Texas will execute this Tuesday a man who killed two brothers in their sleep to rob them

The state of Texas plans to execute this Tuesday a man sentenced to death for the murder of two brothers thirty years ago.

Unless the Supreme Court of USA grant you a last minute suspension, Rick RhoadesThe 57-year-old is to receive a lethal injection tonight at the Huntsville prison.

A repeat thief, he had served several prison terms when, on September 13, 1991, fresh out of jail on bail, he broke into the home of Charles Allen, who was then housing his brother Bradley in the Houston suburbs.

According to prison authorities, he killed the two brothers in their sleep before stealing their money.

He wasn’t arrested until a month later while stealing from a school. In custody, he confessed to the double murder, but said he acted during a fight with Charles Allen outside the home.

In 1992, he was sentenced to death after a trial in Harris County.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), Harris County has carried out 129 executions since the 1970s, more than any other American county.

His lawyers are trying to prevent his name from being added to this list, challenging the composition of the jury that convicted him.

Rick Rhoades he is white and his victims were white, but his attorneys intend to show that prosecutors excluded black jurors at his trial, which is prohibited and would overturn the sentence.

To do this, they went to court to obtain copies of the questionnaires that potential jurors filled out 30 years ago. They lost in the trial and on appeal and on Monday they went to the Supreme Court.

It is expected that the highest court will rule tonight on the possible stay of the execution to study the file in depth.

If he refuses, Rick Rhoades will be the sixth person sentenced to death to be executed so far this year in the United States, where the death penalty has been in sharp decline in recent years, and even more so since the start of the pandemic.

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