MedicCook
09-22-2006, 03:20 PM
Jury: Death for sex offender who killed student
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/09/22/student.slain.ap/vert.dru.ap.jpg
College student Dru Sjodin was last seen alive at a shopping mall in November 2003.
FARGO, North Dakota (AP) -- A federal court jury decided Friday that a convicted sex offender should die for killing college student Dru Sjodin.
The jury reached its decision against Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. after more than a day and a half of deliberations.
Rodriguez looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as the sentence was announced.
Rodriguez's mother, Dolores, and sister, Ileanna Noyes, cried as the verdict was announced, as did a number of the jurors.
Members of Sjodin's family looked somber and stared straight ahead. They shared hugs outside the courtroom.
It is the first death penalty case in North Dakota in nearly a century. The state does not have the death penalty but it is allowed in federal cases.
The case was pursued federally because the crime crossed state lines. The University of North Dakota student's body was found in a Minnesota ravine nearly five months after she disappeared.
The same federal jury convicted Rodriguez, 53, of Crookston, Minnesota, on August 30 on a charge of kidnapping resulting in Sjodin's death.
Sjodin, 22, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot on November 22, 2003, and her body was found the following April in a ravine near Crookston. Authorities said she was beaten, raped and stabbed.
U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley, in his statements to jurors, said the death penalty would be the "right thing, in the right case." He stood near her portrait and asked for justice.
Rodriguez's attorney, Richard Ney, asked the jury for mercy after calling psychologists and Rodriguez's family to talk about his childhood of poverty, abuse and exposure to farm chemicals.
Ney also said Rodriguez had been anxious about being released from prison after serving more than 20 years for assaults on three women in 1975 and 1980.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/22/student.slain.ap/index.html
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/LAW/09/22/student.slain.ap/vert.dru.ap.jpg
College student Dru Sjodin was last seen alive at a shopping mall in November 2003.
FARGO, North Dakota (AP) -- A federal court jury decided Friday that a convicted sex offender should die for killing college student Dru Sjodin.
The jury reached its decision against Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. after more than a day and a half of deliberations.
Rodriguez looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as the sentence was announced.
Rodriguez's mother, Dolores, and sister, Ileanna Noyes, cried as the verdict was announced, as did a number of the jurors.
Members of Sjodin's family looked somber and stared straight ahead. They shared hugs outside the courtroom.
It is the first death penalty case in North Dakota in nearly a century. The state does not have the death penalty but it is allowed in federal cases.
The case was pursued federally because the crime crossed state lines. The University of North Dakota student's body was found in a Minnesota ravine nearly five months after she disappeared.
The same federal jury convicted Rodriguez, 53, of Crookston, Minnesota, on August 30 on a charge of kidnapping resulting in Sjodin's death.
Sjodin, 22, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot on November 22, 2003, and her body was found the following April in a ravine near Crookston. Authorities said she was beaten, raped and stabbed.
U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley, in his statements to jurors, said the death penalty would be the "right thing, in the right case." He stood near her portrait and asked for justice.
Rodriguez's attorney, Richard Ney, asked the jury for mercy after calling psychologists and Rodriguez's family to talk about his childhood of poverty, abuse and exposure to farm chemicals.
Ney also said Rodriguez had been anxious about being released from prison after serving more than 20 years for assaults on three women in 1975 and 1980.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/22/student.slain.ap/index.html