A Thousand Days
It's been a thousand days since Dru Sjodin was kidnapped and murdered, allegedly by Alfonso Rodriguez.
Today the case goes to the jury:
Holding Dru Sjodin's ripped pink shirt before jurors Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley urged them to find Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. guilty of kidnapping her and causing her death.
"All the evidence combines to form an overwhelming case that Alfonso Rodriguez kidnapped Dru Sjodin and caused her death," Wrigley said in an impassioned, hourlong closing statement.
Closing statements verged on theatre:
A spray of tiny specks of Sjodin's blood found in Rodriguez's car "was Dru's voice, shouting out -- 'I was here. He forced me here,' " Wrigley said.
"Can you feel her strength?" he asked the jurors. "Can you feel it? Dru put up a fight."
A lawyer friend once told me what lawyers are (allegedly) taught in law school: "If the law is against you, argue facts. If the facts are against you, argue law. If the law and facts are against you, argue like hell.
Sjodin's blood was found in Rodriguez' car. The federal kidnapping statute cares not a jot where Dru Sjodin died.
Robert Hoy is arguing like hell:
"They cannot prove that Dru Sjodin was alive when transportation began," he said. He suggested that Sjodin could have been grabbed in the parking lot, assaulted and killed -- but not carried off alive to rural Minnesota and thus not kidnapped, as the federal law defines the crime.
"In all likelihood, her clothing was removed in the vehicle," Hoy said, referring to how Sjodin was nude from the waist down when her body was found outside Crookston on April 17, 2004.
"There was a struggle. Dru got cut. She gets bruised. Perhaps she gets stabbed to death. It's entirely possible that after she was in his automobile, she died of suffocation with the bag over her head."
The killing "was unintentional," Hoy said, continuing with the hypothetical scenario. "He needed to get rid of the body, so he transported the body to someplace where he could dispose of it."
While I opposed the death penalty on basic principle, that principle is "the innocent might be executed". While my principle remains unchanged, if Alfonso Rodriguez is found guilty and sentenced to death, I won't shed a single tear.
Posted by Mitch at
August 30, 2006 09:44 AM
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"The federal kidnapping statute cares not a jot where Dru Sjodin died."
Yes it does, because if the kidnapping occurred in a single state (i.e. she was dead before he crossed a state border - and was therefore no longer a "kidnapping") it doesn't apply. Arguably.
Posted by: LearnedFoot at August 30, 2006 10:04 AMWhile I respect your opposition to the death penalty -- the innocent might also be put in jail for the rest of their lives, and I don't see that as fundamentally more pathetic than getting a needle in the arm -- we're on the same page about Alfonso Rodriguez.
That said, I really don't care if he's executing or thrown in a hole for the rest of his life. I just want him and his like off the streets permanently.
Justice for Dru Sjodin? Never going to happen; there's nothing that could be done to Rodriguez that would be appropriately bad enough.
As to his lawyers, though, I think they're doing a very good job given the facts of the case, and -- scum that Rodriguez is -- society deserves that he be aggressively represented. That's who we are, and what we do . . .
. . . and entirely consistent with sticking a needle in his arm, after a fair trial.
Posted by: Joel Rosenberg at August 30, 2006 10:05 AMJoel,
As usual, we agree about 90% of the way.
But I had to respond to this bit here:
"the innocent might also be put in jail for the rest of their lives, and I don't see that as fundamentally more pathetic than getting a needle in the arm"
I like to tell the story of one case with which I'm quite familiar, of a guy who escaped from death row. Twice. Once he escaped a couple of fairly dim deputies while in transit between facilities, and was on the lam for several months.
The second time was when, after 21 years on death row, he was released - because DNA evidence exonerated him for the rape/murder for which he'd been sentenced in the first place.
Serving 21 years for a crime one did not commit is a rotten thing that has got to mess with a guy's mojo, to put it glibly. Worse than dying? Well, one must be alive to split that particular hair.
But I agree. Get them off the streets, by *whatever* means.
Posted by: mitch at August 30, 2006 10:13 AMFoot,
You're right, of course - the law does distinguish based on where the victim dies.
But - according to some stuff I read as A-Rod's defense was presenting its' case - ambiguity as to the *exact* location, under the federal law (as fed through a couple of court cases) isn't necessarily friendly to the defense. If she died in the car whilst being transported out of state, it's not necessarily incumbent upon the prosecution to show Sjodin was in Minnesota before dying. If she got in the car in Grand Forx alive, and got out in Minnesota dead, as I understand it, A-Rod is in deep fed.
Again, that's as I understand it, and I'm certainly no lawyer.
Posted by: mitch at August 30, 2006 10:19 AMThe verdict is in...GUILTY! There is a special place in Hades for people like this...
Posted by: The Lady Logician at August 30, 2006 12:31 PM