USA - Texas. Court Changes Texas Jose Noey Martinez's Sentence to Life.

Court Changes Texas Jose Noey Martinez's Sentence to Life. A man who fatally stabbed a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter during a 1995 burglary will no longer face execution after he has been determined to be intellectually disabled. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed Jose Noey Martinez's sentence to life in prison after he has been determined to be intellectually disabled. The court agreed with a lower court's ruling that Martinez, now 40, "is a person with intellectual disability" and "is constitutionally ineligible for a death sentence." Martinez had been on death row almost 20 years. A Hidalgo County jury found Martinez guilty of capital murder in 1996 and sentenced him to death. Martinez broke into the home of Esperanza Palomo, 68, to steal a TV and stereo, according to court documents. Palomo was babysitting her blind granddaughter, Amanda, 4. Martinez stabbed the grandmother, who fell to the ground immediately, and raped her. After killing the woman, Martinez told law enforcement, he heard the granddaughter crying in another room, court documents show. He told officers that he stabbed her to death.