20 Pesos Death of Morelos

This issue belongs to Mexico's long-running commemorative peso bimetallic program, which has used the 20-peso format since the late 1990s to mark historical figures and events outside the regular circulation series. José María Morelos y Pavón was executed by firing squad on December 22, 1815, after being captured, defrocked, and tried by the Inquisition — a rare instance of the colonial church formally stripping a priest before a civil execution to satisfy jurisdictional procedure.

The bicentennial of his death prompted the 2015 release. KM#987 is among the later entries in this collector-oriented series, which by this point had largely migrated to non-circulating commemorative status despite retaining legal tender denomination.