Texas is scheduled to execute John Allen Rubio on Thursday, November 12, for killing three young children in a Brownsville home in March 2003, after two juries rejected his claim that he was insane when he did it.
Rubio, 45, is set to die by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Fox 26 Houston reported on Monday. The victims were Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months. A state district judge found him competent to be executed in October, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has turned down his last request for a stay, KRGV reported on November 6.
The children's mother, Angela Camacho, who was Rubio's common law wife, is serving three consecutive life terms for her role, according to Fox 26.
Two trials, one question
Rubio has been convicted twice. His first death sentence, in 2003, rested largely on out of court statements from Camacho, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right and did not testify. The Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington changed the rules on that kind of evidence, and Texas's highest criminal court threw out the conviction in 2007. He was tried again, convicted and sentenced to death again in July 2010.
Both times the central question was insanity. Under Section 8.01 of the Penal Code, the defense applies only if, because of "severe mental disease or defect," the defendant "did not know that his conduct was wrong." Texas courts read "wrong" to mean illegal. A defendant can believe an act is morally justified and still be sane under the statute.
Our close read of the ruling that ended his federal appeal
The last full ruling on Rubio's case came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on May 21, 2025, in an unpublished opinion in case 24-70004. Across 18 pages it denies him a certificate of appealability, the permission a prisoner needs before a federal appeals court will hear him. Its opening section begins: "The facts surrounding Rubio's crime are especially harrowing."
One detail in the opinion rarely appears in news accounts. The state charged Rubio with four counts of capital murder, not three, for the three deaths.
By our count Rubio raised three grounds. First, that his trial lawyers failed to look into whether his mother's drinking during pregnancy left him with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Second, that they failed to investigate and prepare the insanity defense properly. Third, that the state knowingly used false testimony from its rebuttal psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Welner, a claim under the 1959 case Napue v. Illinois.
The court rejected all three. On the fetal alcohol claim, it recounted a state hearing at which trial lawyer Ed Stapleton said he dropped the theory partly because Rubio lacked the facial features typical of the condition and the defense was poorly funded. Co-counsel Nathaniel Perez, the opinion says, called out from the gallery that they had given Rubio ineffective help. The judges still called it a reasonable strategic choice.
The opinion also lists the diagnoses that experts did make over the years. By our count there are eight: delusional disorder with other psychotic features, a severe learning disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, recurrent major depressive disorder, inhalant dependence, cannabis abuse, an unspecified psychotic disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The insanity claim had not been raised in Rubio's 2013 state habeas petition, so it could be heard only under a narrow exception, and the judges found it was not substantial enough to qualify. Their reasoning turned on what Rubio said when police arrived. According to the opinion, he told officers, "[J]ust arrest me I know I did something bad but I rather my children be dead than be possessed." He also asked a detective, "I killed the children, what more do you need?" The court treated those words, along with evidence that he planned to flee to Mexico and had bought cleaning supplies beforehand, as proof that he knew society considered the killings against the law, whatever he believed about spirits.
That is the gap at the center of the case. The courts have not disputed that Rubio was ill. They have held that illness is not enough under the Texas test.
The Napue claim met the same fate. Rubio argued that Welner misled jurors about whether he had taken antipsychotic medication in custody. The court acknowledged that one 2006 record showed him taking chlorpromazine, which the court noted treats schizophrenia, in fifty-four out of sixty relevant instances, which is 90 percent by our arithmetic. It called that single record insufficient against the other evidence, and pointed to testimony from two fellow inmates who said Rubio talked about planning to claim insanity. It is the same claim, in a new form, that Rubio's lawyers raised again in their October 28 stay request, according to KRGV. Prosecutors answered that a similar claim had been dismissed in 2022.
Our timeline, by the day count
March 11, 2003: The children are killed. Day 0.
May 21, 2025: The Fifth Circuit denies a certificate of appealability.
January 12, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court denies review, 236 days later, KRGV reported. Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said that day his office would "seek an execution warrant and an execution date as soon as possible."
October 28, 2026: Defense files its stay motion in the Court of Criminal Appeals. The denial was reported nine days later.
November 12, 2026: Scheduled execution, 304 days after the Supreme Court denial and 8,647 days, about 23 years and eight months, after the killings.
Where Texas stands this year
By our count from the Death Penalty Information Center's list of 2026 warrant outcomes, the United States had carried out 35 executions this year through November 5. Florida accounted for 19 of them, more than half. Texas had carried out seven. Rubio would be the eighth in Texas, and with Oklahoma's James Pavatt also set for November 12, the national total would reach 37 if both proceed.
The execution would also come in the last weeks of Governor Greg Abbott's tenure. Gina Hinojosa, who won the governor's race last week, has said she personally opposes the death penalty but would look at each case individually, Newsweek reported.
What to watch
Any last federal filing would have to reach the courts before Thursday evening. Texas's separate death penalty fight before the Supreme Court is in our preview of Guerrero v. Johnson. For how the insanity defense works in other states, see our explainer on how often it succeeds, and Monday's verdict in the Shane James case in Austin, where a jury applied the same Texas test.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
