federal death penalty trial

[Anja]

Sex offender facing death penalty----Indictment calls college student's
manner of death cruel and depraved


The abduction of 22-year-old Dru Sjodin from a shopping center parking lot
and the discovery of her body 5 months later, after an emotional search,
has led to major revisions of sex offender laws in 2 states and to North
Dakota's first federal death penalty case.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 53, a convicted sex offender, is to go on trial
Thursday in federal court in Bismarck. He has pleaded not guilty to a
charge of kidnapping resulting in the death of the University of North
Dakota student more than 2 years ago.

Federal prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if he is
convicted.

"This will be a national trial," said Joseph Daly, a criminal law
professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. "A federal death
penalty case is quite unusual, especially when you're talking about a
state that doesn't have the death penalty."

The federal indictment says Sjodin was killed "in an especially heinous,
cruel and depraved manner, in that it involved torture and serious
physical abuse."

North Dakota's last execution was in 1905. The state's death penalty law
was abolished in 1975.

Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., disappeared Nov. 22, 2003, from a Grand
Forks mall where she had gone shopping after getting off work at a
Victoria's Secret store. Moments before, she had talked with her boyfriend
by cell phone.

Hundreds of people, many of them college students, volunteered to search
for her.

Rodriguez was arrested within two weeks of Sjodin's disappearance when
police investigated a tip that he was in Grand Forks on the day she
disappeared. His bail was set at $5 million, although Rodriguez asked to
remain in custody for his own safety.

Sjodin's body was found the following April, in a ravine near Crookston,
Minn., where Rodriguez lived with his mother. That's about 25 miles from
Grand Forks.

Lawmakers in North Dakota and Minnesota approved tougher sentences for sex
offenders, including life without parole for the most serious offenses and
stricter supervision of offenders after they leave prison.

Members of Sjodin's family spoke around the country in favor of a proposed
national sex offender registration, known as "Dru's Law."

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Sjodin suspect's trial renews debate over capital punishment

Dru Sjodin's disappearance touched off a torrent of worry and sadness. Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.'s arrest unleashed enough outrage to change how Minnesota and North Dakota deal with sex offenders.

More than 2 years after the painful saga unfolded, a trial that begins Thursday may force 2 states that haven't executed a criminal in more than a century to wade into the divisive issue of capital punishment.

Sjodin's family and some of her friends have supported a federal
prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty.

"There is no question in anybody's mind that's what should happen," said friend Elia Loven. "That's not even enough."

Some of those who were close to the spirited college student aren't so sure that pursuing a death sentence is the right thing to do. High school friend Sarah Millard said she wonders what Sjodin would have wanted.

"She did not have any grudges against anyone. Everyone was in love with her," Millard said. "Of course, you are so angry about what he did you feel that's the only way you are going to make peace. But at the same time, I try to think about had this been me, would Dru have been OK with the death penalty? I don't know if she would have."

Jury selection begins Thursday in Fargo. Rodriguez, 53, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing Sjodin.

Her disappearance in November 2003 from a shopping mall in Grand Forks sparked massive searches in North Dakota and Minnesota. Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, was arrested the following month. Sjodin's body was found in April 2004.

Rodriguez faces a possible death sentence through a happenstance of geography. He is accused of crossing state lines during the commission of a kidnapping, which gave federal authorities an opportunity to step in. That action exposed Rodriguez to the death penalty, even though the crime he is accused of committing happened in 2 states that have outlawed capital punishment.

Even when Minnesota and North Dakota sat on the frontier, its residents hesitated to impose the death penalty. Minnesota's last execution was in 1906. North Dakota last put a criminal to death in 1905.

Those who support reinstating the death penalty in Minnesota said the Rodriguez case could bolster their cause, demonstrating that capital punishment should be available for such heinous crimes tried in state court.

Human rights advocates are also watching the case and say they hope it doesn't reignite a state debate on capital punishment.

It wouldn't be the 1st time Sjodin's death pressed lawmakers to action. Sjodin's slaying and the arrest of Rodriguez a high-level sex offender who was released from prison six months before the abduction provoked outrage, sparking a series of changes in how Minnesota and North Dakota handle violent sexual predators.

Sjodin, 22, grew up in Pequot Lakes, Minn., and attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

DEBATING PUNISHMENT

'I think the most heinous sex offenses should be subject to the death penalty. I proposed that publicly 2 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. "I continue to believe the death penalty should be available for juries to consider as an option for the most heinous and vicious criminal acts in Minnesota."

Pawlenty said the Legislature has, so far, blocked the passage of a death penalty law but acknowledged that Sjodin's trial could reignite the issue.

"I think the details for a particular crime might advance those views one way or the other," Pawlenty said.

Even one of Minnesota's most prominent Democrats said he isn't opposed to a state death penalty as long as it includes adequate safeguards to ensure that innocent people don't end up on death row.

"There are certain people on this earth who shouldn't live another day," said Attorney General Mike Hatch, who is challenging Pawlenty for governor in November. "I can go along with the death penalty as long as I know the system doesn't have those errors in it. I have not seen a statute that provides adequate safeguards."

But as other states and countries turn away from capital punishment, Minnesota should not take a step backward, said attorney Jennifer Prestholdt, deputy director of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.

"There is a strong connection between horrible events and calls to bring back the death penalty," Prestholdt said. "That is why it's important to put it in the context of what's happening in the nation and throughout the world."

The death penalty has long been an option for federal prosecutors in both states but until now has not been used. Rodriguez is charged in U.S. District Court in North Dakota with kidnapping across state lines resulting in death.

Legal experts say the Justice Department under the Bush White House has been more aggressive about using the death penalty than previous administrations.

"Some critics of the Bush Justice Department say they too often turn garden-variety murders into federal death cases," said former Minnesota U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton. "Whether that is right or wrong depends on your attitude toward the death penalty and on your view of the federal role in fighting crime. 95 % of such cases are prosecuted in state court."

From the public's vantage point, Rodriguez's case may be one of the better cases to pursue the death penalty in a state that does not have capital punishment, said Lillehaug, now a partner at Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis. The victim was a popular young woman and the defendant is a convicted sex offender with a violent rap sheet.

"It is the kind of crime where anyone can imagine themselves being a victim. Who hasn't gone to a mall and walked out with your arms full of bags?" Lillehaug said.

A jury will first determine guilt or innocence during the 1st phase of the trial. If Rodriguez is found guilty, the same jury will hear additional testimony and evidence and decide whether he should be eligible for the death penalty. Both the verdicts on guilt and for the death penalty must be unanimous. If a jury convicts and chooses the death penalty, U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson would decide whether Rodriguez deserves death.

MISSING IN GRAND FORKS

It was just five days before Thanksgiving 2003 when Sjodin went missing in Grand Forks. She had finished a Saturday work shift at Victoria's Secret at the Columbia Mall and had spent an hour shopping at Marshall Field's. She was walking to her car, chatting on her cell phone with her boyfriend, Chris Lang. Then the line went dead.

When Sjodin failed to show up at 9 p.m. for her waitress job, family and friends reported the University of North Dakota senior missing.

Sjodin's Nov. 22 disappearance touched a nerve. She was a lively and promising graphic arts student with a large cadre of friends. Volunteers and authorities massed numerous times over five months to look for Sjodin.

Authorities arrested Rodriguez on Dec. 1, 2003, after authorities found Sjodin's blood in his car. Searchers discovered Sjodin's body on April 17, 2004, 5 months after her disappearance, in a ravine northwest of Crookston, Rodriguez's hometown.

At trial, North Dakota U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley is expected to rely primarily on physical evidence, including DNA, to connect Rodriguez to the crime, according to court documents. Investigators discovered traces of Sjodin's blood in Rodriguez's Crookston garage and on a knife found in the defendant's car. Jurors may also see store surveillance video from the day of Sjodin's disappearance.

Prosecutors also will be able to tell jurors about Rodriguez's prior
convictions for sexual assault and attempted sexual assault in the 1970s. The defendant was convicted of taking 2 college-age women in Crookston as they walked alone to their vehicle and assaulting them.

He ultimately served 23 years in prison for a 1979 attempted abduction of a woman in Crookston and was classified as a maximum-risk Level 3 sex offender. But based on the results of a pre-release psychological evaluation, he was not civilly committed, which would have placed him in a state security hospital indefinitely.

This is Wrigley's first death penalty case. But the prosecutor, who was appointed U.S. attorney in 2001 by President Bush, said he has handled dozens of violent felonies as a deputy district attorney in Philadelphia and then as a federal prosecutor.

"For federal prosecutors across the country, capital work is fairly rare. This office has never seen the death penalty before," Wrigley said. "I wouldn't do this if I wasn't experienced in prosecuting violent crime."

Prosecutors have said in court filings that Rodriguez deserves death because of his criminal record, the premeditated nature of the crime and the "especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner" in which it was carried out.

What exactly happened to Sjodin from the time of her abduction to her death has not been made public. Judge Erickson has sealed much of the court file and issued a partial gag order to rein in pretrial publicity.

Defense attorneys declined to discuss the specifics of the case, but they unsuccessfully fought in court to take the death penalty off the table, arguing that capital punishment was used "at the whim of the attorney general," calling its use as random as "lightning strikes."

Rodriguez's defense team includes West Fargo attorney Robert Hoy, a former prosecutor who went into private practice in 1990, and Richard Ney, a defense attorney based in Wichita, Kan., with extensive death penalty experience in Illinois and Kansas.

"There is the death penalty looming over everything," Hoy said. "I've been involved in $1 million lawsuits but never a case where the government wants to kill my client."

(source: Pioneer Press)