The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new punishment phase

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new punishment phase for Jose Angel Moreno, allowing him to present evidence of a troubled childhood and other mitigating issues that might have influenced a jury to give him a life sentence. The ruling does not overturn Moreno's conviction in the Jan.21, 1986 abduction and slaying of 18-year-old John Cruz. A U.S. Supreme Court decision last year (see Apr. 26, 2007) found that jury instructions about mitigating evidence in three other Texas cases were improper. Those cases were tried about the same time as Moreno's and the jury instructions were similar. Those instructions have been changed in 1991.