Judge Consuelo B. Marshall
Posted on 02/08/2008 10:35:34 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A federal judge on Friday overturned the conviction of a man on death row for the rape and murder of a woman outside an Orange County bar because of statements made by a prospective FBI agent that allowed him to get on the trial's jury.
U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall overturned the conviction of Richard Raymond Ramirez because the jury foreman - who was a candidate to become an FBI agent - made "false and misleading" statements about his employment situation during jury selection in the 1985 trial.
The juror, Thomas Alston, is now an FBI agent in Portland. Marshall said his behavior "fatally undermines the court's confidence in his impartiality."
Alston declined to comment about the case.
Marshall ordered that Ramirez either be released from San Quentin's death row or be granted a new trial.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas urged the attorney general's office to ask the judge to reconsider or to appeal.
"Mr. Ramirez was, and continues to be, a poster child for the death penalty," Rackauckas said in a statement. "We will make sure justice is done in this case."
Deputy state Attorney General William Wood, who argued the prosecution's side in federal court, said he had not yet decided whether to appeal.
"We're examining our options," Wood said. "We've advised the district attorney to let them know in case they have to make a decision on retrial."
Ramirez was convicted for the 1983 killing of a 22-year-old Norwalk bank teller outside a bar in Garden Grove. The partially nude body of Kimberly Gonzales was found in a nearby alley. She had been stabbed 19 times and bled to death.
He was convicted of rape, sodomy and murder. The California Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1990.
Transcripts show that when the trial judge asked the jury pool if any had law enforcement ties, Alston said his stepfather was an FBI agent and his father and uncle were retired agents. He didn't indicate he was a prospective agent himself.
Alston said he was working as a civil attorney, though he had been recently laid off.
"Mr. Alston understood that defense counsel would likely excuse him from the jury panel if he knew the full extent of his connections to the FBI," Judge Marshall wrote.
Even if you were guilty?
Liberalism is rampant in our USA.
“Wouldn’t the fact that his family had “FBI blood” already present be enough in itself to disqualify him?”
So you’d think. I have been called for jury duty every other year for at least 12 years. Every time I go, there are lawyers and other LE personnel in the group and to date NONE of them have ever been excepted on a jury with me. The same applies to their spouses, siblings, and children.
Why did the douche bag omit that he had put in an application to be a federal agent and why was he angling so hard to be on the jury???? Most sane people work to get out of being on a jury, no less a capital offense trial. This guy deserves some sort of serious reprimand.”
Can you post the part of the transcript where they are questioning
Thomas Alston?
So, once again, a liberal judge does what he wants and does not follow the law and releases a rapist and murderer. He should have to take this guy home with him and let him stay with him and his wife, or his boyfriend, which ever he has.
ok, so call it a lie of omission,, he was not employed by the FBI, only in the process of application, if the Judge isn’t smart enough to put 2 and 2 together that that work propensity ran in the family, then ban all folks who believe in law and order from serving as jurors, why don’t cha?
I think you’re over dramatizing this a bit, jmo.
Thanks for that insight.
I have never made it thru the juror selection process, only called for duty a couple times, my wife has sat as ana lternate on a murder case, and been called but not selected a couple few times.
again, I would offer the info available is not sufficient to make a definitive assessment, you are basing yours on sound reasoning for the most part, I’ll give you that, sorry if I could care less if the turd fried years ago and this was uncovered or not by the Judge.
I would also ask, What would Judge Roy Bean do?
According to the trial transcripts, which Marshall cited in a 62-page order vacating Ramirez’s conviction, Alston claimed he was working as a civil attorney when he was questioned about his occupation, despite the fact that he had recently been laid off.
When Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin asked jurors about any ties to law enforcement, Alston told the judge that his father and uncle were retired FBI agents and that his stepfather was a current agent.
“Why aren’t you in the FBI?” the judge quipped. “You need not answer,” he quickly added.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-overturn9feb09,0,7165345.story
from the Judge’s decision..
Following an evidentiary hearing, she found that the jury foreman affirmatively misrepresented his employment status during voir dire which gave rise to a presumption of bias that was not dispelled at the hearing. (At the time of voir dire, the eventual foreman of the jury failed to reveal that he had been laid off at the law firm he had been working for because of his then-pending application for employment at the FBI.)
—
what is voir dire?
http://www.abanet.org/publiced/lawday/schools/lessons/79_dueprocess_voir.html
fyi - voir dire is part of the process of juror selection and where jurors can be challenged by attorneys and dismissed based on statements made by the juror in the selection process.
does the fact, in and of itself, that the juror in question did not adequately divulge his complete situation work and otherwise effectively prevent him from serving in a fair and impartial manner on the jury?
many here say it did, the Judge said it did.
I would offer , in the case of a crime of this nature and violence, what juror would not inwardly harbor hidden biases and perhaps act on them when presented with the facts of the offense.
more than likely, this will be re-tried, at hundreds of thouands of dollars of additional expense to the state, that is if evidence and individuals involved in the apprehension and prosecution are still alive..
How was the guy convicted since the victim was killed? If there is DNA evidence... match the bastard and cook him in the chair...
Interesting. He was less than truthful about his own occupation but still mentioned his family members in LE. The defence counsel either screwed up or was setting his client up for an appeal. Due to the latter possibility, the prosecution should have kept the guy off the jury.
“At that point, Alston failed to disclose that he had applied to the FBI, “completed all of the required interviews and employment examinations, and was waiting to hear from the agency,” Marshall wrote.
In fact, the reason Alston had been laid off was because someone from the FBI contacted a partner at the firm who, until then, had been unaware the process “had gone that far,” the order states.”
From the link above.
Furthermore, if I had been fired or laid off, and I was asked what my occupation was, I’d still give the same answer, because I’d consider that a question about my profession, not my employment status.
Judge Consuelo B. Marshall
any technicality in a storm, yaknow..
I await the FBI agent getting his pension yanked over this extreme indiscretion in the eyes of some here. wouldn’t want to sully the image of the legal system now, would we?
Sounds like the judge is taking a page out of huckelberry’s play book.
Evidently the attorneys who selected the jury didn't think so.......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.