


A Texas man was removed from death row after a court ruled he was too intellectually disabled to be executed.
Tomas Gallo was sentenced to death in 2004 for murdering and sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. His defense in 2004 argued that he shouldn’t be executed due to his intellectual disability but was initially rejected, the Texas Tribune reported. On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the decision and ruled 5-4 that Gallo was exempted from execution due to his intellectual disability.
Gallo’s attorney, Richard Ellis, said the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was vital in the eventual decision.
“They recognized this was an injustice,” he said. “They recognized the long and overwhelming documentation that was provided to show Mr. Gallo’s intellectual disability.”
The United States Supreme Court banned the use of capital punishment on the intellectually disabled on Eighth Amendment grounds, finding it fell under the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. Gallo’s execution was originally approved due to a controversial evaluation from psychologist George Denkowski.
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In 2011, the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists reprimanded and barred Denkowski from further evaluations after other psychologists criticized his methods. In the case of Gallo, the psychologist said that his IQ test score must be higher than the tested number due to his “low socioeconomic antisocial lifestyle” and his being Hispanic.
Gallo’s sentence is now serving life in prison.