Execution Report: Yosvanis Valle

Yosvanis Valle, 34, was executed by lethal injection on 10 November 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the robbery and murder of a man in his home.

On 7 June 1999, Valle, then 23, and four other men went to the Pasadena home of Jose Junco, a known drug dealer. Assuming they wanted to buy drugs, Junco went outside to meet them. They then produced guns and ordered Junco to return inside, with his hands in the air. Junco told his girlfriend, Amy Lindgren, not to look at the men, and he covered her face with a pillow. Next, the men argued with Junco about drugs and money. Eight or nine shots were fired. Lindgren stayed on the floor until the men drove away. She then got up, saw Junco's dead body, and called 9-1-1. The assailants stole two rifles and a cookie tin containing money, drugs, and sexually explicit photographs.

Based on a tip, police conducted a lineup, where Lindgren identified one of the assailants.

Valle was arrested two months after the killing when he went to Pasadena to bail a fellow gang member of out jail. He was unaware that his friend had implicated him in the murder.

At Valle's trial, the prosecution presented testimony that earlier in the day that Junco was killed, Valle met with four other men to discuss robbing him. Valle led the meeting and assigned roles to all of the participants. The group understood that because Junco would see one of the men's faces, someone would have to kill him. The testimony also indicated that Valle was the shooter.

Valle had a previous felony conviction for possessing a firearm. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison in November 1993. He was released in May 1997. He also had several juvenile and misdemeanor convictions, mostly weapons-related. At his punishment hearing, prosecutors presented evidence that Valle, a native of Cuba, was a member of a Hispanic gang called "La Raza Unida", and that in August 1999, he ordered the murder of fellow member Raymond Duenas so that he could become the leader of the gang's operations in Houston. That same month, Valle arranged the murder of Carlos Escamilla, and fatally shot Gregory Garcia with a sawed-off shotgun in the parking lot of a convenience store.

Continued on Page 2