Posted on 06/05/2008 12:48:22 PM PDT by TheDon
...
Nunez, 14, and co-defendant Jose Diego Perez, 29 – both members of the violent 18th Street gang in Los Angeles – were arrested April 25, 2001, after they kidnapped Delfino Moreno, 34, from in front of his Santa Ana home.
The kidnappers demanded $100,000 in ransom plus a kilogram of cocaine, Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh told an Orange County jury in 2003. But Moreno's family alerted Santa Ana police instead of agreeing to pay. And when the defendants spotted undercover officers, they took off in an Oldsmobile sedan.
Witnesses testified that Nunez blasted away at chasing officers with an assault rifle. None of the officers was injured.
At one point during the chase, Nunez leveled the assault rifle at the kidnapping victim and asked Perez, ''Should I kill him?''
...
''The fact that we don't have multiple dead bodies in this case is pure luck," Baytieh told jurors.
...
When he 16, Nunez was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, becoming one of the youngest inmates ever sent to prison with no hope of being released.
He's 21 now. He's been in custody for seven years. His convictions and sentence were affirmed by an appellate court in 2004.
But for the first time since his arrest, Nunez has some hope now that he may at some time in the future become eligible for parole.
That's because a defendants' rights organization in Alabama has petitioned the California Supreme Court, contending that sentencing someone that young to life without parole is cruel and unusual punishment and therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"We don't believe that life without parole is an appropriate sentence for someone who is 13 or 14 years of age," said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of Equal Justice Initiative ...
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
I wonder if he and his co-conspiritor are in this country legally...
Not really. I think I know.
Life in jail no longer means LIFE IN JAIL.
Exactly.
And putting someone on Life Row instead of Death Row doesn’t mean that they won’t still push for an appeal of the conviction. THAT is where all the expense comes in with the death penalty. The appeals process.
“We don’t believe that life without parole is an appropriate sentence for someone who is 13 or 14 years of age,”
He isn’t 14. He is 21. He he he.
He was 14 years old and he didn’t actually kill anyone? Life without parole does seem a bit harsh...
At the time the US Constitution was written, children as young as 12 were sentenced to hang. If it was legal punishment in 1787, it cannot be considered cruel or unusual in 2008.
Or kidnap people or shoot assault rifles at police officers....
This is why we should execute these monsters, immediately. Some idiot will say “they were only kids...” and put them back out on the street.
They are monsters, and they are broken beyond repair. Letting them live is an unacceptable risk to society.
Since the OCR didn’t see fit to identify the Alabama bunch advocating for this nice young man I guess I’ll do it myself:
I agree, life w/o parole is too lenient a sentence for this sub-human. A simple 75 cent bullet to what little gray matter he has would save countless thousands of tax payer dollars.
If only Uncle Sam wasn’t Aunt Nanny...
OK - make him eligible for parole in say ...oh .... 95 years ...
He INTENDED to kill people. His poor marksmanship doesn't give him a pass for what he was trying to do. Leave him incarcerated for life. If released, he'll be back with the gang and shooting at people in no time. Screw that.
I don’t think these gang members are abe to “reform.” and nce they get out they will be required to prove they haven’t got soft.
Considering there are actual adult murderers in the US who have gotten parole at the end of a long sentence, it seems an injustice in that light.
I think it would be better to have given him a life sentence, but given him parole after he’s been incarcerated for a while. That way he is in the penal system for life, if he steps a foot wrong and violates his parole by say, associating with a gang, he goes back inside and continues his life sentence. That is as strict as I would be willing to be for someone who was a juvenile at the time of his offence, and who never succeeded in killing anyone....
Fine, but you have to take him in and provide for him until he gets a job and can support himself, plus you will be responsible for any criminal acts done while he is domiciled within your home. If you aren't willing to do this, then your above quote is just so much hypocritical rhetoric. Are you really willing to put your money where your mouth is?
Why, just because I don’t believe in executing every criminal with a bullet through the head, should that make me personally as a probation officer for any criminal who is released on parole?
That isn’t my job, I am not a probation officer, and people whose job it is don’t have to take all their charges home with them at night.
What a ludicrous argument. Predictable, but ludicrous all the same. I assume as this is FR, that you are pro-life, just as I am, but does that mean it should be your personal responsibility to look after every child who is given up for adoption by the mother, or do you think it should be left to the proper authorities to take care of?
However, this crime did occur in Southern California. South of the border and beyond lies Mexico,Latin America and South America. People make a living kidnapping people down there. I can't help but think that the authority's were thinking of sending a message to any future would be kidnappers of what will happen to them if they try a stunt like this in California. Even if no one dies.
A death sentence for kidnapping is a stupid idea in the first place. You aren’t giving any incentive to the kidnapper to keep his victim alive. If he feels the authorities are getting closer, he would have nothing to lose in getting rid of the key witness to his crime if the consequences for being caught and convicted are the same..
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