March 28
TEXAS:
Testimony scheduled to start in Irving man's murder trial
In Denton, a man accused of killing his pregnant wife and mother-in-law 2
years ago goes on trial for his life today.
Christopher Jay Swift of Irving says he was insane when he killed Amy
Sabeh-Swift, 27, and Sandra Stevens Sabeh, 61, in April 2003, according to
his attorney, Derek Adame of Denton.
"We are using his demeanor at the time of his arrest and his behavior and
statements he made to police to show he had a break with reality," Adame
said.
In a interview with KXAS/Channel 5 on May 2, 2003, Swift admitted killing
the 2 women but said his young son had ordered him to do it.
Swift was originally indicted on individual murder charges out of Dallas
and Denton counties because Sabeh-Swift's body was found in Irving and
Sabeh's in Lake Dallas.
But the cases were combined, Swift was reindicted, and prosecutors are
asking for the death penalty, said Lee Ann Breading, Denton County first
assistant district attorney.
Swift, now 30, remains in the Denton County Jail without bail, records
show.
Sabeh-Swift, who was eight months pregnant, was found dead in her home at
Irving View RV Park in Irving on April 30, 2003. Her mother's body was
found the same day at Kingswood Mobile Home Park in Lake Dallas.
Sabeh-Swift, an aide at the Denton State School, had been strangled and
stabbed in her Dallas County home. Swift's mother-in-law had been
strangled.
Police arrested Swift, on a warrant alleging murder, in Dallas hours after
the bodies were found.
Sabeh-Swift's unborn child also died, but charges are not being pursued in
that death, police said.
Swift's son Zachery, who was 5 years old at the time, is believed to have
witnessed the slayings.
After the 2 women were killed, Swift checked into a motel in Farmers
Branch, where he abandoned Zachery after the youngster fell asleep,
authorities said. Zachery called police after he woke up later that day.
During his TV interview, Swift said his faith in God led him to believe
that Zachery wanted him to commit the slayings. He also said he believed
that his mother-in-law would approve of her daughter's death.
Swift added that he had married out of convenience. " 'Cause I was going
to prison, and I need somebody to send me some money, and ..." he said,
then laughed, adding that he did not love his wife.
Zachery is in the custody of his maternal grandfather, said Marissa
Gonzales, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services.
At one point, Swift was listed with residences in both Irving and Lake
Dallas, but jail records indicate his most recent home was in Irving.
Testimony is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. today in L. Dee Shipman's 211th
Judicial District Court.
(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
FLORIDA:
Missing person, or cold killing?
Miami-Dade prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 50-year-old Jesus
Rodriguez in his wife's murder. But investigators have not found the
woman, missing since November 2001.
On Oct. 29, 2001, Isabel Rodriguez went to Miami-Dade Family Court seeking
protection from her estranged husband, Jesus. In court papers, she said
her husband threatened to kill her if she got any money from him in their
divorce.
A judge scheduled a hearing a month later. Isabel wasn't there -- but a
homicide detective was.
Now, more than 3 years after her disappearance, investigators still have
not found Isabel Rodriguez. Her husband has insisted that she abandoned
their children and may have fled to Honduras.
But prosecutors say they have compiled a string of clues -- plotting a
trail from divorce court to a suspicious fire on an Everglades farm --
implicating Jesus in his wife's death.
Jesus Rodriguez's trial on 1st-degree murder charges begins Monday in
Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty,
concede their case against him is entirely circumstantial: Investigators
burrowed through concrete, dispatched cadaver dogs and flew helicopters
with infrared cameras over Rodriguez's property without finding any hard
evidence that Isabel is dead.
It's not easy for prosecutors to prove a murder case without producing a
murder victim -- but it has been done, legal experts say.
Miami-Dade prosecutors will have to do it again soon in another
high-profile case: This month, a grand jury indicted a caregiver with the
murder of missing Kendall foster child Rilya Wilson, whose body has never
been found.
In the Rodriguez case, prosecutors say Jesus' actions before and after his
wife's disappearance -- and his statements to police and other jail
inmates -- are enough to prove he killed his wife.
"There is no reasonable hypothesis that the victim is alive," assistant
state attorney Abbe Rifkin said in court papers.
But Rodriguez's lawyer, Andrew Rier, said prosecutors will have a hard
time proving his client -- the owner of a once-successful trucking company
with no prior convictions -- murdered Isabel.
"Jurors want evidence," Rier said. "It's the state's responsibility to
prove what happened here."
In a rambling letter to Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David Miller, Rodriguez
said his wife was stealing money from his business, and speculated that
she was on the lam or she was bumped off by co-conspirators.
"I never harmed her," Rodriguez wrote. "She has many enemies because she
is very disrespectful, especially with the drivers."
The couple married in 1993 and lived together in a house Jesus, 50, built
himself near West Miami. The house, at least, had a hint of romance: In
their bedroom, Jesus installed a heart-shaped bathtub.
But in January 2000, Isabel filed a police report claiming her husband
assaulted her. Months later, Jesus told police that Isabel injured him.
They separated in April 2001, and Isabel asked for a divorce four months
later.
Isabel was last seen on the morning of Nov. 13, 2001, when the 39-year-old
dropped off the couple's 2 daughters at school.
That morning, 2 sisters who rented an efficiency from the Rodriguezes said
they saw the legs of a man hiding under a truck in the carport of the
house. The women told police they suspected the figure was Rodriguez --
who was barred from the house by a restraining order -- but they did not
warn Isabel, according to an arrest report.
5-ACRE FARM
Neighbors reported Isabel missing the following day, and Miami-Dade police
soon focused their attention on Jesus and the 5-acre farm he owned on the
fringe of the Everglades.
In the days before Isabel's disappearance, police say, Rodriguez had 10
truckloads of dirt and gravel delivered to the property, and he told
workers to stay away from the farm on Nov. 13 -- the day Isabel was last
seen. He told one worker, Rene Concepcion, that he was planning a Santera
"cleansing" of the farm, the arrest report says.
On the day of Isabel's disappearance, Concepcion said he saw a fire
burning for hours at Rodriguez's farm. A day later, Rodriguez scattered
the ashes from the fire over the farm before spreading the truckloads of
gravel around with a bulldozer, investigators say.
Witnesses also saw a Lincoln Continental at the farm that had been parked
at the family house the morning Isabel disappeared.
Rachelle Rodriguez, Jesus' daughter from a prior marriage, told police
that she saw her father cleaning the car's trunk with a pressure cleaner,
records show.
WAS BODY BURNED?
Prosecutors suspect that Rodriguez burned up his wife's body on the farm.
They intend to call a forensic expert in body-burning as a witness.
But Rier said there's no scientific evidence of a body on the farm, and
the fire didn't burn long enough to turn a body to ashes.
"There's a problem if that's the state's theory of disposal of the body,"
Rier said. "You smell a hamburger when it burns, don't you?"
After Isabel's disappearance, Rodriguez temporarily received custody of
the children -- now 10 and 14 years old -- and was allowed to move back
into the house. His parental rights were later terminated, and the
children are now with a foster family.
Police gathered evidence for 5 months before arresting Jesus Rodriguez in
April 2002. He spoke with Miami-Dade detectives 3 times, denying that he
killed his wife but admitting that he had been at the house in violation
of the restraining order.
Rodriguez told police he thought his wife may have gone to her native
country of Honduras, where she has a son from a prior marriage. But the
Honduran consulate had no record of Isabel entering that country or
leaving the United States., investigators said.
Detectives said Rodriguez made several off-handed comments to them that
suggested his involvement with his wife's death. "If I tell you what
happened, what will happen to my business?" he allegedly asked one
detective. "You've got the motive all wrong," he allegedly told another.
While in jail, Rodriguez also admitted to an inmate that he killed his
wife with a baseball bat, said Rifkin, the prosecutor.
Rier would not address those specific statements, nor would he say if his
client would testify in the trial, which is expected to last 4 to 6 weeks.
"My client has always been forthcoming," he said.
(source: Miami Herald)
USA:
Rights of Foreigners on Death Row Examined
The Supreme Court is considering whether Texas and other states can
execute 51 Mexicans who say they were improperly denied legal help from
their consulates, a dispute testing the effect of international law in
U.S. death penalty cases.
Justices were scheduled to hear arguments Monday in the case of Jose
Medellin, who says he is entitled to a federal court hearing on whether
his rights were violated when a Texas court tried and sentenced him to
death in 1994 without giving him consular access.
The case, which has attracted worldwide attention, is seen as a test of
how much weight the Supreme Court will give in domestic death penalty
cases to the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, in The Hague, which
ruled last year that the 51 convictions violated the 1963 Vienna
Convention.
It comes amid a growing divide on the Supreme Court over the role of
international opinion to support decisions interpreting the U.S.
Constitution. Last month, justices ruled 5-4 to outlaw the death penalty
for juvenile criminals, citing in part the weight of international views
against the practice.
In 1969, the Senate ratified the Vienna Convention, which requires
consular access for Americans detained abroad and foreigners arrested in
the United States. The Constitution states that U.S. treaties "shall be
the supreme law of the land," but does not make clear who interprets them.
The case also pits the authority of state courts against the Bush
administration, which in a surprise move last month ordered states to
comply with the ICJ ruling and hold new hearings. At the same time, the
administration said it was withdrawing from a section of the treaty so
that the ICJ could no longer hear U.S. disputes.
Texas argues that Medellin is procedurally barred under the Constitution
from federal relief because he didn't raise his claims at his state trial.
As a result, it says, the state court judgment should stand regardless of
the orders from President Bush and the ICJ. "Whether the president has
authority to issue such a broad determination is far from clear," Texas
Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a recent filing. Any assertion that
the presidential order "is somehow sufficiently authoritative to pre-empt
long-standing state criminal laws ... is utterly unprecedented," he said.
The administration, arguing that it is a president's decision - and not
the judicial branch's - to determine whether the United States should
comply with international law, said it decided that new state hearings
were appropriate.
"Compliance serves to protect the interest of United States citizens
abroad, promotes the effective conduct of foreign relations and
underscores the United States' commitment in the international community
in the rule of law," acting Solicitor General Paul Clement wrote.
Last year, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided
with Texas, ruling that federal relief for Medellin was barred because he
failed at trial to file objections that Mexico was not told of his arrest.
It cited a 1998 Supreme Court case that suggested treaties were subject to
each country's procedural rules.
Medellin was one of five gang members sentenced to death for raping and
murdering Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, in Houston in 1993.
Justices were told that Medellin's court-appointed lawyer was suspended
from practicing law for ethics violations during the case, and he failed
to call any witnesses during the guilt phase of the trial. Lawyers for
Mexico say the country would have made sure Medellin had a competent
lawyer had it known about the 1994 trial.
Medellin is supported in his appeal by dozens of countries, legal groups
and human rights organizations, as well as former American diplomats and
the European Union.
After Bush ordered new hearings for the Mexicans, Medellin's attorneys
asked the Supreme Court this month to put case on hold so they could
pursue relief in state court first. But justices did not act on that
request, allowing arguments to proceed Monday.
According to Amnesty International, the Mexicans on death row affected by
the ICJ ruling are held in 9 states, although some have been recently
commuted to life sentences. The states are California (27); Texas (15);
Illinois (3); and Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Arizona and Arkansas (1
each).
In all, 118 foreigners from 32 countries are on death rows in the United
States.
The case is Medellin v. Dretke, 04-5928. A ruling is expected by late
June. On the Net: Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus.gov/
(source: Associated Press)
****************************
Foreigners have rights, too
When foreigners enter the United States, they should not have to leave
their civil rights at the checkpoint.
That has occurred in the past, but a Texas bill would guarantee it never
happens again.
Voting 5-0 on Wednesday, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee approved
the bill, which is designed to allow foreign citizens to notify their
consular offices when they are arrested or detained.
The controversy surfaced earlier this month, when President Bush filed a
brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, instructing states to grant new
hearings to Mexican citizens on death row.
The president did the right thing then, and the state will be doing the
right thing if the bill passes, making the proper representation a legal
requirement.
Of the 51 Mexican nationals facing execution in this country, 15 are in
Texas.
When arrested for a heinous crime, every individual should have the right
to seek counsel from an official from his or her homeland. Their place of
birth should never be allowed to impede justice.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
