Oct. 9
MASSACHUSETTS:
Bill named after fallen police officers would bring back death penalty to
Massachusetts
2 Massachusetts state representatives have filed a bill that would allow the
state to impose the death penalty on adults convicted of murdering law
enforcement officers.
The "Chesna-Gannon" bill, named after 2 slain police officers, would cover
police, corrections officers, sheriffs and deputies. A death sentence would not
be mandatory, but would be an option during sentencing.
Reps. Shauna O'Connell and David DeCoste, both Republicans, presented the
proposed legislation in front of the state's Joint Committee on the Judiciary
on Tuesday. They were joined by the mother and widow of fallen Weymouth Police
Sgt. Michael Chesna.
"My son was taken from us totally unexpectedly on a beautiful Sunday morning in
Weymouth -- our hometown for almost 50 years -- doing what he loved, but dying
because of it," Maryann Chesna said.
The Supreme Judicial Court invalidated the death penalty in 1984, but those
sponsoring the bill said the legislation would send a strong message.
"Allowing capital punishment will help law enforcement do their job," O'Connell
said. "It will save lives and it will help law enforcement keep our communities
safe."
"The justice system seems to me to be broken, not bent. There is no
consequence. It's arrest and release, arrest and release," Maryann Chesna said.
"The death penalty, obviously, it's a drastic measure," said Chelsea Police
Chief Brian Kyes. "However, our hope would be that by having this codified into
the law that we would never have to use it -- meaning we would hope that it
would act as an effective deterrent, that individuals would know that should
they commit a murder against a police officer, that the death penalty hangs in
the balance." Chesna, 42, was shot and killed July 15, 2018, while pursuing a
suspect. The U.S. Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient is survived by his
wife, Cindy, and two children, Olivia and Jack.
The bill's other namesake, Yarmouth Police Sgt. Sean Gannon, and his K-9
partner, Nero, were shot April 12, 2018, while serving an arrest warrant in
Marstons Mills. The 32-year-old officer was taken to an area hospital, where he
was pronounced dead.
The "Chesna-Gannon" bill was one of 60 bills that were on Tuesday's agenda for
the joint committee. Other proposals mitigated the most severe punishments that
could be imposed, including a bill that could make prisoners serving
life-without-parole sentences -- including those convicted of murder --
eligible for parole after 25 years.
Rep. Antonio Cabral has a bill before the committee that would allow local
sheriff's offices and corrections facilities to perform immigration enforcement
only if the federal government pays for all of the related costs
(source: WCVB news)
DELAWARE:
Hearing set in appeal by former Delaware death row inmate
A Delaware judge is holding an evidentiary hearing in an appeal by a former
death row inmate who is now serving life in prison.
Tuesday's hearing involves a motion for post-conviction relief filed by Ralph
Swan.
Swan and an accomplice, Adam Norcross, both were sentenced to death for the
1996 murder of Kenneth Warren of Kenton. Warren was shot four times in a home
invasion robbery.
Swan was resentenced in 2017 to 3 life terms behind bars after Delaware's
Supreme Court declared the state's death penalty law unconstitutional in 2016.
Norcross also has been resentenced to life without probation or parole.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Man accused of killing Lumberton teen appointed 2nd attorney
Michael McLellan, 34, has been appointed a 2nd attorney in the killing of
13-year-old Hania Aguilar last November in Lumberton.
McLellan was listed on the Robeson County Court docket for this week, but
Robeson County District Attorney Matthew Scott said the case won’t be heard.
Scott said McLellan’s attorneys have been given his case file to prepare for
his defense.
The State of North Carolina announced back in June that it was seeking the
death penalty against McLellan in Hania's death.
McLellan is charged with 10 felonies in her death, including 1st-degree rape
and 1st-degree kidnapping. He has been denied bond on those charges.
Prosecutors said McLellan was a suspect early on in the investigation, but they
didn't want to immediately release that information.
Hania was shoved into an SUV back on Nov. 5 outside of her family's home in the
Rosewood Mobile Home Park off of Elizabethtown Road in Lumberton. Police
recovered the green SUV on Quincy Drive Road in Lumberton on Nov. 8 and her
body was found on Nov. 27 in a swamp off of Wire Grass Road in Lumberton.
It's not clear if McLellan will appear in court this week or if his attorney
will appear on his behalf.
(source: WPDE news)
********************
Jury selection begins in 1st prison murder trial
Jury selection began Monday in Dare County for the trial of the 1st of 4 prison
inmates accused of slaying 4 prison workers during a failed escape attempt at
Pasquotank Correctional Institution nearly 2 years ago.
Mikel Brady is on trial for 4 counts of 1st-degree murder and other associated
charges in the state’s deadliest prison escape attempt.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Brady and the 3 other inmates
accused in the murders: Wisezah Buckman, Seth Frazier and Jonathan Monk.
Buckman will be tried in March. Trial dates for Frazier and Monk have not been
set.
Brady’s trial is being held in Dare County Superior Court in Manteo after
Brady’s attorneys were successful in winning a change of venue from Pasquotank
County because of publicity surrounding the prison workers’ deaths.
Killed in the Oct. 12, 2017 escape attempt were Correction Enterprises Manager
Veronica “Ronnie” Darden; corrections officers Justin Smith and Wendy Shannon;
and maintenance mechanic Geoffrey Howe.
Smith’s mother, along with about a dozen family members of the victims,
attended part of Monday’s proceedings.
A potential pool of 600 jurors have been summoned for the trial and almost 200
arrived Monday morning, entering the courthouse under a blanket of heavy
security. A second group of around 200 jurors were originally told to appear
Monday afternoon but were told to arrive at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday morning as the
selection process slowed.
Once the 12-person jury and alternates are seated a trial that could last up to
2 weeks will get underway.
District Attorney Andrew Womble told the court Monday that the prosecution has
a potential witness list of 73 people. He also told jurors they could be
subject to viewing graphic crime scene photos.
Prosecutors interviewed almost 20 prospective jurors, eliminating several from
serving on the panel. After exhausting their objections, 6 women and 3 men
remained as possible members of the jury. 3 other prospective jurors were added
but not interviewed after prosecutors concluded their phase of the juror
interview process.
The defense is expected to begin its interviews of the prospective jurors this
morning.
Brady arrived in the court with shackles around his waist and hands. He was
surrounded by 6 officers from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, 2 of whom
sat directly behind him during proceedings.
Brady routinely glanced back at the jury pool when prospective jurors were
called for interviews and he was given a pad and pen at one point during the
proceedings.
Several jurors were dismissed after stating that they had already formed an
opinion on the case or that they were opposed to the death penalty.
If found guilty, Brady will either be sentenced to death or receive life
without parole. Womble told prospective jurors that a first-degree murder
charge “is as serious as it gets in our state.”
“I don’t agree with the death penalty,” one prospective juror said.
Womble then asked the prospective juror if they would always vote for life
without parole.
“Yes,” the prospective juror said.
Another prospective juror said they wouldn’t want to pass judgment in a death
penalty case while another said, “I don’t know if I want that (death penalty)
on my conscience.”
Several other jurors told prosecutors that they had formed an opinion in the
case but said they could set aside those opinions and render a decision based
on the facts that will be presented at trial.
Prior to jury selection, defense attorney Jackson Warmack asked Superior Court
Judge Jerry Tillett to ban members of the media from using television cameras,
still cameras and other recording devices in the courtroom, saying the
proceedings could turn into a media circus that could “deprive our client
(Brady) a fair trial.”
Womble argued for an open courtroom for citizens and the community.
Tillett agreed to allow one media pool television camera and a single pool
still camera in the courtroom during the proceedings. The judge also told the
defense and prosecutors to refrain from talking to the media until the trial is
concluded.
At the time of the murders, Brady was serving a 24-year prison sentence for the
attempted first-degree murder of a state trooper in Durham County.
Buckman was serving a sentence for 2nd-degree murder conviction in Mecklenburg
County. Monk was in prison serving a sentence for attempted 1st-degree murder
in Cumberland County. Frazier was serving a sentence for 1st-degree burglary in
Onslow County.
(source: The Daily Advance)
GEORGIA:
Capital Punishment is a Gross Injustice in America
The American justice system should be on death row. With each day that innocent
people await execution for crimes they did not commit, the very institutions
meant to ensure justice become engines of inequality and inhumanity.
Rodney Reed, who maintains his innocence to this day, is scheduled to be
executed by the state of Texas on Nov. 20, 2019 for the rape and murder of
Stacey Stites in 1996. His case proves the sheer inadequacy of capital
punishment in the United States, and his state-sanctioned death would further
erode a system that has been injected with injustice. It’s long past time for
Texas to set Reed free and for the U.S. to abolish the death penalty.
According to Reed’s defense attorneys, new evidence based on expert testimony
exonerates Reed and implicates Stites’ fiancee Jimmy Fennell, a Bastrop County
police officer at the time of the murder who was later convicted of and
imprisoned for kidnapping and sexual assault. The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals denied Reed’s motion to review this evidence, and prosecutors filed to
schedule his execution date shortly thereafter.
The new evidence that Reed’s defense wants reviewed could be damning, but not
for Reed. Last year, the medical examiner in the case retracted his testimony
as three highly credible experts found even more support for the theory that
Fennell raped and murdered Stites. Despite these developments, prosecutors seem
unconcerned with revealing the truth. Instead, they appear more committed to
killing a man from whom they have already robbed 20 years of freedom.
There is something cruel and unusual about scheduling the death of another
human being. It defies logic by giving humans the power of gods. When you add
to that the shadow of doubt cast by inconsistent testimony and exculpatory
evidence, even the thought of setting a date of death seems unconscionable.
This shadow of doubt looms large over Rodney Reed’s current predicament.
Even more cruel and unusual is the frequency with which executions go wrong.
About 3 % of the more than 8,700 executions in the U.S. from 1890 to 2010 were
botched. Lethal injections have been the most unreliable method of execution,
as 75 out of 1,054 went wrong, and they are the most popular option among
states with death penalties today. A life-to-death system that demands
perfection but is riddled with the inconsistency of compromised executions
cannot stand in a country that supposedly guarantees freedom from cruelty in
the administration of justice. Failed attempts to properly execute people are
nothing more than preventable instances of torture. That we cannot even
guarantee that Reed will not writhe in pain and die slowly as witnesses watch
should tell us enough about the absurdity of capital punishment.
While botched executions present a problem for death penalty advocates, even
the slightest possibility that a person being put to death did not commit the
crime should render the entire death penalty system cruel, unusual, null and
void. The Death Penalty Information Center now identifies at least 16 people
executed in the past 30 years as “Executed But Possibly Innocent.” Since 1973,
166 people on death row have been exonerated. Even if the punishment is ruled
to fit the crime, the remote chance that the prosecution got it wrong and the
accused could lose their life as a result confirms that this process is
irreconcilable with U.S. law.
Another fatal flaw of the death penalty is that it isn’t racially neutral, as
race undeniably plays a role in death penalty prosecutions. The U.S. prison
population is 33 % African American, compared to 12 % of the total U.S.
population. Meanwhile, 30 % of prisoners are white, though almost 65 % of the
country’s population is white. The skewed race numbers carry over into death
penalty statistics: 34 % of death row inmates are black and just 55 % lives the
most. Thus, people like Rodney Reed are already at a disadvantage come
sentencing just because of the color of their skin. Racism has greatly
tarnished the criminal justice system in America, and our capital punishment
apparatus further confirms this sinister reality.
Supporters of the death penalty justify the broken system as a crime deterrent,
but no study has either confirmed or rejected a link between capital punishment
and deterrence. Proponents of the death penalty may also point to the
institution’s retributive nature, claiming the punishment fits the crime. The
pursuit of justice in America is the pursuit of retribution, but punishing
murder with death is vengeful and hypocritical. It is illegal to murder someone
as an act of vengeance, and the government should be no exception.
Is the death penalty not against everything we as Americans should stand for?
It stuns me that we continue to let our legal institutions sanction the killing
of Americans even as this very system continually reaffirms its own inadequacy.
I call on every person with a heart, mind and any good conscience to sign the
petition to stand against Rodney Reed’s execution and fight the death penalty
until it is abolished.
(source: Op-Ed; Jake Busch (22C) is from Brookhaven, Ga.----(The Emory Wheel)
FLORIDA:
Death penalty sought against man in deaths of wife, 4 kids
A grand jury on Monday indicted Michael W. Jones Jr. on a 2nd-degree murder
charge for the slaying of his wife, Casei, and 4 counts of 1st-degree murder
for her children, ages 1 to 10. The State Attorney’s Office has said it will
seek the death penalty.
These were important steps in the legal process, but they do virtually nothing
to comfort Casei’s mother, Nikki Jones, who sobbed over the phone while talking
about the unfathomable loss.
“We’re not coping,” she said during an interview. “I don’t even have my babies
back from Georgia.”
(source: theledger.com)
TENNESSEE:
Death sentence changed to life in prison for Mississippi man convicted in 1999
murder of University of Memphis student
The 2002 death sentence of a Mississippi man convicted of abducting and
murdering a University of Memphis graduate student was changed Monday to life
in prison without the possibility of parole, said Shelby County Dist. Atty.
Gen. Amy Weirich.
The family of 24-year-old victim Hillary Johnson approved the change rather
than relive the case in a new sentencing hearing to which defendant Leonard
Jasper ‘Sonny’ Young was entitled because his defense attorneys did not
adequately represent him in the sentencing phase of his trial.
Young, now 74, agreed to the new sentence rather than a new hearing in which he
would again face punishment of death, life without parole or life. His 72-year
sentence for especially aggravated kidnapping and theft of property in the case
will not change.
D.A. Weirich told Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan Monday that the only reason
the state agreed to the change of sentence was to honor the wishes of the
victim’s family.
Hillary Johnson was carjacked by Young on Nov. 20, 1999, near her Midtown
apartment at McLean and Linden. He stabbed her to death and hid her body in a
remote wooded area off of Highway 64 near the Shelby/Fayette County line.
Young was arrested 9 days later near Middleton in Hardeman County, and
eventually confessed to the crime and led authorities to the student’s body.
A jury convicted Young and sentenced him to death in 2002. The conviction was
upheld on appeal, but the death sentence was vacated because his defense
lawyers were found to be ineffective in the sentencing phase of the two-part
trial. The defense put on no proof in either the guilt phase or the penalty
phase.
Young, who had 13 prior felony convictions, will be taken off Tennessee’s death
row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville and moved to general
population status. He was represented Monday by attorney Joseph Ozment.
(source: localmemphis.com)
****************
We must be honest about the death penalty's repugnance
A teachable moment about capital punishment occurs in the 1992 film The
Unforgiven when “Schofield Kid,” a boastful young outlaw, ingloriously guns
down “Quick Mike” – who ultimately wasn’t quick enough – in an outhouse. Shaken
and dejected, Schofield Kid admits to Clint Eastwood, who plays notorious
killer “William Munny,” that his own prior exaggerated tales of killing had all
been bluster.
Tearfully, Schofield Kid exhorts Munny to take his gun from him because he
says: “I’m never going to use it again. I don’t kill nobody no more. I ain’t
like you, Will.”
Echoing Oliver’s call concerning the death penalty’s depravity, and why we must
put an end to it, I’ll not tire of writing until capital punishment itself is
killed: We must rededicate ourselves to eradicating the vestiges of slavery,
including the disproportionate, dehumanizing impact of the death penalty on
black and brown people. We must be open and honest about capital punishment’s
grotesquerie. By doing so we’ll have a better chance as an informed electorate
to emancipate ourselves from the historical and mental slavery keeping us
wedded to such a fiendish, state-sanctioned, lethal force.
We are the one to evoke change
In these times, we must embolden noble, courageous people who exist in America,
people with integrity, people who’re willing to call lethal injection the vile
torture it is. Because, brothers and sisters, I am sure good people exist in
America, people who know killing is wrong under any circumstance, no matter how
it’s done, or who’s doing it.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “Now is the time to lift our national
policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human
dignity.” Furthermore, Dr. King insisted “I do not think that God approves of
the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included” because “Capital
punishment is society’s assertion that it will not forgive.”
Dr. King believed abolishing the death penalty requires morality and its
persistence will, when studied by future, more just generations, be – like
other government-sponsored atrocities throughout history – what is unforgiven.
“The time is always right to do what is right,” said Dr. King.
(source: Opinion; Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as
an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015----The
Tennessean)
*******************
Death row inmate’s attorneys slam AG Slatery’s 'disrespectful' appeal
Attorneys for convicted killer Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman on Monday blasted Tennessee
Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s appeal of a death penalty deal reached in
August.
The deal, struck between Abdur’Rahman and Nashville District Attorney General
Glenn Funk, replaced Abdur’Rahman’s death sentence with life imprisonment.
Abdur’Rahman’s attorneys had asked for a new trial because of racial
discrimination concerns during jury selection ahead of his original trial. Funk
and Abdur’Rahman arrived at the deal in exchange for the inmate dropping a
request for a new trial. Nashville Judge Monte Watkins later signed off on the
deal.
Last month, Slatery announced he’d be appealing the deal , saying neither Funk
nor Watkins had the authority to make or approve such a settlement.
In a legal filing submitted in response on Monday , attorneys for Abdur’Rahman
say it’s actually the state AG Slattery who does not have the authority to
appeal or overrule an agreement already reached by a District Attorney General
acting on behalf of the state.
Abdur’Rahman’s attorneys argue that local district attorneys general make
decisions on the state’s behalf every day, including decisions not to charge
suspects or to offer pleas. These agreements are routinely approved by judges,
the filings say.
“What happened here is not complicated or out of the ordinary,” the attorneys
argue in the legal filing. “The agreement General Funk reached here is no
different than a plea or charge agreement.”
It’s a view shared by Nashville attorney David Raybin, who helped draft
Tennessee’s death penalty statute. Raybin recently argued that the
Funk-Abdur’Rahman deal may have influenced Slatery’s office to ask the state’s
highest court to set execution dates for nine more Tennessee death row inmates,
including all inmates prosecuted in Davidson County – the area over which
General Funk presides.
Abdur’Rahman’s attorneys say it was “disrespectful” and “erroneous” for Slatery
to argue that General Funk and Judge Watkins acted “at will” outside of the
duties of their offices.
“The [Tennessee Attorney General’s] Motion casts the hearing below as baseless
and its actors, including a judge of this State, as lawless. This is
doublespeak,” the legal filing argues.
(source: WTVF news)
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma Agrees to Move Death-Row Prisoners Out of Underground Solitary
Confinement
Change is coming to Oklahoma’s row. In July, a coalition of prisoners’ rights
organizations called the state’s policy of housing its death-row prisoners in
solitary confinement in an underground facility “inhumane and oppressive” and
threatened legal action if reforms were not forthcoming. On September 26, 2019,
the Oklahoma Department of Corrections announced that within 30 days it would
be relocating “all qualifying death row inmates” to a different facility.
Led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, the prisoners’ rights
groups had spent 2 years investigating Oklahoma’s housing of death-sentenced
prisoners. Their letter to the state described “dangerous and injurious”
conditions on death row, including “permanent solitary confinement.” “The
condemned men,” the groups wrote, “are locked in their cells 22 to 24 hours a
day. By policy they are offered a 15-minute shower 3 times a week and 1 hour of
solitary exercise five times a week in an enclosed concrete room of 20 feet by
20 feet that has an opaque skylight-ceiling that obstructs any view of the sky
or sun. People with approved family visitors may have noncontact visits on
Fridays and weekends, behind plexiglass and over a phone. The facility offers
no form of congregate activity or time outside of cells, with no programs,
educational services, or work opportunities.” One prisoner compared the
conditions to being “buried alive.”
The response from Scott Crow, interim director for the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections, says that the move from the H Unit of the Oklahoma State
Penitentiary in McAlester, where death-row prisoners are currently housed, to
the prison’s A Unit will “significantly change their access to natural light
and view of the outdoors.” Instead of having recreation time in an enclosed
room with no natural light, prisoners will use a fenced recreation area with
natural light and fresh air. The change will also allow for contact visits.
Currently, prisoners on Oklahoma’s death row can only talk to visitors while
separated by plexiglass. Crow’s letter did not specify how the state will
determine which prisoners qualify for the move to A Unit. “The letter doesn’t
explain what ‘qualifying’ means, so we will need to get more information about
what the criteria will be,” said Corene Kendrick, a staff attorney at the
Prison Law Office, one of the organizations that raised concerns about
Oklahoma’s death-row conditions. “All of the condemned men should have an
opportunity to show that they can be safely housed in more humane conditions
where they can sit in a room with other people, or go outside to breathe fresh
air, feel the sun’s warmth, and see the sky.”
Crow’s response also leaves the status of congregate religious services
uncertain. The complaint letter argued that the prison was violating federal
law by denying death-row prisoners the opportunity to worship in group
settings. Under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the
government may not impose a “substantial burden” on the religious exercise of
prisoners without a compelling government interest. Oklahoma allowed communal
worship services on death row prior to 2009, without incident, but the state
said that “[i]f the inmates adjust well to the A Unit environment, we will
assess their suitability for jobs and congregate religious services.”
“We hope to engage in further discussion with state officials about the
criteria they plan to use for housing the men in A Unit, and the issue of the
religious services, with the goal that we can avoid litigation,” said Kendrick.
“The most problematic part of the response is that ODC [Oklahoma Department of
Corrections] still considers congregate religious services to be a ‘privilege’
and not the fundamental right that it is.”
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
NEVADA:
Lawyers want Nevada to ban executions of mentally ill
The American Bar Association wants the Nevada Supreme Court to rule that people
suffering from severe mental illness should be ineligible for the death
penalty.
The national group of lawyers and legal scholars made the argument in joining
an appeal challenging the death sentence of a man it says was mentally ill when
he was convicted of the 1998 hatchet slaying of a campus police officer.
Siaosi Vanisi was found guilty of murder in the death of University of Nevada,
Reno police Sgt. George Sullivan while he was sitting in his cruiser.
The native Tongan also was also convicted of robbing a convenience store using
Sullivan's service revolver before he was arrested during a standoff with a
SWAT team in Salt Lake City.
Vanisi's lawyers filed motions to withdraw from the case during his initial
trial partly because he refused to cooperate with their efforts to prove he was
incompetent.
One lawyer told the judge in chambers that Vanisi acknowledged killing Sullivan
but wanted to blame someone else. The lawyer said that put his defense team in
the unethical position of allowing Vanisi to perjure himself. The judge refused
their request to withdraw and found Vanisi competent.
Vanisi told a judge earlier this year he opposes arguing for a reduced sentence
because he doesn't want to spend his life in prison. Instead, he wants a new
trial in federal court despite the overwhelming evidence used to convict him.
The bar association says it's a prime example of why severely mentally ill
people shouldn't be subject to execution.
"Neither retribution nor deterrence is served by executing those whose
perceptions of reality, logical reasoning and ability to exercise rational
judgment are significantly impaired at the time of the crime," attorney Richard
Shonfeld wrote in the ABA's brief filed Thursday.
The latest appeal filed on Vanisi's behalf said he was "washing himself in his
own urine," ''dancing naked," ''talking gibberish" and "attempting to sabotage
his defense team" before his trial.
Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Joseph Plater has said at a previous
hearing that "severe mental illness as a matter of law has never been deemed a
condition that renders one ineligible for the death penalty."
Defendants can claim innocence by reason of insanity under Nevada law if they
can prove they couldn't distinguish between right and wrong or otherwise didn't
understand what they were doing as a result of a mental disease.
"A mental health illness or disorder could be anything from bipolar disorder or
schizophrenia to an excessive compulsive disorder like constantly washing your
hands," Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Noble said Tuesday. "Mental
illness does not equate to insanity."
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Motions begin in trial of man accused of burning mother to death
Pre-trial motions will be heard starting today in the death penalty trial of a
man accused of setting fire to his mother outside her Indio workplace, causing
injuries that killed her about a month after he allegedly doused her in
flammable liquid and set her ablaze.
Israel Guardado-Ramirez, 38, is accused of setting fire to Francisca Ramirez,
61, of North Shore, on Jan. 26, 2018, at the loading dock outside the Mathis
Brothers furniture store where she worked. Ramirez died at Arrowhead Regional
Medical Center in Colton on Feb. 25, having suffered burns over more than 50
percent of her body.
Pre-trial motions are expected to be held through this week, with jury
selection to begin next week.
This May, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office filed paperwork
stating their intention to seek capital punishment.
If jurors convict Guardado-Ramirez of murder, along with any of the special
circumstance allegations, the trial will enter a 2nd penalty phase in which the
panel will be tasked with recommending death or life imprisonment without
parole.
The special circumstance allegations include murder with mayhem, lying in wait
and murder involving the infliction of torture.
A motive for the killing has not been specifically stated by police and
prosecutors, though a declaration filed with the court by Indio police
Detective Jesse Marin said the defendant, who was living out of his car at the
time, traveled to Indio "with the purpose of `settling matters' with family
members, which included his mother.''
Shortly after Ramirez was taken to the hospital, she identified her son as the
suspect, police said. Guardado-Ramirez then walked into the Riverside County
jail in Indio and turned himself in, according to Indio police Sgt. Daniel
Marshall.
(source: KESQ news)
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