(CN) — A Texas death row inmate can pursue an appeal of his sentence, the Fifth Circuit ruled, because his former attorneys didn't explore evidence that he has fetal alcohol syndrome.
Carlos Trevino was convicted in 1997 of murdering 15-year-old Linda Salinas. Police found Salinas' body in a park in San Antonio, Texas, on June 10, 1996, a day after she had gotten into a car with Trevino, his cousin Juan Gonzales and three other friends.
Instead of driving the girl to a fast-food restaurant as they had promised, they took her to the park and three of them raped her, according to the case record.
Gonzales testified for the prosecution that Trevino did not rape Salinas but he held her down while someone else did.
Gonzales also testified that Trevino urged him to join in the gang rape but he refused, that Trevino talked about the need to eliminate Salinas as a witness, and that he bragged after the murder that he "learned how to kill in prison" and "learned how to use a knife in prison."
An autopsy showed Salinas died from a stab wound to the neck. Forensic experts found fibers from Trevino's slacks on her clothes and determined Trevino couldn't be ruled out as the source of DNA found in her panties.
During the punishment phase of Trevino's capital murder trial, his attorney only called one witness, Trevino's aunt, Juanita Trevino DeLeon. She testified that Trevino had a rough childhood—his family was on welfare, he dropped out of high school and his mother was an alcoholic, according to a rehash of the case in the Fifth Circuit's July 11 ruling.
The trial attorney first met DeLeon in the Bexar County Courthouse basement during a lunch break in the proceedings, before she testified that afternoon, according to Trevino's second amended federal habeas complaint.
The trial court sentenced Trevino to death after he rejected a plea offer that would have spared his life. The court appointed Trevino a different attorney to handle his direct state appeal, and a third attorney to seek state collateral relief.
Neither of Trevino's state appellate attorneys raised the argument that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel based on his trial attorney not investigating potentially mitigating evidence that he suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.
After the trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief, Trevino filed a federal habeas petition and was appointed another attorney, who claimed for the first time that his trial attorney was ineffective for not rounding up and presenting mitigating evidence.
The attorney told U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio that his own investigation revealed Trevino's mother had abused alcohol while pregnant with him, that Trevino weighed four pounds at birth, and that he had suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome symptoms throughout his life.
Rodriguez stayed the federal case to let Trevino raise the claim in the state trial court, which ruled that because he had not made the argument in his initial post-conviction proceedings, he was barred from making it.
Rodriguez denied his federal habeas petition on the same procedural grounds. So did the Fifth Circuit.