Saturday, September 16, 2006
Local Illegal Immigrant News
The jury came back on Friday afternoon (as they nearly always do) in the murder trial of local cop killer (and illegal alien) Raul Gomez-Garcia, with a guilty verdict. Whew! We were worried for a bit there. Here's a little detail.
In 2005 Raul Gomez-Garcia walked up behind and then shot and killed Denver police Detective Donald Young and shot and failed to kill Young's partner, Detective Jack Bishop. He fled to his native country, Mexico. Denver DA Mitch Morrissey was able to get him arrested in Mexico but that country won't extradite murderers back here if we are seeking the death penalty or even (back then) life in prison without parole. So Mitch, who's a friend, had the awful task of agreeing to limit the penalty for Mr. Gomez-Garcia in order to get him back to the states. The tiny bit of good news from this tragedy is that Mexico will now extradite where the penalty is life without the possibility of parole.
In Colorado, conviction of 1st degree Murder means you get life without the possibility of parole. With 2nd degree murder you can get something like 50 years, but cut that roughly by 55% to get the real time spent in prison, and parole is almost certain for an aged murderer and certain if he has done all the time he has to serve (killed that number, in the prison parlance of the 1980s).
I don't think 2nd degree murder actually exists and I'll steal the explanatory example Diomedes one time gave a jury to explain the difference between 1st and 2nd in Colorado (other than the sentences available). 1st generally means you intended to kill a certain person (depraved indifference and felony murder are possible but let's not complicate things) after some thought--deliberation, pre-meditation. Your thought, the mens rea of the crime, is intent. With second, the mens rea is know, not intend. What? you ask. Let's say Dr. Frankenstein needs a fresh heart for his monster. He goes out to get a heart. He doesn't care which person the heart comes from. He knows, because he's a doctor, that if he removes the heart from the randomly selected individual that person will die, but he doesn't want or intend for that particular person to die (even after he has selected the victim) he just wants a fresh heart; but he knows the result will be death.
So our DA had to agree to only charge Mr. Gomez-Garcia with 2nd degree murder but he could and did charge him with attempted 1st degree murder (attempt of a crime knocks it down a peg in the hierarchy so the penalty could not life without parole) of the officer who survived.
The jury came back with attempted 2nd degree murder for the surviving officer, Jack Bishop. I guess they were being consistent.
The cop killer took the stand and testified that he did not want to kill them (only to scare them because he believed all police officers wear bullet proof vests). I think that's a confession of 2nd degree because he' s using deadly force unlawfully knowing that death is a possibility from his actions and fortunately the jury saw it that way too. He shot at or into the cops 6 times, (all the bullets he had?), and he hit Detective Young in the head. It was Bishops vest that saved him (a lesson I hope all police officers will take to heart).
With the convictions for attempted 2nd and the 2nd, the alien faces most of the rest of his life in prison--he'll be approaching 60 when he kills his numbers, assuming Judge Larry Naves, whom I like a lot, gives him the maximum, which might well be a safe bet.
In 2005 Raul Gomez-Garcia walked up behind and then shot and killed Denver police Detective Donald Young and shot and failed to kill Young's partner, Detective Jack Bishop. He fled to his native country, Mexico. Denver DA Mitch Morrissey was able to get him arrested in Mexico but that country won't extradite murderers back here if we are seeking the death penalty or even (back then) life in prison without parole. So Mitch, who's a friend, had the awful task of agreeing to limit the penalty for Mr. Gomez-Garcia in order to get him back to the states. The tiny bit of good news from this tragedy is that Mexico will now extradite where the penalty is life without the possibility of parole.
In Colorado, conviction of 1st degree Murder means you get life without the possibility of parole. With 2nd degree murder you can get something like 50 years, but cut that roughly by 55% to get the real time spent in prison, and parole is almost certain for an aged murderer and certain if he has done all the time he has to serve (killed that number, in the prison parlance of the 1980s).
I don't think 2nd degree murder actually exists and I'll steal the explanatory example Diomedes one time gave a jury to explain the difference between 1st and 2nd in Colorado (other than the sentences available). 1st generally means you intended to kill a certain person (depraved indifference and felony murder are possible but let's not complicate things) after some thought--deliberation, pre-meditation. Your thought, the mens rea of the crime, is intent. With second, the mens rea is know, not intend. What? you ask. Let's say Dr. Frankenstein needs a fresh heart for his monster. He goes out to get a heart. He doesn't care which person the heart comes from. He knows, because he's a doctor, that if he removes the heart from the randomly selected individual that person will die, but he doesn't want or intend for that particular person to die (even after he has selected the victim) he just wants a fresh heart; but he knows the result will be death.
So our DA had to agree to only charge Mr. Gomez-Garcia with 2nd degree murder but he could and did charge him with attempted 1st degree murder (attempt of a crime knocks it down a peg in the hierarchy so the penalty could not life without parole) of the officer who survived.
The jury came back with attempted 2nd degree murder for the surviving officer, Jack Bishop. I guess they were being consistent.
The cop killer took the stand and testified that he did not want to kill them (only to scare them because he believed all police officers wear bullet proof vests). I think that's a confession of 2nd degree because he' s using deadly force unlawfully knowing that death is a possibility from his actions and fortunately the jury saw it that way too. He shot at or into the cops 6 times, (all the bullets he had?), and he hit Detective Young in the head. It was Bishops vest that saved him (a lesson I hope all police officers will take to heart).
With the convictions for attempted 2nd and the 2nd, the alien faces most of the rest of his life in prison--he'll be approaching 60 when he kills his numbers, assuming Judge Larry Naves, whom I like a lot, gives him the maximum, which might well be a safe bet.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:10 AM 
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That's a loss for the prosecution. The jury apparently chose to believe a guy who killed one cop and wounded another when he said that he didn't intend to kill. "Oh, I just shot the two guys but my padre, who's a drug dealer and should know about these things, told me that cops always wear bulletproof vests." What horseshit.
Denver juries are a disgrace.
Denver juries are a disgrace.
I'm not quite as bitter as you. The disgrace was what Mitch had to do to get the guy back from Mexico. I don't know that the jury bought the defense to reduce the attempted first to attempted second, couldn't they just be saying his shooting at the same time at two people had to be the same crime for each. I'll look for jury interviews.
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