Just after 5 a.m. on November 12, 2002, Jesus Gonzalez and John Commisky were shot to death inside a house in Corpus Christi, Texas. Both men were 19 years old, and investigators said they were killed in their beds.
Alberta Ortiz owned the house on Mary Street, and she and her grandson, Antonio Ortiz, escaped unharmed. Alberta Ortiz died of unrelated causes two weeks later.
Antonio Ortiz told police that he was sleeping in a front room when he was awakened to the sound of running. He said he saw two men dressed in black and wearing ski masks firing guns into a back bedroom. He ran to his grandmother’s bedroom, where he said he stayed until the shooting stopped.
In his statement to the 911 operator and to the police who responded, Ortiz said he could not identify either of the two men who entered the house. He also said he could not identify anyone inside the small, dark-colored SUV that the assailants entered before leaving the crime scene.
Police believed the shooting was gang related. During the next three weeks, detectives and officers with the police department’s gang unit interviewed Ortiz several times. He repeatedly said he couldn’t identify the assailants. Ortiz also viewed several photo arrays and told officers he was unable to make an identification.
In early December, Ortiz told a detective that he glimpsed 26-year-old Joe David Padron when Padron removed his ski mask as he entered the waiting SUV. He also named Martin Robles as the other man he saw inside the house. (Padron’s photo had been included in some of the earlier photo arrays viewed by Ortiz.)
On December 11, 2002, Ortiz received a subpoena to appear before a grand jury on December 12. Before testifying at the grand jury, Ortiz viewed a photo array that included Padron. He identified Padron, then testified at the grand jury that he recognized Padron from the incident at his grandmother’s house.
Police arrested Padron and Robles that day, charging both men with capital murder.
Robles went to trial first, in late August 2003, in Nueces County District Court. The jury convicted him of capital murder. He was sentenced to death and executed on August 10, 2011.
Padron’s trial began on October 11, 2004. No physical or forensic evidence connected him to the killings. The state’s theory was that the crimes were motivated by drug and gang activity, part of the ongoing rivalry between a gang called La Cuare—whose members included Gonzalez, Commisky, and Ortiz—and another called Raza Unida, whose members included Robles and Padron.
Gavino Moreno testified that he sold crack with Commisky, Gonzalez, and Ortiz from the house on Mary Street. He said that the Raza Unida maintained a heavy presence in the neighborhood, forcing the men to pay the gang a cut of their sales. “[I]f you don't pay a percentage, then they deal with you,” he said. Moreno was at the house with the others when the assailants approached. He said he ran off and could not make an identification.
Ortiz testified he saw Padron as he entered the SUV’s interior, “[bec]ause he took his—they were taking the mask off, and the light turned on from the SUV, the dome light.”
Ortiz also said that he had seen the men earlier in the incident, as they shot into one of the rear bedrooms. He testified that Padron was one of the shooters in the house and had fired a 9 millimeter handgun.
Ortiz testified that he recognized Padron in part based on his slouching posture (At Robles’s trial, Ortiz had testified that he recognized Roble because of his slouch.)
Ortiz said he was familiar with Padron’s appearance because he had seen him on the street a few times and once at a nightclub.
At the time of the trial, Ortiz had two felony indictments pending. He testified that he expected to receive probation for those charges as part of a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against Padron and Robles.
Along with Ortiz’s testimony, the state also presented testimony from three jailhouse informants—Robert Lara, Francisco Cabrialez, and Vino Garcia— who each testified that Padron had admitted his involvement in the killings. Like Padron, the men were members of the Raza Unida gang.
At the time of the shootings, Lara was already in the Nueces County Jail; his trial on a charge of aggravated robbery was to begin on the day the men were killed. The next day, after jury selection, Lara offered information about the two deaths in exchange for a plea deal. At his plea hearing, Lara said that Felix Cantu ordered the shooting, in retaliation for an incident against Raza Unida a week earlier by Commisky and Gonzalez, and that Felix was joined by his brother, James Cantu, “some dude by the name of Meme,” and the father of Gabriel Ramos, known as “Jefe.” Lara said at the hearing that he did not believe Padron was involved.
Lara’s sentencing on the robbery conviction was then postponed, and he testified at Padron’s trial that he met with detectives on November 21, 2002, where he said that Robles and James Cantu were the shooters.
Lara was placed in the same jail cellblock as Padron on January 9, 2023. He later contacted prosecutors and testified that he told them he could corroborate Ortiz’s statement. After Lara testified at Roble’s trial, his sentence on the armed robbery conviction was reduced to two years in prison.
Lara testified at Padron’s trial that Robles and Padron argued after their arrests about how the police had found them, and whether there was a snitch in the jail. He testified that Padron gave an account of the killings. “He just said they came in through the unlocked gate, the chain was around—the chain was just wrapped around the gate, no lock. It had a lock, but it was just unwrapped, the chain, [and he] walked in through the side of the house, went around to the kitchen area where the light was turned on. They just creeped in the house.”
He said Padron told him that he and Robles went into the room and they just shot Commisky and Gonzalez using a “high-caliber assault rifle and something about a larger caliber, something like that.”
This was not the first time Lara had cooperated with Prosecutor James Sales. Lara testified that he had previously told the state that another gang member, Ramiro Saldana, was seeking information about Sales’s wife that he could use as blackmail to cause a mistrial.
Prior to testifying against Padron, Lara had reached out to Padron’s legal team, and attorney Douglas Tinker visited him in jail. Tinker brought a recording device into the jail, and captured Lara offering to refuse to testify against Padron if Tinker could delay his transfer to the state prison system. (Lara agreed to be recorded.)
During Lara’s cross-examination, Tinker asked him about this incident in an effort to show Lara’s lack of integrity. During his redirect, Sales turned the issue around, pointing out that Tinker had possibly violated jail policy by bringing in the recording device.
Garcia testified that it was common knowledge in the jail that helping Sales on his cases could lead to sentence reductions and other benefits. He said he approached Sales and offered to testify against Padron and Robles. He testified that he heard the two men admit to the murders.
Garcia testified, “[a]nd Mr. Robles told Padron, ‘You think you’re a killer? You ain’t no killer,’ just because of the last case he had,” an apparent reference to Padron’s previous conviction for involuntary manslaughter when he was 16 years old.
Tinker objected to the use of this inadmissible evidence of a prior bad act and asked for a mistrial. Judge Longoria declined the request but told the jury to disregard that part of Garcia’s testimony.
At the time, Garcia was awaiting trial, also on a charge of aggravated robbery, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison. After testifying, he received a sentence of 15 years in prison.
Two sheriff’s deputies testified for the defense that Lara and Garcia were not trustworthy. Another deputy, who worked with a drug task force, said that he had bought drugs from Ortiz, and that Ortiz’s testimony, even under oath, was not to be believed.
After this testimony, the state brought in Cabrialez as a rebuttal witness.
Cabrialez had been in jail awaiting trial on a capital murder charge, and he testified he heard Padron admit to the murders. “We were talking about our cases ... I was telling him about my case, stuff that happened during my case, how they identified me and everything, and he just told me, ‘No pun intended, but I only unmasked myself one time, and I won’t make the same mistake again.’”
Cabrialez said he did not receive any plea or sentencing benefits in exchange for his testimony, although the state did agree to send pictures of him to his family.
During his closing argument, Sales said that the benefits given to Lara were motivated, in part, by gratitude for Lara’s alleged assistance in saving his wife’s life. “Was I too lenient with Robert Lara?” he said. “Some of you may think so, but would you save your spouse’s life? Maybe you wouldn’t.”
Tinker objected, on the grounds of hearsay and relevance. Judge Jose Longoria initially overruled the objections, but later told the jury to disregard Sales’s comments, without specifically telling the jurors what comments to disregard.
Sales also questioned Tinker’s integrity regarding the incident with the recording device.
“I’m in a little bit of an awkward position ... [be]cause I like Mr. Tinker personally,” he said. “However... he’s willing to violate the rules … he’s willing to lie to jail personnel by taking that in there.”
Padron did not testify, and Sales appeared to dance around this issue during his closing argument.
“What did Francisco Cabrialez testify to you about what Joe David Padron said to him about unmasking himself? ‘Hey, I only unmasked myself once, I won’t do that next time’” What does that mean? Does that mean, ‘Oh, I will never kill again?’ Do you honestly believe that that’s what that statement, with a straight face, could you look into a mirror and tell yourself, ‘Yeah, I believe that’s what he meant, that he’d never kill again,’ or did he mean that, ‘Next time I’ll keep my mask on.’ What do you think he meant? Next time he'd do a better job of committing the crime. There was not an expression of remorse in that statement that he made to Mr. Cabrialez. It was a statement of …”
Tinker objected, arguing that Sales was commenting on Padron’s decision not to testify. Judge Longoria overruled the objection.
Sales again returned to Padron’s alleged lack of remorse. Tinker again objected. Judge Longoria did not rule on the objection but told Sales to stick to the facts.
On October 19, 2004, the jury convicted Padron of three counts of capital murder. Although there were only two victims, one court was for murdering Gonzales and Commisky during the same criminal transaction, and the other two were for killing each victim while committing or attempting to commit a felony. After the sentencing hearing, the jury recommended Padron receive life in prison, rather than the death penalty.
In the weeks after the conviction, Cabrialez wrote to Padron’s mother, Tina Reyes, and said he had planned to testify that Padron wasn’t involved in the shooting. Cabrialez said it was part of an effort to embarrass Sales, but at the last minute he changed his mind, angered by Padron’s courtroom demeanor. “Senora, I’m only letting you know why it happened,” Cabrialez wrote. “I know I was wrong. I apologize to you and the rest of your family. I hope to be able to correct that wrong.”
Padron moved for a new trial, which the trial court denied. The Court of Appeals of Texas affirmed the lower-court ruling on Aug. 14, 2008. The three-judge panel said that Cabrialez’s letter and other evidence suggesting he might have falsely testified was either hearsay or unclear. The appellate court also rejected Padron’s arguments that Judge Longoria erred in not declaring a mistrial over the mention of Padron’s previous conviction and Sales’s comments regarding Padron’s alleged lack of remorse.
On June 15, 2022, Padron, represented by Danice Obregon, filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition referenced Cabrialez’s letters and other issues raised in Padron’s earlier appeal but also included new evidence of innocence, based on a statement by Roel Vasquez.
Vasquez said that he drove an acquaintance named Manuel “Meme” Hernandez to a federal court hearing in Brownsville, Texas, on April 28, 2003. During the drive back, Vasquez said, the two men discussed the Mary Street murders. According to Vasquez, Hernandez said Padron was innocent. Vasquez asked Hernandez how he knew. Hernandez told Vasquez that he was the driver of the SUV, which he had borrowed from his girlfriend.
The habeas petition also said that Lara had been acting as an agent of the state during any conversations he had with Padron. At Roble’s trial, Lara had described his work as an “investigation,” and the petition said that the state encouraged him to provide prosecutors with information, “creating a situation likely to induce Padron to make incriminating statements without assistance of counsel.”
The petition also said that the state had allowed Lara to testify falsely. At Robles’s trial, Lara testified that Padron told him details of the crime. At Padron’s trial, he testified he overheard a conversation between Padron and Robles.
The petition also said that Sales had committed misconduct by improperly vouching for Lara’s credibility and by attacking the behavior of Tinker, a fellow officer of the court. The petition said that Tinker, who died in 2008, provided ineffective representation by not properly objecting to these statements and preserving them for later appeal.
During this period, Obregon was appointed chief public defender in Nueces County. She recused herself, and the Innocence Project of Texas began representing Padron.
Judge Inna Klein held an evidentiary hearing on February 21, and March 31, 2023. By then, Padron had amended his petition to also include expert reports on eyewitness misidentification and jailhouse informants.
At the hearing, Vasquez testified about his conversation with Hernandez, who told him Robles, Mark Valencia, and Oscar Cantu joined him in the attack. Hernandez said Padron was not involved, Vasquez testified.
Hernandez did not testify, but in a deposition, he denied any part in the shooting but acknowledged that his girlfriend at the time drove a dark-colored SUV that he often borrowed.
Vasquez testified that he did not come forward until 2019 because of long-simmering tension between Padron and himself. The two men belonged to different factions of Raza Unida, Vasquez testified, and he also didn’t want to be labeled a “snitch.”
Cabrialez testified that he falsely testified against Padron and that he never heard Padron incriminate himself. He said that he initially declined to cooperate when Sales first approached him about testifying against Padron, because he thought Padron was innocent. Cabrialez said that after he decided to testify against Padron, he learned details of the case from Robles’s discovery packet.
Saldana, who was with Lara in the Nueces County Jail, testified that Lara told him he was going to lie about Robles and Padron to get himself a better deal. Saldana also said that he had never concocted a scheme to blackmail Sales, as Lara testified. He said that Sales had given him a favorable plea deal and also written a letter on his behalf to the parole board. (“Yet Sales had Lara testify to this second lie and Sales himself improperly repeated this lie to the jury in [his] final argument in an attempt to bolster Lara’s credibility,” Padron’s attorneys wrote in a post-hearing brief. “Sales had to have known better.”)
Dr. Nancy Franklin, a professor of psychology at Stony Brook University and expert on eyewitness identification, testified at the hearing about the unreliability of Ortiz’s eventual identification of Padron. She said much of the research about misidentification hadn’t been available at the time of Padron’s trial.
She testified that Ortiz failed to identify Padron in earlier lineups, and that his eventual identification was likely the result of faulty memory, stress, and coercive influences.
Padron had been released from a 10-year prison sentence only 88 days before the shootings on Mary Street. Franklin said that Ortiz’s limited exposure to Padron during that brief period meant that Padron was essentially a stranger, which increased the likelihood of a misidentification.
Ortiz said he glimpsed Padron’s face as it was lit by a low-watt dome lamp in the SUV. Franklin said the poor, single-source lighting at night, coupled with the stress of the shooting, could contribute to a misidentification.
In addition, Franklin said law enforcement used coercive and suggestive procedures during its interactions with Ortiz. They didn’t believe his initial denials that he couldn’t identify the shooters. They reduced his exposure on his pending charges, and they used Padron’s nickname—Magic—during the viewing, indicating some level of interference.
Russell Covey, a law professor at Georgia State University, testified as an expert on jailhouse informants.
He said the testimony of Lara, Garcia, and Cabrialez had hallmarks of unreliability. He said their testimony didn’t include any information that wasn’t already available to law enforcement. Covey said research showed that jurors adhered to a “truth-default theory,” meaning that they assume witnesses for the state are testifying truthfully. In addition, he said the testimony of most jailhouse informants involve a defendant’s purported confession to the crime. These “secondary confessions” are hard to disprove on cross-examination, and they reinforce juror perceptions of other evidence tying defendants to a crime, he said.
Covey testified that under changes made to Texas’s discovery laws made in 2017, the state would have had to disclose Lara’s history of cooperating with law enforcement and the benefits he received for that cooperation.
On September 1, 2023, Judge Klein released her findings of fact and conclusions, recommending that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Padron’s habeas petition.
Although Judge Klein wrote that Padron had not established his actual innocence, she said that he had shown that the evidence used to convict him—Ortiz’s identification and the testimony of the jailhouse informants— was unreliable.
Judge Klein said that the state had “unknowingly presented” the “false and misleading testimony” of Lara and Cabrialez, violating Padron’s right to due process. She also found that Ortiz’s identification, based on the research presented by Franklin, was not reliable. Her ruling also said that Tinker did not provide ineffective representation and that Padron’s conviction for three counts of murder in the death of two people violated the double jeopardy clause found in the Fifth Amendment.
After Judge Klein’s ruling, Padron’s attorneys and the Nueces County District Attorney’s Office stipulated that: new research on misidentification exposed flaws in Ortiz’s testimony; Lara had testified falsely; and that this false testimony violated Padron’s right to due process.
Padron was released on bond on October 6, 2023, while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals considered his case.
On April 16, 2025, the appellate court granted Padron’s petition, vacating his conviction. The court said the state had unknowingly used false testimony. Three of the nine judges dissented. Regarding the testimony of the jailhouse informants, the dissenters wrote: “The Court should be truly convinced of its falsity, not merely persuaded of the existence of a risk that it might have been false.”
A judge dismissed Padron’s case on October 7, 2025.
Padron said after the dismissal, “I’m enjoying my freedom after so many years. I feel blessed.” He said his goal is to be a mentor for troubled youth people. “There’s so many people wrongfully convicted in prison today, because they don’t have the money,” he said.
Mike Ware, one of Padron’s attorneys and the executive director of the Innocence Project of Texas, said: “Joe David is innocent, he should never have been charged. He should never have been made to face the death penalty, which he was. He should never have been convicted. Obviously, he should’ve never been in prison.” Although Ware praised the dismissal, he said “true justice would only come with accountability for the people and institutions responsible for Padron’s wrongful conviction.
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 11-03-2025
Last Update Date: 11-03-2025
