This article was originally published by Texas Tribune
Patrick Crusius, who has admitted to killing 23 people and wounding 22 others in a racist mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, will no longer face the death penalty, El Paso Matters has learned.
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District Attorney James Montoya, who took office on Jan. 1, called family members of those killed on Monday to inform them he wouldn’t seek the death penalty in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting, multiple family members told El Paso Matters. The family members asked not to be identified because of a gag order in place since 2022 that prohibited lawyers and potential witnesses from discussing the case with the media.
Montoya declined to comment when contacted by El Paso Matters on Monday, citing the gag order. Defense attorney Joe Spencer also cited the gag order in declining comment.
The removal of the death penalty as an option could lead to a quick guilty plea and life sentence, as happened with federal charges in 2023.
Crusius drove more than 10 hours from his home in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs on Aug. 3, 2019, and chose the Cielo Vista Walmart for his attack. Using a semiautomatic rifle, he killed 23 people and wounded 22 others. Officials have said there’s no evidence anyone else was involved in the attack.
Shortly before the shooting, he posted a screed to a website frequented by white supremacists, saying the attack was meant “to stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Crusius surrendered to police officers a short time after the shooting while driving on Viscount Boulevard.
The attack remains the sixth-deadliest mass shooting in United States history, and the deadliest terror attack aimed at Hispanics.
It is the deadliest U.S. mass shooting in which a suspect was captured and charged. Many mass shooters take their own lives or are killed by police.
In January 2023, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it would not seek the death penalty for the federal weapons and hate crimes charges Crusius faced. He quickly pleaded guilty and in July 2023 was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison, with a nonbinding recommendation from the judge that he serve his sentence in the nation’s most secure prison in Florence, Colorado.
The federal system does not include the possibility of parole.
The Justice Department refused to say why it made the decision to not seek capital punishment. But the prosecution and defense both said during the sentencing hearing that Crusius had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental health disorder characterized by delusions or hallucinations.
Montoya’s three predecessors as district attorney – Jaime Esparza, Yvonne Rosales and Bill Hicks – all said they would seek the death penalty against Crusius.
“I am disappointed that the Walmart shooter will not face a jury for his crimes, but the decision to move forward with a trial or to enter a plea agreement is completely within the discretion of the district attorney and it is totally DA Montoya’s decision at this point, not mine. I respect how difficult it must have been to make this decision,” said Hicks, who was appointed district attorney by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 and was defeated by Montoya in the November 2024 general election.
To order that a convicted killer in Texas be put to death, a jury must find unanimously that the person represents a future danger. The defense could have argued at trial that a sentence in the nation’s highest security prison would mean Crusius no longer presented a danger.
If a jury determines that someone represents a future danger, it then must weigh aggravating factors such as the defendant’s criminal history and the extreme violence of the crime against mitigating factors such as mental health in determining whether to recommend death or life in prison.
The state capital murder case was essentially put on hold to allow the federal prosecution to move forward first. The COVID-19 pandemic created complications for both the federal and state cases.
The state case was complicated by the troubled two-year tenure of Rosales as district attorney. She faced repeated accusations of failing to move criminal cases forward, including the Walmart shooting. One of her associates also was accused of targeting the family of one of those killed at the Walmart because the family wouldn’t go along with a plan to criticize the judge and a former prosecutor.
District Attorney Yvonne Rosales appears in a hearing before Judge Sam Medrano on July 1, 2022. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Rosales resigned in December 2022 as she faced a petition to remove her from office on the grounds that she was incompetent. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Hicks to replace Rosales.
Crusius’ lawyers have alleged prosecutorial misconduct by Rosales and Hicks in the handling of the case. Hicks has said his office has done nothing wrong and Rosales has faded from public view and not commented on the allegations.
At the end of 2024, two judges ruled that prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office had acted improperly in a number of cases by altering court records and withholding evidence from defense lawyers. Crusius’ attorneys likely would have used those findings as they pressed their misconduct allegations against prosecutors in the Walmart case.
