UPDATED:

Anibal Canales’ execution date has been withdrawn by the Bowie County District Attorney in order to allow additional time for Canales’ lawyers to prepare their case and file appeals.

THE CASE:

Anibal Canales Jr (b. 1964) is a Hispanic inmate on death row in Texas by 2000. He was convicted along with William Speer for murdering Gary Dickinson, who was found dead in his cell on 11/7/1997 in Telford Prison, where the three were held.

Anibal had been able to study and even found work in construction and also as a sound technician. Despite this, Anibal’s past was problematic and his life was marked early by bad acquaintances as early as his 20s as a prisoner. After a brief arrest he was granted probation but violated it and was then arrested and taken to jail. In 1995 something similar happened and he returned to prison, but this time with a 15-year sentence. During the course of this incarceration a murder occurred that was charged against him, but at the time of the murder he was in solitary confinement in another wing of the prison and no prison officer had seen him in places consistent with the crime scene at the time of the murder.

Anibal admitted that he had also been organic to criminal groups at the time of the murder, but claims to have played no role in it, while he had instead already come under gang threats for “dangerous contraband” problems in the prison. He has long been writing regularly to pen pals.

Now that the execution has been set for March 29, 2023, we want to huddle together with Anibal in compassion and firm renunciation of any chain of revenge and violence and ask that his life be spared.