USA: Execution set despite fair trial concerns

Ivan Cantu, a 50-year-old Hispanic man, is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 28 February 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for a double murder in November 2000. A recent independent investigation conducted has compounded questions about the adequacy of his legal representation at trial and raised doubts about the testimony of the state’s key witness and the physical evidence that appeared to corroborate her testimony. International safeguards prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on anyone whose conviction is not based on “clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts”.