While serving time for an unrelated assault in 2002, Gonzales confessed to the rape and murder of Bridget Townsend in Medina County, west of San Antonio, and guided police to her remains.
In a statement on Monday, Gonzales’ attorneys, Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann, called their client “a man who today is, in almost every sense, a different person than he was when he killed Bridget Townsend in 2001.”
A pleading filed this month by Gonzales’ legal team challenging his death sentence asserted that he didn’t receive effective counsel during his post-conviction review.
Gonzales’ pleading this month cited research about his childhood conducted by Kate Porterfield, a clinical psychologist who studies the impact of trauma on children.
The failure to properly investigate and present this evidence during Gonzales’ initial habeas petition showed that his lawyer was ineffective, his current legal team argued while asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider its dismissal.
They cited multiple studies and medical or legal associations that have proposed raising the age for death penalty eligibility from 18 to 21, based on brain development.
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