Federal prosecutors have indicated they may attraction to the Eighth Circuit Court docket of Appeals to revive the loss of life sentence given to Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. for the 2003 homicide of Dru Sjodin.
Decide Ralph Erickson, who oversaw Rodriguez’s trial as a U.S. District Court docket decide and is now on the Eighth Circuit, ordered a brand new sentencing part within the case final 12 months, discovering that deceptive skilled testimony and a restricted psychological well being analysis violated Rodriguez’s constitutional rights.
School Scholar’s Disappearance Shocks the Midwest
In 2003, simply earlier than Thanksgiving, 22-year-old faculty pupil Dru Sjodin went lacking after leaving a shopping center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Her disappearance triggered huge searches all through the Grand Forks space. Rodriguez, a previous intercourse offender, was arrested a month after Sjodin disappeared—however authorities didn’t get well her physique for one more 4 months. She was present in a ravine close to Crookston, Minnesota, in April 2004. Her fingers had been tied behind her again, and health workers concluded that she had been sexually assaulted.
In 2006, a federal jury convicted Rodriguez of kidnapping Sjodin, transporting her throughout the state line into Minnesota, and killing her. The jury sentenced Rodriguez to loss of life—the primary federal loss of life penalty case in North Dakota’s historical past.
The case profoundly affected Minnesota legislation, prompting a dramatic shift in how the state handles intercourse offenders. On the federal stage, Sjodin’s abduction and loss of life led to the enaction of “Dru’s Regulation,” a portion of the Adam Walsh Little one Safety and Security Act. Amongst different issues, Dru’s Regulation renamed the Nationwide Intercourse Offender Public Registry to the Dru Sjodin Nationwide Intercourse Offender Public Web site (NSOPW).
Psychological Well being and Reason for Loss of life Proof Grounds for New Sentencing Section
At Rodriguez’s homicide trial, the jury heard conflicting testimony relating to the reason for Sjodin’s loss of life. Protection consultants argued that the reason for loss of life was possible asphyxiation, whereas a county medical expert said that Sjodin’s throat had been slashed. The post-mortem itself said that the reason behind loss of life may have been asphyxiation/suffocation, a slash wound to the neck, or publicity to the weather.
Rodriguez made a number of appeals, together with to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, which denied overview. In 2009, the Eighth Circuit affirmed his conviction and loss of life sentence. Nonetheless, a partial concurrence written by Decide Michael Melloy identified a number of errors within the penalty part that he believed warranted a redo of sentencing.
In 2011, Rodriguez alleged ineffective help of counsel. Decide Erickson rejected all however two of the 21 arguments Rodriguez made. However, in a 232-page ruling, he held that the testimony from the county medical expert about Sjodin’s reason behind loss of life was “unsupported, deceptive, and inaccurate.”
Learn Decide Erickson’s full opinion with a free trial of Westlaw Edge.
As well as, Decide Erickson held that the choice by protection attorneys to restrict Rodriguez’s psychological well being analysis may need price him the potential of pleading madness, stating:
“An sufficient investigation would have uncovered a doable madness protection, and, at a minimal, data indicating that Rodriguez suffered from post-traumatic stress dysfunction (“PTSD”) so extreme that he generally has dissociative experiences.”
If the jury had heard proof about such a extreme psychological well being situation, Decide Erickson concluded, “there’s a affordable chance a minimum of one juror” would have opted to impose a life sentence as a substitute of the loss of life penalty.
The U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace in North Dakota filed its discover of attraction on Thursday, March 3.
