Texas Sets Rubio Execution for Thursday

Three children were killed, and the death sentence from the 2010 retrial is the judgment Texas is preparing to carry out. A competence finding decides whether he understands the punishment. It is not a new verdict on guilt. With the stay denied and clemency refused, Thursday's date is what remains on the state calendar.

Thursday, Nov. 12, is still the day Texas plans to put John Allen Rubio to death by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit.

Rubio, 45, was convicted of capital murder for the 2003 killings of his three children in Brownsville. They were 3 years old, 14 months old, and 2 months old. A jury sentenced him to death in 2003. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out that conviction in 2007. A second jury convicted him again in 2010 and returned another death sentence. After his arrest he told investigators he believed the children were demonically possessed.

Angela Camacho, the children's mother and his common-law wife, was convicted for her part in the killings. She is serving three consecutive life terms.

In October a state district judge found Rubio competent to be executed after reviewing psychiatric evaluations. On Nov. 5 the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his request to stop the execution. On Tuesday the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously against a 90-day reprieve and against reducing the death sentence to a lesser penalty. That vote left Thursday's date in place.

All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.