Death row Texas: U.S. court to hear Ruben Gutierrez case [Video]

WASHINGTON –

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a Texas man on death row who has long argued that DNA testing would help prove he didn’t kill an 85-year-old woman during a home robbery decades ago.

The order came down Friday in the case of Ruben Gutierrez, months after the justices stayed his execution 20 minutes before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection.

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Gutierrez was condemned for the 1998 stabbing of Escolastica Harrison at her home in Brownsville, on the state’s southern tip.

Prosecutors said the killing of the mobile home park manager and retired teacher was part of an attempt to steal more than US$600,000 she had hidden in her home because of her mistrust of banks.

Gutierrez has long asked for DNA testing on evidence like Harrison’s nail scrapings, a …