Ruben Cantu

In 2007 Reed issued a report finding that Ruben Cantu was guilty of the crime for which Texas executed him in 1993. However, critics say the report is compromised by the fact Reed was the judge who rejected Cantu's appeal in 1988 and set his execution date in 1993. Reed assigned to the Cantu case two investigators, Mike Beers and James Moore, who were allegedly recorded ridiculing the case in a phone conversation and openly mocking the notion that Cantu might have been innocent.

In 2006 Reed said that she was "deeply skeptical" of someone who recants testimony they gave twenty years previously but agreed that Cantu should not have been prosecuted as a death penalty case.

David Garza, Cantu's codefendant, has since admitted involvement in the burglary, assault and murder. He says he did go inside the house with another boy, did participate in the robbery, and saw the murder take place, but that his accomplice was not Ruben Cantu. According to Garza, the real murderer was an elementary school friend of Cantu. This person, whose only criminal record is a single misdemeanor domestic assault conviction, denied that he had anything to do with the robbery and murder when he was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle in 2005.

Sam Millsap, who was the District Attorney presiding over the Cantu case, proclaimed himself a "lifelong supporter of the death penalty" in his commentary published in the San Antonio Express-News in 2000. In a December 2005 interview with the Express-News, Millsap expressed a newfound opposition to capital punishment. In that 2005 story, Millsap, an attorney in private practice at the time of the interview, says his decision to oppose the death penalty was affirmed, as evidence surfaced that Ruben Cantu was very likely innocent, when prosecuted by Millsap's office, and ultimately executed by the state of Texas. According to the 2005 Express-News story, "'It is troubling to me personally. No decision is more frightening than seeking the death penalty. We owe ourselves certainty on it.' He had that degree of certainty in the 1980s when he was the district attorney, 'when I was in my 30s and knew everything.' Now, he says, 'There is no way to have that kind of certainty.'" He went on to say that if Cantu was innocent, that means the person who committed the murder remains free and that "the misconduct by police officers could be addressed today."

On August 24, 1993, at 22 minutes after midnight, at the age of 26, Cantu died by lethal injection, becoming the fifth juvenile offender to be executed by Texas. His final request was for a piece of bubble gum, which was denied. Asked if he had a last statement, he said, "No, sir."

Ruben Cantu grew up with his mother and father, until the age of 14, when the couple split up, with Ruben's mother moving 20 miles (32 km) away, and Ruben and his father continuing to live in a trailer in a crime-ridden south San Antonio Barrio. The neighborhood was home to a loose band of tough kids called the Grey Eagles, of which Cantu became a leader despite his being rather small and in special-ed classes at school. By age 15, he was stealing cars for an organized auto theft ring, often spending days at a time driving stolen cars to Mexico for cash. At a time when the San Antonio Police Department was embroiled in scandal, with vigilantes and drug-dealing officers well known to the community, Cantu was stealing cars and dodging the police. His older brothers had been arrested on drug and theft charges, but despite several run-ins with the police, Ruben was never convicted of anything before the November 1984 crime that led to his execution.

The prosecution's case at the trial that convicted Ruben Cantu is summarized as follows: On the night of November 8, 1984, at approximately 11:30 p.m., Ruben Cantu (age 17 at the time) and his friend David Garza (15), broke into a vacant San Antonio house under construction at 605 Briggs Street, and robbed two Hispanic males at gunpoint. The two victims, Pedro Gomez (25 or 35) and Juan Moreno (19), had been workmen sleeping on floor mattresses at a construction site, guarding against burglary, as a water heater had been recently stolen from the work site. The two victims were sleeping in their work clothes, with their pockets full of their cash earnings at the time of the robbery. Cantu and Garza were carrying a rifle, which they used to rob the two men of their wristwatches. As they tried to take their cash, they were interrupted by Gomez's attempt to retrieve a pistol hidden under his mattress. Gomez was shot at least nine times by the boys' rifle, dying instantly, and Moreno was also shot as many as nine times by the same rifle. Thinking they had killed both men, the two teens then fled the scene. Juan Moreno survived the attack, and was able to leave the house and call for help shortly after the event, though he lost one lung, one kidney, and part of his stomach.

Ruben Montoya Cantu (December 5, 1966 – August 24, 1993) was a Texan who was executed for a murder committed when he was 17 years old. During the years following the conviction, the surviving victim, the co-defendant, the District Attorney, and the jury forewoman have all made public statements that cast doubt on Cantu's guilty verdict.