HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man linked to five killings and convicted of fatally stabbing twin 16-year-old girls more than three decades ago is facing execution on Tuesday evening.

Garcia White was condemned for the December 1989 killings of Annette and Bernette Edwards. The bodies of the twin girls and their mother, Bonita Edwards, were found in their Houston apartment.

White, 61, a former college football player who later worked as a fry cook, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection Tuesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. White would be the sixth inmate put to death in the U.S. in the last 11 days.

Testimony showed White went to the girls’ Houston home to smoke crack with their mother, Bonita, who also was fatally stabbed. When the girls came out of their room to see what had happened, White attacked them. Evidence showed White broke down the locked door of the girls’ bedroom. He was later tied to the deaths of a grocery store owner and another woman.

“Garcia White committed five murders in three different transactions and two of his victims were teenage girls. This is the type of case that the death penalty was intended for,” said Josh Reiss, chief of the Post-Conviction Writs Division with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.

White’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution after lower courts previously rejected his petitions for a stay. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Friday denied White’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty or to grant him a 30-day reprieve.

His lawyers argued that Texas’ top criminal appeals court has refused “to accept medical evidence and strong factual backing” showing White is intellectually disabled.

The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities. Justices have wrestled with how much discretion to allow.

White’s lawyers also accused the Texas appeals court of not allowing his defense team to present evidence that could spare him a death sentence, including DNA evidence that another man also was at the crime scene and scientific evidence that would show White was “likely suffering from a cocaine induced psychotic break during his actions.”

White’s lawyers also argued he is entitled to a new review of his death sentence, alleging the Texas appeals court has created a new scheme for sentencing in capital punishment cases after a recent Supreme Court ruling in another Texas death row case.

“Mr. White’s case illustrates everything wrong with the current death penalty in Texas -– he has evidence that he is intellectually disabled which the (Texas appeals court) refuses to permit him to develop. He has significant evidence that could result in a sentence other than death at punishment but cannot present it or develop it,” White’s attorneys said in their petition to the high court.

In a filing to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said White has not presented evidence to support his claim he is intellectually disabled. The filing also said White’s claims of evidence of another person at the crime scene and that cocaine use affected his actions have previously been rejected by the courts.

“White presents no reason to delay his execution date any longer. The Edwards family — and the victims of White’s other murders … deserve justice for his decades-old crimes,” the attorney general’s office said.

The deaths of the twin girls and their mother went unsolved for about six years until White confessed to the killings after he was arrested in connection with the July 1995 death of grocery store owner Hai Van Pham, who was fatally beaten during a robbery at his business. Police said White also confessed to fatally beating another woman, Greta Williams, in 1989.

White would be the fifth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 19th in the U.S.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech.

The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.

Paxton on Monday vowed to appeal the ruling.

“A ruling—weeks prior to an election— preventing my office from investigating potential election violations is deeply troubling and risks undermining public trust in our political process,” he said.

According to Republican lawmakers, the provision was put in place to prevent voter fraud and secure election integrity. However, in the ruling, the judge noted that there was widespread confusion about how to implement the canvassing restriction from local election administrators. This confusion also left voter outreach organizations uncertain about whether they could provide volunteers with food or bus fare because it could look like compensation.

Many organizations – including La Union del Pueblo Entero, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund – have filed lawsuits against many other provisions of the law, including voter assistance and mail-in ballot restrictions. The challenges to these provisions have not been ruled on yet. The original complaints were filed in August and September 2021.

Before the law, organizations like OCA-Greater Houston, an advocacy organization for people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, hosted in-person election events and allowed attendees to bring their mail-in ballots to receive help, such as language assistance.

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF, wrote, “Today’s ruling means that voter outreach organizers and other advocates in Texas can speak to mail ballot voters about issues on the ballot and urge voters to support improvements to their communities.”

ACLU of Texas celebrated the ruling on X saying, “This is a win for voting rights in the state, and for the organizations that help keep elections accessible.”

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