Texas man scheduled to be executed this week asks Supreme Court to order a pause

Attorneys for a man on death row for the 2004 murder of a Collin County woman are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to order a stay of his April 23 execution, citing ineffective counsel during his trial.

What we know:

Attorneys for Moises Mendoza on Friday asked the Supreme Court to review a Texas Criminal Court of Appeals decision to deny a request that claims Mendoza's counsel was ineffective.

Specifically, court documents state that Mendoza's former attorney did not investigate testimony during sentencing from a jailer who claimed Mendoza had started a fight with another inmate. Prosecutors were using the story to assert their claims that Mendoza remained a danger despite being locked up and was deserving of the death penalty.

In 2016, the inmate the prosecution claimed was attacked by Mendoza, Melvin Johnson, said in an affidavit he was the aggressor.

Johnson reiterated those claims again in a March 2025 affidavit where he claims Mendoza was only allowed out of his cell for recreation alone and that he had been let out with Mendoza and "knew the guards wanted me to jump him."

"When my door opened with Mendoza out, I knew the guards wanted me to jump him, and that's what I did," Johnson said in the March 2025 affidavit. "He immediately fell to the ground and covered up to protect himself. He never threw a punch."

Johnson claimed he was given an extra tray of food for attacking Mendoza in prison.

Murder of Rachelle Tolleson

The backstory:

On March 17, 2004, Rachelle Tolleson and her 5-month-old daughter returned home around 10 p.m. from visiting Tolleson's mother.

According to court documents, her mother went to Tolleson's Farmersville house the next morning and found the back door wide open and the bedroom in "chaotic disarray." The baby was on the bed alone.

After Mendoza was identified as a suspect and arrested, he confessed to killing Tolleson. 

Mendoza told police that she had willingly gone with him in his truck and that he choked her and caused her to pass out. 

Court documents state Mendoza drove to a field behind his house and had sex with Tolleson before choking her again.

He then dragged her into the field and choked her until she "appeared dead" before stabbing her in the throat with a knife, court documents state.

After being interviewed by police, court documents state Mendoza moved Tolleson's body to a more remote location and burned it. She was found six days later.