HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected an appeal from a 37-year-old Rio Grande Valley man on death row for beheading his common-law wife’s three children 15 years ago.
Attorneys for John Allen Rubio argued unsuccessfully his lawyers at his 2010 trial in Cameron County were deficient, that the trial court failed to sufficiently pay for a defense investigation of the case and that the Texas death penalty sentencing procedure is unconstitutional.
The state’s highest criminal court Wednesday also refused a second appeal from Rubio as legally improper.
Rubio was convicted twice of the March 11, 2003, slayings of 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio in a Brownsville apartment. The appeals court in 2007 overturned his first conviction.