Tony's Case

Every defendant in the United States has the right to a fair trial. How else can we assure that the guilty person gets convicted and the innocent person walks free? Unfortunately, innocent people are getting convicted because the system is broken. Tony Medina is one of these people. Tony has spent 28 years on Texas death row for two murders he did not commit. Why? Because Tony did not receive a fair trial, and was thus denied the most basic yet important rule of law in our criminal justice system.

What happened?

In the early morning hours of January 1, 1996, a drive-by shooting in Houston tragically ended the lives of nine-year-old David Rodriguez and fifteen-year-old Diane Rodriguez. No one who witnessed the murders could identify or even describe the shooter, because the shooting happened at night and everyone ducked away as soon as the shooting started. Witnesses did observe two males sitting in the car from where shots were fired. The victim’s family was convinced that members of a street gang called ‘La Raza’ or ‘LRZ’; supposedly it was revenge for another murder which took place some time before. Two anonymous calls to the police implicated Tony Medina as being involved in the drive-by shooting. Tony got arrested on January 5th, but denied being involved in the New Years Eve shooting; he was at a party hosted by the LRZ gang. Tony told the police that a guy he knew by the name of Flaco left that party early to go do “some dirt”. When Tony saw Flaco the next day Flaco told Tony that he had “messed up” but that he had “taken care of” the gun. Tony understood this as Flaco admitting to having committed a drive-by shooting.

Flaco was arrested on January 10th while fleeing for the police after he committed an aggravated robbery. Flaco was subsequently interrogated about the drive-by shooting, and he told police that him and six other people were in the car, that he saw Tony fire a gun and kill the victims, and that he did not know what happened to the murder weapon. An anonymous tip led the police to a site where the murder weapon was buried in a plastic bag. Although there were no fingerprints on the murder weapon, the fingerprints on the plastic bag matched Flaco’s. Regardless, Flaco was released from police custody and Tony was charged with capital murder. The State sought a death sentence. Lacking any forensic, ballistic, or DNA evidence linking Tony to the murders, Tony got convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death on September 13, 1996.

Ineffective assistance of counsel

Every defendant in a criminal trial has the right to receive effective assistance of counsel. This is hugely important, because even though the burden of proof lies with the State, mistakes are made and without an effective attorney it is difficult to attack a State’s incorrect theory of who is responsible. An effective attorney prepares adequately for trial; conducts an investigation, talks to witnesses, reads up on law and caselaw, visits his client, consults experts, etc. During Tony’s trial, he was represented by Jerry Guerinot. Numerous news articles have been written about Mr. Guerinot. Here is what some of those state:

Dallas News, August 13, 2016, ‘Texas Lawyer Who Never Won a Capital Murder Case Calls it Quits Defending the “Very Worst” Clients’:

[In] 1996, when jurors over a seven-month period convicted people in four separate Guerinot cases. Three of those clients have been executed. Marcus now represents the fourth, Anthony Medina, who he contends in appeals received virtually no defense from Guerinot, including little trial preparation and inadequate questioning of witnesses. “It is unthinkable that a defense attorney would try four separate death penalty cases to verdict in the space of seven months," said Marcus.
Read full article here.

Prison Legal News, June 9, 2017, ‘Texas Lawyer Quits with 0-34 Record of Losses in Death Penalty Cases’:

If you were on trial for your life, you would want the best possible lawyer. That would exclude Houston, Texas attorney Jerry Guerinot, 71, who has a great deal of experience but a very poor track record. Guerinot lost all 34 capital cases he defended at trial. […] Unthinkable unless the attorney doesn’t care whether his clients are sentenced to death, that is. With Guerinot no longer taking capital cases, defendants in Texas now have a slightly better chance of avoiding the death penalty.
Read full article here.

New York Times, May 18, 2020, ‘A Lawyer Known Best for Losing Capital Cases’:

A good way to end up on death row in Texas is to be accused of a capital crime and have Jerry Guerinot represent you. Twenty of Mr. Guerinot’s clients have been sentenced to death. That is more people than are awaiting execution in about half of the 35 states that have the death penalty.
Read full article here.

How Guerinot prepared for Tony’s trial:

Records show that Guerinot’s investigator spent a total of thirty hours (!) investigating the case. That is less than one week worth of work. The investigator never spoke with any witnesses in person.
Jerry Guerinot barely conducted any investigation at all. He failed to interview a majority of the State’s witnesses, investigators did not attempt to start interviewing witnesses just 6 days before trial, and Guerinot certainly never tried to talk to Flaco, who is key in this case.
Though defense counsel was appointed on January 15, 1996, nothing was done on Tony's case until June 19, 1996 - 26 days before trial.
Mr. Guerinot admits that he never spoke to 90% of the witnesses who testified - allowing key state and defense witnesses to take the stand without ever knowing what they had to say.
Since Mr. Guerinot had not interviewed anyone other than Tony about the facts of this case and had not subpoenaed anyone to testify on Tony's behalf - it fell to Tony's father to leave the courthouse to find and pick up witnesses who had information about this case and were willing to testify.
Jack Millin, the attorney who was to ask the jury to spare Tony's life, waited until the first day of trial to ask investigators to look for character witnesses to speak for Tony, though he never spoke to any witnesses himself and never subpoenaed any to testify. It was then left to Tony's father, who called several family members and asked them to come to the courthouse to testify on Tony's behalf.
Despite the fact that LRZ gang member Dallas N. gave statements to both HPD and Sheriff's Deputies identifying Dominic “Flaco” H. as the shooter, Defense Counsel never spoke to him or used his statements to support their client's case.
Because Mr. Guerinot chose not to interview witnesses, read witness statements or conduct criminal background checks, he was unable to expose many of the State's witnesses' lies and perjured testimony.
Mr. Guerinot allowed prosecutors to prejudice the jury by presenting evidence of and suggesting Tony had something to do with, various gang related and violent crimes that occurred in March and July of 1995. Tony Medina was in a boot camp program from January 1995 until August 16, 1995 - making it impossible for him to know anything about, or having anything to do with these offenses. The prosecution knew this.

Attorneys Guerinot and Millin had a total of seven clients sentenced to death within a 6.5-month time period. Tony was one of them.

Advocacy

For something to be done about this great injustice, it's incredibly important that Tony's story is heard by many. Everyone that hears about his story, might be able to open doors for Tony. Therefore, he needs all the help he can get spreading the word.

Become an advocate for Tony today by sharing his story using the buttons below and make sure to tell everyone you know about his case!