death penalty news October 9, 2004
NORTH DAKOTA: N.D. governor candidates disagree on death penalty North Dakota's candidates for governor disagree on whether the man accused of kidnapping Dru Sjodin should get the death penalty. Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. is charged with kidnapping Sjodin, a college student from Pequot Lakes, Minn., who disappeared from a Grand Forks parking lot last November. Her body was found in April. Rodriguez will be tried in federal court rather than state court, so could face the death penalty. Prosecutors haven't said whether they will seek the death penalty. Republican Gov. John Hoeven said he supports executing Rodriguez if he is convicted. Rodriguez has a record of violent sex offenses. Hoeven says the death penalty fits the crime Rodriguez is accused of committing. Hoeven's Democratic challenger, Joe Satrom, says Rodriguez should not be put to death. Satrom said he doesn't support the death penalty for any crime. He said Rodriguez should be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Hoeven and Satrom were asked about the Sjodin case Friday during a debate sponsored by the North Dakota Associated Press Broadcasters Association. (source: AP) ================== TEXAS: Editorial: Judiciary should delay Harris execution dates Members of the Harris County judiciary should stop setting execution dates for Texas death row inmates until next spring. The work of the Houston crime laboratory that handles evidence for cases in Harris County has been called into question, most recently with the discovery of 280 boxes of evidence that had not been examined. That is too late for two inmates executed this week, and it won't halt the execution of the nine Harris County inmates already scheduled through March. However, trial courts, which are responsible for setting execution dates, could prevent other inmates from being added to the list while questions of evidence are resolved. More than 150 men and women from Harris County are on death row. Gov. Rick Perry refused a request by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, this week to halt the executions of Harris County inmates until March because of the quality of work at the crime lab. Those valid concerns warrant a suspension of the executions. This is only the latest call for a moratorium on executions across the nation. Concern about adequate legal defense for capital murder defendants and the disproportionate number of minority and indigent inmates on death row in Texas and other states also have prompted such calls. During the last legislative session, a proposal failed that would have allowed Texans to vote on a constitutional amendment imposing a two-year moratorium on the death penalty. Because the executive and legislative branches of state government refuse to address the issue, the judiciary is the last resort. In this case, the trial courts offer the last hope. Once all legal appeals are exhausted, the trial court sets the execution date for the death row inmate. While judges face restrictions on how soon they can set an execution date, there are no limits on how far into the future the date can be scheduled. Thus, they can postpone setting an execution date for a few months to allow the system to work. There are no guarantees that new evidence will exonerate any of the men and women on death row, but it is unconscionable that they not be given time for evidence to be reviewed. (source: Editorial, San Antonio Express-News) ================= ARIZONA: Murderer is facing execution - Jury finds beating of tot merits death After a trial that lasted more than 11 weeks, a jury returned a death sentence on Friday for Juan Velazquez, who beat his girlfriend's 20-month-old daughter to death and threw her body in a canal. "He's never going to get what he deserves, but the sooner he meets his maker, the better. It's the cruelest thing you can do to a child," said Anthony Sandoval, the dead child's father. Both families stood vigil outside Judge Jeffrey S. Cates' Maricopa County Superior Court courtroom waiting for the jury to come back with a sentence of life or death. Prosecutor Jeanette Gallagher said the sentence was "exactly what we expected. You never know with a jury. We picked the right one." Sandoval and Virginia Venegas and their two children, Liana and Isabella, who was 3, shared an apartment. But Sandoval moved out when Venegas started seeing Velazquez, 26. Almost immediately after Velazquez moved in with Venegas, Sandoval's mother and sisters said they noticed bruises on the two Sandoval girls and notified Child Protective Services. CPS deemed the charges unsubstantiated. On Sept. 24, 2001, while in a fit of rage, Velazquez beat Isabella so badly that he fractured her skull. The next day, Sept. 25, he killed Liana, a child in diapers who had not yet learned to speak. Angered by her crying, he repeatedly kicked her legs out from under her until she couldn't get back up. Then he covered her with a pillow and left her to die. After Venegas realized the child was dead, Velazquez used a length of wire to bind a rock to the child's body. With Isabella in the back seat, Venegas drove Velazquez to the canal. He threw the body in, then went home to report the child missing. Within days, police extracted confessions from Velazquez and Venegas. Sandoval sued CPS for failing to protect Liana and Isabella. And while Velazquez's criminal trial was going on in early September, a civil jury awarded Sandoval and daughter Isabella $7.5 million. On Aug. 31, the jury found Velazquez guilty of first-degree murder and seven counts of child abuse for beating Liana and Isabella. They immediately found aggravating factors that could earn him the death penalty. Defense attorneys Robert Storrs and Joey Hamby brought expert witnesses to testify as to Velazquez's borderline personality disorder and to explain why his life should be spared. Beaten as child Velazquez's cousins and aunts described how Velazquez was beaten as a child and how he watched as his father beat his mother. His mother, who is serving time for a DUI conviction, testified while wearing jailhouse stripes. She told how she and her ex-husband would pull guns on each other when they were angry. An aunt testified that she had once seen the father put a gun to 6-year-old Juan's head. "This is not a dysfunctional family. This barely qualifies as a pack," Hamby said during the defense's closing arguments. "What took so long for something to go wrong?" But Gallagher told the jury she thought Liana's death was more horrible than Velazquez's life. She started her closing statements by putting a photograph of Liana's battered face on the overhead projector and said, "That's horrible." 'My closure' Emotions ran high during the last days of the trial, which were attended by Vera Perez, maternal grandmother and guardian of Velazquez's two daughters. "Whenever I kiss them before they go to school, I think of little Liana who will never see a day of school in her life," she said. After the sentence she said, "This is my closure. He deserves death because Liana didn't deserve to die." No word from jury The Velazquez family did not speak after the sentence. Nor did the jury. "This has been hard on them," Gallagher said of the family. "They've never had to deal with this kind of thing." Anthony Sandoval told The Republic that he "thought the world of the jury." His mother Ofelia was breathless. "There's justice," she said. "And he still has to face the other judge." (source: Arizona Republic)
