:47 p.m.
Until his death, Cantu's supporters fought to stop the execution so that the inmate could argue that he was being deprived of a fair trial.
In his telling, he was blamed by those who were actually responsible for the murder of his cousin James Mosqueda and Mosquenda's fiancé Amy Kitchen in 2000.
Before his death, the convicted murderer received the support of prominent criminal justice reform advocate Kim Kardashian and actor Martin Sheen, who had hoped to prevent the judicial killing.
Cantu's fingerprint was found on the magazine in the gun used to kill Mosqueda and Kitchen.
DNA analysis also showed that blood on jeans found in Cantu's trash can belonged to the victims.
Since his trial, however, Cantu and his lawyers have alleged that a key state witness gave false testimony at trial, a claim that has since been retracted.
They also allege that Cantu was the victim of ineffective assistance of counsel, due in large part to his trial attorney's failure to call a single witness during the guilt-innocence phase of his trial.
But prosecutors deny these and other allegations, repeatedly arguing that they saw or heard nothing that would “call into question the integrity of the guilty verdict.”
Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis says he remains “completely convinced” of Cantu's guilt.
“I firmly believe that justice has been done in this case and that the verdict of a Collin County jury should be carried out on February 28,” he said before the execution.
Creech's execution was delayed in the latest example of a state struggling to carry out the trial because of an inability to set up an IV line
Unlike Cantu, Creech did not die in Idaho on Wednesday evening. He has been on death row for more than four decades.
The 73-year-old was first imprisoned in 1974 and has since been convicted of five murders in three states. He is suspected of several other crimes.
He had already been sentenced to life in prison in 1981 when he beat 22-year-old fellow inmate David Dale Jensen to death. For this crime he would be sentenced to execution.
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Three members of the medical team attempted to set up an IV eight times, Corrections Director Josh Tewalt said at a subsequent news conference. In some cases they did not have access to the vein, in other cases they had concerns about vein quality. They tried to injure his arms, legs, hands and feet. At one point, a member of the medical team left to collect more supplies. The warden announced at 10:58 a.m. that he was stopping the execution
The Idaho Department of Corrections said Creech's death sentence was about to expire and that it was considering next steps. Creech's lawyers immediately filed a new motion for a stay in U.S. District Court, saying the “completely botched execution attempt” demonstrated the department's “inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution.”
“This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are tasked with carrying out an execution,” the Idaho Federal Defender Services said in a written statement. “Exactly the kind of mishap we have warned the state and the courts about could happen if an attempt is made to execute one of the country’s oldest death row inmates.”