opinion
CALIFORNIA : Death sentence upheld for Montebello woman who murdered her husband – Angelina Rodriguez
february 20, 2014(latimes)
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death penalty Thursday for a Montebello woman convicted of murdering her husband for life insurance and implicated in the choking death years earlier of her baby daughter.
Angelina Rodriguez fatally poisoned her husband, a special education teacher, by serving him drinks laced with oleander and antifreeze in 2000, a few months after persuading him to take out joint life insurance policies, the court said.
It was her second attempt, according to the ruling written by Justice Ming W. Chin. She had previously tried to kill him by loosening natural gas valves in their garage, the court said.
Rodriguez had married Jose Francisco Rodriguez several months before his death.
During her murder trial, the prosecution also presented evidence implicating her in the 1993 death of her 13-month-old daughter, Alicia. Rodriguez was married to another man at the time.
The baby died after choking on the rubber nipple of a pacifier. Two months earlier, Rodriguez had taken out a $50,000 life insurance policy on the baby—without her then-husband’s knowledge—and made herself the beneficiary, the court said.
Rodriguez and Alicia’s father also sued the manufacturer of the pacifier, which had been recalled based on five consumer complaints that it had broken apart. The company paid a $710,000 settlement.
While behind bars for the murder of her husband, Rodriguez tried to dissuade a witness from testifying against her, the court said. The jury convicted of her interfering with the witness but failed to reach a verdict on a charge that she tried to have the witness murdered.
In challenging her conviction and sentence, Rodriguez argued, among other things, that the jury should not have been told she killed her daughter. Rodriguez was not charged or convicted in connection with the death, but law enforcement reexamined it after the poisoning of her husband.
The court said the jury was entitled to hear about the child’s death during the penalty phase of deliberations.
“There was ample evidence that defendant murdered her daughter,” Chin wrote.
Karen Kelly, who is representing Rodriguez on appeal, said she would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.
California supreme court /opinion : click to read, pdf file
Share this:
CALIFORNIA – Kill the death penalty
October 18, 2012 http://www.newsreview.com/
In 1978, a man named Ron Briggs ran the campaign for Proposition 7, which proposed to expand California’s death penalty law to make it among the toughest in the country. Briggs was the son of John Briggs, a Republican state senator who strongly supported the measure. It was written by Donald J. Heller, a former prosecutor. The Briggs Initiative, as it was called, passed resoundingly.
Since then Ron Briggs and Heller have had a change of heart. Today they are campaigning vigorously on behalf of Proposition 34, the SAFE California initiative that would end the death penalty and replace it with mandatory life without parole.
Their goal with Proposition 7, Briggs has written, was to broaden the murder categories eligible for the death penalty and “give prosecutors better tools for meting out just punishments” and warn “all California evildoers that the state would deliver swift and final justice.”
They now realize, however, that it didn’t work. There were 300 people on death row in 1978; today there are more than 720. Only 13 death row prisoners have been executed since their measure passed—far more have died of natural causes—and the state has spent $4 billion trying to enforce capital punishment. Eliminating it could save $183 million annually.
Opponents of Proposition 34 argue that it forgoes justice in order to save money. But where’s the justice? As Briggs writes, it’s “a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and enriches lawyers.” Meanwhile, the families of victims suffer because they’re forced over and over to face the alleged murderer in a series of mandated appeals that, because of a shortage of judges and public defenders, can take decades to exhaust.
Opponents of Proposition 34 also argue that the death penalty deters crime, but study after study shows that’s simply not true. States without the death penalty have murder rates similar to, and sometimes lower than, those of states with capital punishment.
In addition, the death penalty is applied in a biased manner. Proportionally, blacks are sentenced to death far more often than whites, especially when the victim is white.
Finally, there’s the matter of innocence. DNA testing has exonerated more than 2,000 prisoners, including many on death row. It’s a virtual certainty that some innocent people have been executed. Death is a punishment that cannot be reversed.
For all of these reasons, it’s time to abolish the death penalty in California. Vote yes on Proposition 34.
Share this:
Arizona – The Supreme Court today, in Martinez v. Ryan
The Supreme Court today, in Martinez v. Ryan, recognized that where a state habeas lawyer was ineffective for failing to raise a claim that trial counsel was ineffective, procedural rules will not bar a federal court from hearing those claims. Read the entire opinion below.
Claim your Innocence 