LGBTQ+ groups and drag performers suing the state argued Monday that Senate Bill 12 violates constitutionally-protected rights. The new law is set to go into effect on Friday unless a federal judge blocks it.

Richard Montez was third man charged and convicted in the shooting deaths of Angel Gebara, 14, and Benito Gallegos, 69, at a West Side housing project in February 2018. The other two men, cousins Andres and Juan Martinez, took plea deals and were sentenced in August to 22 and 24 years, respectively.

The trial for a capital murder suspect accused in two February 2018 deaths started on Wednesday in the 187th District Court.

A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office spokesman says its Fugitive Apprehension Unit has been unsuccessfully looking for Montez since Wednesday, the day after a grand jury indicted him for the second time in the murders of Angel Gebara, 14, and Benito Gallegos, 69. The spokesman was uncertain whether Montez was aware of the new indictment against him.

A pair of cousins accused in the 2018 shooting deaths of a teenager and an elderly man were each sentenced to more than two decades in prison Friday.

With several witnesses unavailable and the judge unwilling to delay the trial, the special prosecutor requested the Richard Montez's capital murder case be dismissed, intending to refile. But that will require a grand jury re-indict Montez, who has been released from the Bexar County jail in the meantime.