Free Republic

Can an immigrant without a green card get a Florida Bar card? Aspiring lawyer Jose Godinez-Samperio, 25, a Tampa-area resident, is hoping the answer is yes. A native of Mexico who entered the United States legally with his parents 16 years ago on a tourist visa, Godinez-Samperio is a graduate of the Florida State University College of Law, the valedictorian of the Armwood High School class of 2004, an Eagle Scout — and an undocumented immigrant.The Florida Board of Bar Examiners, which grants membership to the Bar, has asked the state Supreme Court to determine whether it can accept someone...

The manhunt's final chapter went by in a flash: no time for meals, no time for a hotel, no time for a shower. And certainly no time for sleep. When it ended early yesterday at an apartment complex in a Washington, D.C., suburb, alleged murderer Rodolfo Godinez turned to the Newark cop who had been tracking him for 60 straight hours and starting asking questions. "How did you catch me? Someone told on me?" Godinez asked Detective Rasheen Peppers. "You must be very smart." Peppers, 34, smiled wryly yesterday afternoon, recounting the story from his home in Essex County. A...

One of six men charged with the execution-style killings of three college students in Newark, N.J., said yesterday in Prince George's County District Court that he will fight extradition to New Jersey. "I want to stay here and fight it," said Rodolfo Godinez, 24, a Nicaraguan national who was arrested Saturday in Oxon Hill. Judge Leo E. Green Jr. ordered Mr. Godinez held without bail until a hearing Sept. 20. Mr. Godinez's half-brother Alexander Alfaro, 16, who is being held in the Prince William County jail in Woodbridge, declined to waive extradition yesterday...He will be held pending a court hearing...

A 24-year-old man believed to be the ringleader in the startling, execution-style killings of three college students in Newark will be arraigned today in Prince George's County District Court. Rodolfo Godinez was arrested Saturday in Oxon Hill after a extensive search by Newark and federal authorities that led to the arrest of his 16-year-old half brother later that day in Woodbridge, VA. Yesterday, Newark police arrested an 18-year-old man in Elizabeth, N.J. "Now, the process of healing must take center stage and the prosecution of the case begins," Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker said.. Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy credited...

Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow has for years drawn criticism - and infuriated police - with her unwritten rule not to issue arrest warrants, or even pursue cases that rely on a lone eyewitness. Court records show more than a dozen Newark murders in the past three years in which witnesses had ID'ed the killers but no charges weren brought by Dow's office. Dow's "policy" seemed about to rear its head in the wake of the triple schoolyard slayings

A few blocks from the Newark schoolyard where the killings had been carried out, Gloria Gomez sat on her porch in the fading afternoon light, hardship etched on her careworn face, and tears welled in her eyes as she spoke of her two fugitive sons... “I raised them honestly, through my hard work,” the 45-year-old mother said in Spanish, remembering 20 years of cleaning other people’s houses, of abandonment by two husbands and of life as an immigrant... Ms. Gomez’s sons — Rodolfo Godinez, 24, and his 16-year-old half brother — were still being sought by the police yesterday in...

As Newark cops yesterday continued hunting for three people suspected in a grisly schoolyard massacre there, residents said several of the men were part of a notorious street gang. It also emerged that one of the fugitives, Rodolfo Godinez, obtained a green card in 2001 and was allowed to stay in the United States despite later robbery and assault arrests, immigration authorities said yesterday.Godinez pleaded guilty to lesser charges. His fellow fugitives include his 16-year-old brother and another youth, both of whom attended Mount Vernon School, the scene of the Aug. 4 triple slaying. Recently, Godinez's brother and another youth...