On July 1, 2014, the court found Lopez competent, granted his motion to waive the appeal and dismissed the appeal.
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Attorneys who said they were acting on his behalf filed papers seeking to halt the execution, arguing there were issues with his mental competency and saying he was using the state to commit suicide.
The ruling notwithstanding, lawyers appealed the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ordered in April “that no further pleadings will be accepted from counsel absent leave of court supported by Lopez’s election to proceed through such counsel”.
Lopez was convicted of striking Corpus Christi Police Lieutenant Stuart Alexander at high speed with a sports utility vehicle as he was fleeing from police. The 20-year veteran was laying out spike strips on a freeway exit ramp in an attempt to stop Alexander, who was fleeing from police in an SUV. “I just feel I need to get over with it”.
Nueces County District Attorney Mark Skurka said Lopez showed “no regard for human life” when he fought with an officer during a traffic stop, then sped away, evading pursuing officers and striking Alexander, who had been on the police force for 20 years.
When finally cornered by patrol cars, Lopez used his SUV as a battering ram trying to escape and wasn’t brought under control until he was shot, officers testified.
“Daniel Lopez is amoral”, Skurka said Tuesday.
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Deputies found a dozen packets of cocaine and a small scale in a false compartment in the console of the SUV. Court records show Lopez had sex with girls as young as 14 and had a history of assaults and other trouble while in school, where he was a 10th-grade dropout. If the execution goes ahead, it would be the 528th in Texas, the most of any state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
