DALLAS — In 2007, Juan Lizcano was sentenced to death in the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer in 2005, but on Wednesday the Dallas County District Court ruled to change his sentence to life in prison.
Officer Brian Jackson was responding to a domestic dispute when Lizcano shot him multiple times. Lizcano fired shots at four other officers before killing Jackson.
Lizcano had applied for habeas corpus relief for an intellectual disability.
This is not the first time Lizcano had applied for relief, but it was the first time the court granted it.
In the published opinion, the court explained that it reconsidered his application after first denying it in 2015 because of a Supreme Court ruling.
The case was remanded to the ruling court, court documents explain, to reconsider in light of the "Moore v. Texas opinion.”
The convicting court, after considering the evidence, recommended that the district court grant his relief based on his claim of an intellectual disability, court records say. The district court agreed with the recommendation and changed his sentence to life in prison without parole.
The court said all other relief was denied.
DA doesn't oppose changing his sentence
In March 2019, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said in a news released he wouldn't oppose relief for Lizcano.
After the U.S. Supreme Court in February issued a decision in favor of death-row inmate Bobby Moore – determining that Moore is intellectually disabled and not eligible for the death penalty – "we felt we no longer could oppose relief for Mr. Lizcano," Creuzot announced in a news release.
Based on evidence in the case, Lizcano "has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he is intellectually disabled," Creuzot said.
Lizcano's attorneys, in a filing while appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014, argued that Lizcano, who grew up in Mexico, "could not learn like other children" and that he stopped going to school at sixth grade, because he was 15 and too old for the school.
As an adult, he came to the U.S. illegally and "never mastered basic adult skills," such as showering and brushing his teeth, his attorneys said. He never scored above a 69 on an IQ test and scored as low as 48.
