EYE FOR AN EYE

Texas Executes Convicted Hitman

The third in the state this year.

Convicted hitman Rolando Ruiz was executed by lethal injection late Tuesday, becoming the third inmate to be executed in Texas this year. He was declared dead at 11:06 p.m. local time. Ruiz was convicted of killing 29-year-old Theresa Rodriguez in 1992 in exchange for $2,000. Rodriguez’s husband and brother-in-law were later discovered to have put Ruiz up to the murder in order to collect life-insurance benefits. They were both sentenced to life in prison for the crime, and Rodriguez’s husband was executed for a separate crime in 2008. Ruiz had appealed the execution, with his defense lawyers arguing that the 44-year-old’s more than two decades in prison and numerous execution dates were unconstitutionally cruel. Despite a five-hour delay in the scheduled execution, however, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeals and let it go ahead as planned.