June 19 NORTH DAKOTA----re: federal death penalty Death Penalty to be debated for Rodriguez Jr Federal prosecutors and attorneys representing murder suspect Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. will debate the death penalty during a hearing Friday. Rodriguez shouldn't face the death penalty because the process in deciding capital punishment is unconstitutional, Rodriguez's attorney, Richard Ney, said in a motion filed in May. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Rodriguez is convicted in the kidnapping and murder of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, whose body was found in a ravine in April 2004. He has pleaded not guilty. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that changes how criminal defendants are sentenced also applies to those facing the death penalty, Ney said in his motion. The Supreme Court decision requires juries to consider all evidence that could affect sentences. In a response filed June 8, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said the federal death penalty process meets the legal demands set out in the Supreme Court decision. Congress delegated federal juries to decide if defendants convicted of murder should be sentenced to death, Wrigley said. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson is scheduled to hear arguments Friday at 9 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Fargo. (source: The Forum) ALABAMA: Judge reviews sentence, then orders death again ---- McRae carries out Supreme Court's order but arrives at same conclusion in case of former trooper convicted of killing wife For the 2nd time since a jury recommended that former state trooper George Martin be sentenced to life without parole for burning his wife to death for money, a judge has condemned him to death. The hearing Friday before Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae was the result of a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court late last year, ordering McRae to reconsider his July 2000 death sentence of Martin. Martin, now 47, had been con victed two months before of killing his 33-year-old wife, Hammoleketh Jackson Martin, for insurance money. The victim's charred and unrecognizable body was found in a still-burning car not far from the Martins' home in Theodore in October 1995. After the eight-day capital murder trial, jurors in an 8-4 decision recommended that Martin be sentenced to life without parole instead of death by execution. But McRae, citing evidence that Hammoleketh Martin was burned alive and declaring that such treatment of another human being was the definition of "heinous, atrocious or cruel," overrode the jury's recommendation. Last year, the high court ordered McRae to reconsider his sentence and to keep in mind that the jury's recommendation should be deemed a "mitigating" factor when balancing the weight of Martin's crime with its aggravating elements. On Friday, McRae announced he had done what the high court had asked of him, and had again determined that "death is the only appropriate sentence." In a 33-page written ruling, McRae spelled out why. "It should be obvious that this awesome responsibility is placed in the hands of the trial court because it has firsthand knowledge not only of the case being tried but can also compare it to other capital cases to ensure that the penalty is proper," the judge wrote. "The jury is not in a position to know if this case, compared with other capital cases, is more heinous, atrocious or cruel in its nature." He then reiterated observations he made during the original sentencing, that Hammoleketh Martin, according to forensic testimony, "was burned to death and that she was alive and conscious for a period of time prior to her death and realized that she was being burned alive." The victim's remains, when found, McRae noted, "had to be removed in pieces." McRae said he had "no doubt that juries conscientiously attempt to balance these (mitigating and aggravating) factors, but it was recognized by the Legislature from the beginning that this final decision should be in the hands of an experienced jurist and not a jury who may be sitting for the 1st time. "The reason this sentencing duty was placed in the hands of the trial court was to ensure, or attempt to ensure, uniformity in the sentencing process throughout the state," McRae wrote. "If the trial court's final sentence must be whatever the jury has recommended, then it is this court's opinion that this change should come from the Legislature." After devoting several pages of his ruling to the facts of the case -- among them Martin's huge insurance benefits upon his wife's death and his financial difficulties at the time -- McRae once again condemned the former lawman to death "by lethal injection or electrocution." Martin's demeanor, as always -- through his trial and during hearings before and since -- remained inscrutable Friday during his re-sentencing. He said nothing. Wearing handcuffs and a white jumpsuit with "Alabama Department of Corrections" printed on the back, Martin had a sickly pallor. His face and body appeared swollen compared to the trim and fit mien he presented during his trial. His appeals attorney, Al Pennington, argued that whatever aggravating circumstances surrounded Hammoleketh Martin's death, they were outweighed by the mitigating considerations, including the jury's recommendation to spare her killer from execution. Following McRae's ruling, Alabama Assistant Attorney General Don Valeska, who helped prosecute Martin at the 2000 trial, said the judge's decision was "exactly right." Earlier, as Pennington and Valeska's team argued several points, McRae said to the courtroom: "Nobody wins. I know this." (source: Mobile Register)
