Texas DA Who Charged Woman With Murder for Abortion Allegedly Paid for His Mistress’s Abortion

Local police passed the case to the Starr County Sheriff’s Office, which opened an investigation and sought guidance from the DA’s office. One investigator says she alerted her supervisors and Barrera about Texas Penal Code Section 19.06, which prohibits charging women with murder for their own abortions. Chapter 19 is the homicide code and section 6 says “this chapter does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is…committed by the mother of the unborn child.” Barrera said on a phone call that the office was “going to look into it,” but that the sheriff should proceed with the investigation.

Gonzalez’s lawyers argue that Barrera, who presented the case to the grand jury, did not inform jurors about Section 19.06. Barrera had a responsibility to know the law and only present cases that meet the elements of homicide. Yet, the filing explains, she “failed to fulfill her prosecutorial obligations and presented Ms. Gonzalez’s case to the grand jury while omitting Section 19.06, resulting in a murder indictment.”

An employee in the DA’s office, Bernice Garza, said in a sworn statement that, between the March 30 indictment and the April 7 arrest, Ramirez received calls “from attorneys outside the office to say that the charge was wrong and express that Ms. Gonzalez should not be arrested.” He told this employee that he was also concerned about public backlash, but that people would understand once the “full facts of the case came out, because of how upsetting they were.”

As for the public’s reaction, Johnson said, “They were clearly very wrong about that.” Local reproductive justice groups raised money to post Gonzalez’s bond and organized a campaign for supporters to urge Ramirez to drop the charges. After Gonzalez was arrested, Ramirez told that same employee, “I fucked up.”

In July, Ramirez, Barrera, and Fuentes filed for what’s known as a summary judgment, asking once again that the case be dismissed. They laughably claimed that they were within their rights to investigate the abortion as a possible murder because Senate Bill 8, the bounty hunter abortion ban, had taken effect a few months prior, which prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

But, crucially, SB 8 was enforceable only by civil lawsuits against doctors and anyone aiding and abetting an abortion; it did not permit criminal charges, let alone charges against abortion seekers. Still, the defendants claim they investigated because a nurse called police and said that “administrators” directed hospital staff to report such incidents because, she said, abortions may be considered murder due to a “change in the law.” (Even now, with the state’s trigger ban in effect, abortion seekers cannot be charged with homicide.)

Johnson said the officials’ reliance on SB 8 is a distraction from the matter at hand. “They have an obligation to know the criminal law,” she said. “There’s no excuse for the defendants to not know the law in the first instance.”

Text messages obtained in discovery show that Ramirez knew he was wrong shortly after Gonzalez was charged. “It’s very possible that my career is over,” he wrote to a woman named Becky Rocha in mid-April 2022, days after he dropped the charges. “I should have never indicted her. Because it’s not Murder in Texas.”

Becky’s sister Rosita first went to Gonzalez’s lawyers in January with information about the DA. She swore in a deposition that Ramirez called her while Gonzalez was sitting in jail in 2022, because he knew she’d once had an abortion and asked her how she felt about it. “You should know,” Rosita said she responded. “Becky went through one with your child.”

Becky Rocha was deposed on June 4 and said that Ramirez had impregnated her in 1996 or 1997 when he was married and pressured her to get an abortion. “He didn’t tell me, like, straight out to have an abortion, but he told me that I could—we couldn’t have that baby because of his career,” she said. Rosita further said she made the appointment for Becky and Ramirez paid for the procedure. She went with her sister to the abortion, then Ramirez picked them up and took them to Red Lobster. Rosita also revealed she, too, had a sexual relationship with Ramirez.

The State Bar of Texas investigated Ramirez and, in January 2024, he agreed to pay a $1,250 fine and have his law license probationally suspended for one year. As part of that settlement, Ramirez admitted that he failed “to refrain from prosecuting a charge that was known not to be supported by probable cause.” He even told the Associated Press, “I made a mistake in that case.” Gonzalez sued him two months later.

Except now, Ramirez is trying to claim he’s protected from a lawsuit under the concept of immunity for public officials doing their jobs. There’s a similar issue with ADA Barrera, who is arguing immunity even though the ACLU alleges she “gave specific directions to the Sheriff’s office investigators about what evidence to collect and provided legal advice critical for the investigation to proceed.”

Johnson said that public officials can only argue they’re immune from lawsuits when they’re doing the scope of their job. If they go beyond their official role, they cannot be shielded from responsibility. “The law is clear that when prosecutors are acting outside of their prosecutorial capacity and are directly engaging in the investigation—providing legal advice to the investigators and the law enforcement, for example—that kind of conduct cannot be protected by absolute immunity,” she said.

The fact that, here, the DA is reported to have paid for an abortion in the past exposes the double standard in the charging decision, Johnson said. “Why would it be something you wouldn’t consider criminal as to your own personal decision with your partner, but, as to Lizelle, that personal decision is now homicide?”

Johnson said if people have questions about their rights to have an abortion, they can contact If/When/How’s Repro Legal Helpline, and if someone is already being investigated, they can fill out ACLU’s Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative intake form.

Gonzalez never should have been charged with murder and she’s seeking justice for the harm done to her—and her case against the Starr County officials may be helped by the fact that the Rocha sisters chose to come forward with information about the DA. “People have made brave choices,” Johnson said.”Really, really hard choices to continue to fight despite all that’s happened and all the power that these defendants currently hold in their community.”

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