This is by way of an open letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Dear Governor Abbott:
I urge you to do something just, simply because it is just.
Let me mention first several points that either we’d likely agree on or the Supreme Court has articulated as Constitutionally required:
> an all-white jury hearing non-white defendant’s criminal trial is constitutionally suspect;
> for a 44-year-old man, a 50-year sentence is essentially a life sentence.
> framing someone for a murder is bad conduct, and freeing that framed prisoner from Death Row is good conduct;
So please consider these facts: a sheriff arrives at a man’s home, intending to arrest him, but without an appropriate warrant; when the man questions whether an arrest would be legal, the sheriff draws a gun on the man, who then disarms the sheriff without harming him; the man flees, but is caught and imprisoned, and sentenced to fifty years’ imprisonment.
Would you, personally, call that just?
Legally, the conviction is valid because it survived direct appeal under Texas law. So let’s assume, although the sheriff told a TV interviewer that day that he was unharmed when the man disarmed him, that the sheriff sustained some minor injury.
In a situation where a man is rightly or wrongly defending his own home, believing himself in the right legally, and takes away the invader’s gun, without harming the man or shooting anyone, should he serve fifty years in prison?
Your only possible answer, privately, could be, “Of course not!”
If in 1996 there was some need to emphasize local law enforcement’s authority or dissuade social activism, we are nearly three full decades beyond that moment.
A 50-year sentence for resisting arrest is not normal.
You could pardon this man or commute his sentence.
Why should you perhaps not?
To protect the sheriff who may have committed perjury by claiming grave injuries at trial? Sheriff McDaniel reportedly is no longer with us, and can’t be prosecuted.
Because this has gotten entangled in the culture wars, and all of us need to stay loyal to our side, whether it makes sense or not? A man’ s life is at stake. A man who’s 71 years old and whose writings apparently have inspired many.
Because mercy would somehow undermine respect for law enforcement? If anything, showing that Texas can be fair, even to a prisoner, even to a proud Chicano, might enhance respect for law enforcement. Commuting such an extraordinarily long sentence, given his good behavior, does not say that there was error by the original prosecutor or court.
Why should you? Because you can, by commutation or pardon, and because it is the right thing to do. If you are in doubt, try this exercise: sit in your backyard and consider whether God, or Buddha, Socrates or Oliver Wendell Holmes, or whomever you most admire, would keep the man in jail; explain the facts fairly to your six-year-old daughter or niece, and ask her; discuss it with your minister, if you have one, or the first lady of Texas, who earned a masters in theology, has run Catholic schools, and likely had learned a little about forgiveness; or go and talk with the man, then decide.
In an unjust world, make one thing more just.
It’s just right, is all. Please free Xinachitli, Alvaro Luna Hernández. Or explain honestly to Jesus or yourself why you do not.
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 1 February 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will presently appear on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
