In his final argument, Ney told jurors federal death penalty provisions require certain evidentiary tests must be met in terms of planning. Ney suggested there is no evidence of a cold-blooded killing and that while Rodriguez may have planned to kidnap Sjodin, the murder wasn’t something he anticipated. “This was a crime of immediacy, of impulse. It was very disorganized,” said Ney.
But Wrigley told jurors they should have little doubt about what Rodriguez planned to do. “Don’t let anyone draw your attention away from Alfonso Rodriguez and how he terrorized Dru Sjodin in her final hours,” he said. “The facts regarding his intentions are very clear and very troubling.”
It didn’t take long to reach their decision. Jurors concluded on their second day of deliberations that the case certainly met the requirements for a death penalty sentence. Now the only question left to answer was whether they would dish out the ultimate penalty. There were three final steps jurors would have to consider:
Had prosecutors proven beyond a reasonable doubt there were “non-statutory aggravating factors” present in this case? Those factors involved the emotional impact on Sjodin’s family and friends.
Had Rodriguez proven there were any mitigating factors in his favour? Defence lawyers claim there were many, including remorse and exposure to toxic chemicals, sexual abuse and racism.
Did the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors?
Judge Ralph Erickson told jurors it was not a contest to see whether there are more aggravating factors or mitigating factors, but rather a question of weight. And jurors had to be unanimous on the question of death, or else the sentence would automatically be one of life in prison with no chance of parole.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
Prosecutors went straight for the heart of the jury, with several members reduced to tears as they listened to moving tributes to the young victim. Dru Sjodin’s mother, father, stepfather, boyfriend, roommate and good friend all took the witness stand to offer painful glimpses into how Sjodin’s death impacted them.
“My world exploded,” Sjodin’s mother, Linda Walker, told court. “She was a soft, tender, caring child. She was a wonderful contributor to society. A daughter, a sister, a friend. I was excited for her future.”
Sjodin’s stepfather, Sid Walker, described the raw emotion that followed her devastating death. “Linda would wake up at night, screaming. I felt helpless. All I could do was hold her,” he said.
Allan Sjodin, Dru’s father, said she left a lasting impression on all who knew her. “She was my baby. People would be drawn in by those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Once you met her you didn’t forget her,” he told jurors. “We’ve lost the love of our life. We struggle with every second of every day.”
Sjodin recalled his final meeting with his daughter just days before her death. He had already said goodbye and driven away but was suddenly struck by a “panic attack” after going about eight kilometres. “I turned around, went back and told her I needed to give her another hug,” said Sjodin.
Dru had been dating Chris Lang for several months before her death and the couple seemed destined for a bright future together, court was told. “Her smile was very captivating. She was a kind soul. It was real,” Lang told jurors in his statement. “She treated me like I mattered. She made me feel wonderful about myself.” Lang said he called Sjodin ”my lovable goofball” and felt she could achieve anything she set her mind to. Sjodin was hoping for a future in the arts or photography and often dazzled loved ones with her sketches, paintings and pictures. “She really seized life, every minute. There was so much ahead of her. Everything was blooming,” he said.
Danielle Mark, one of Sjodin’s best friends, recalled how she took great pride in doing volunteer work with underprivileged kids and raising money for diabetes and victims of crime. And Sjodin’s former roommate, Meg Flategraff, told jurors how Linda Walker was a bridesmaid at her recent wedding. “She stood in for Dru because she couldn’t be there,” she said.
Defence lawyers had objected to much of the heart-wrenching testimony being heard and even moved for a mistrial once the prosecution had called all its evidence. Judge Ralph Erickson refused, saying there was no prejudice to Rodriguez.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Drew Wrigley said the death penalty was the only fit punishment for an “intentional, heinous, cruel and tortuous crime.” “The facts in this case cry for justice,” he said.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2006
Alfonso Rodriguez’s elderly mother made a tearful plea for her son’s life by painting a glowing picture of a “kind, loving” man who struggled in life because of brain damage caused by exposure to toxic farm chemicals. Dolores Rodriguez showed jurors several pictures of Alfonso as a toddler as she described her fears that he will be sentenced to die. “I would suffer. I’m not in good health,” wept Dolores, who had to use a walker to get to the witness box. “He’s a wonderful son, kind, loving. I’m happy when I talk to him, when I visit him. That’s the only time I feel happy.”
Rodriguez—known as “Tito” to family members—was repeatedly exposed to dangerous pesticides while growing up with his migrant farm family in Minnesota, his mother told court. The family would come up from Mexico every spring to work with sugar beets and lived in a small home with no electricity or running water. Rodriguez was a very sick, undersized child who also faced ugly racial taunts while attending school with several siblings, she said. “The other children used to call them dirty Mexicans and other names. They weren’t happy and used to cry when they had to go to school,” said Dolores. Her son first got in trouble with the law in his early teens when he began making obscene phone calls to women living in the Crookston area, said Dolores. She spoke to police and detailed her son’s troubles, which included severe headaches, a swollen head and tremors.
Dr. Karen Froeming, a clinical neuropsychologist from California who had met with Rodriguez three times in the past year, testified she believed he suffered brain damage as a result of “significant” exposure to farm chemicals as a child. She put Rodriguez through a series of clinical tests and found he suffered from a very low IQ and that his reading, writing and math skills were at an elementary school level. “These impairments have a lot to do with impulse control,” said Froeming, who was retained by defence lawyers as an expert. Froeming told jurors she believed Rodriguez was being truthful. But she admitted being in the dark about additional background information, including how he’d lied to police about being involved in Sjodin’s death while a desperate search for her body was underway. “That would certainly have raised my index of suspicion,” she said in cross- examination.
Defence lawyers called another expert to detail the dangerous side effects of the types of chemicals being used on farms in the 1950s and 1960s, most of which are now banned. Dr. Donald Ecobichon—a Canadian who had taught at several universities and authored three books on toxic chemicals—said young children like Rodriguez would have been most vulnerable. “The toxicity of these chemicals weren’t appreciated in their early use,” he testified. He described several possible impairments from exposure, including poor judgment, anger management and aggressive behaviour. “People can recover somewhat over time. But they’re never back to normal,” said Ecobichon.
Rodriguez turned to drugs and alcohol in his mid-teens and eventually more serious crime landed him in prison for much of his adult life. After being released from prison in May 2003, he returned to Crookston to live with his mother until his arrest later that year for Sjodin’s slaying.
“There were no problems at all [when he came home]. I was happy. I had someone to help me with chores around the house. I was glad he was with me,” Dolores said.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13, 2006
The seeds were planted early for Alfonso Rodriguez to grow into a serial sex predator and killer. Sylvia D’Angelo repeatedly wiped away tears as she described the horror
of watching her little brother get molested inside a church when he was only four years old. They had been staying together in Minnesota at a summer camp for migrant children when Rodriguez had his innocence stolen by a woman who was working with the kids, she said. “I remember there was light coming through [the church] and reflecting off the Virgin Mary as he was [receiving oral sex],” said D’Angelo, who was only six years old at the time.
D’Angelo described another incident later that summer where Rodriguez sacrificed himself in order to stop a young adult man from sexually assaulting her in an outhouse on their rural farm property. “Tito would say ‘leave her alone, I will do it,’” said D’Angelo, adding the sex assaults occurred against her brother on several occasions. He also protected her when they were a bit older from a drunken caretaker who would try to attack her. “He’d try to fondle me but Alfonso wouldn’t let him. He would always hide me under a pile of clothes and say I wasn’t home,” she said.
Dr. Marilyn Hutchinson, a psychologist who had met extensively with Rodriguez over the past year, told jurors this sort of horrific abuse left Rodriguez confused and angry. Those emotions began to manifest themselves in various disturbing ways. Rodriguez was smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol by age nine; was one of several boys to have group sex with a 19-year-old when he was just 11; began using drugs like LSD, along with sniffing lighter fluid, paint and glue by his early teens; and started making obscene phone calls to girls when he was 14. Rodriguez was suffering from “very confused sexuality” and began having fantasies about having sex with strangers, said Hutchinson.
“He became very angry that women had the power to make him aroused. When he gets angry, he either has sexual thoughts or he explodes,” she said. “Remember, he had people who wanted sex from him when he was just a little kid.”
Hutchinson said Rodriguez continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his childhood experiences, which also included racial taunting from other children at school. Rodriguez recalled an incident where kids threatened to pour white paint on him because his skin colour was dark. He danced with a young white girl in the fourth grade at a school event, only to watch as the girl’s mother grabbed her away and said “wash your hands because you touched him,” said Hutchinson.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
A prison official admitted Alfonso Rodriguez’s unusual request to be kept in supervised care beyond his mandatory prison release date was ignored—opening the door for him to kill.
Ted Mickelson, Rodriguez’s former caseworker, told jurors he had serious concerns Rodriguez posed a threat to the public in light of his three prior sex-related convictions, lack of sexual-offender counselling and the fact Rodriguez himself feared being let out into the community. “I really didn’t think he would reoffend, but his history was so severe he shouldn’t be released,” Mickelson testified. Rodriguez had approached him in early 2003 and asked to be sent to a treatment centre through a civil process in which he could be further detained following the expiration of his 23-year sentence in May 2003. “He was experiencing some anxiety, some concerns about being released,” said Mickelson.
Mickelson told Rodriguez that senior Minnesota justice officials had already ruled in late 2001 he wasn’t a candidate to be “civilly committed”—the designation some high-risk US sex offenders receive through the courts if they are still deemed a risk to public safety. Mickelson admitted he thought Rodriguez should be detained beyond May 2003 but never voiced his concerns—or said Rodriguez was asking not to be freed—to prison officials in the hope they would take another look at his status. He also didn’t make officials aware of the fact Rodriguez had also gone back on a promise he’d made to seek sex-offender programming as his release date approached.
“He wasn’t interested in treatment and he refused to meet with the psychologist,” said Mickelson. Instead, Mickelson referred Rodriguez to a prison psychologist to deal with his concerns. “I couldn’t argue with what they had already decided. I didn’t think anything had changed to the point they’d take another look at it,” said Mickelson.
“But they didn’t have this new information. Weren’t there alarm bells going off in your head at this point?” asked defence lawyer Richard Ney.
Mickelson said he would have taken stronger action if Rodriguez had voiced specific thoughts about reoffending. “He never indicated to me or anyone else he had any intention to go out and hurt anybody,” he said. “If he had, I would have been on the phone right away.”
Rodriguez was granted his mandatory release that spring. And Sjodin would quickly become his next victim.
Ruth Johnson, the program director of an inmate community integration program based out of Minneapolis, testified about phone conversations she had with Rodriguez’s concerned sister just months before his release.
“It was the first phone call I’d ever received from a family member saying we don’t want him released from prison,” said Johnson. Sylvia D’Angelo had asked Johnson about potential halfway houses her brother could go to as opposed to being simply cut loose in the community with no conditions. “She said he really felt like he needed to be in a structured environment,” said Johnson. She told D’Angelo she wasn’t aware of any such programs in the Crookston area and took no further action.
Mickelson said Rodriguez also asked him about a halfway house. “I told him he wasn’t eligible,” he said.
Rosa Rodriguez also testified she was concerned—and confused—about her brother’s future pending his release from prison. “I couldn’t understand why someone would want to stay locked up forever,” she said.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
Clutching a grainy black-and-white photo of Alfonso Rodriguez as a toddler, defence lawyer Richard Ney made a passionate final plea to jurors to show the convicted killer some mercy and spare him a death sentence.
Rodriguez was once a sweet, innocent child who wasn’t given a fair shake at life because of several factors beyond his control, said Ney. “We’re dealing with an individual here who wasn’t starting out at an even level. This is not someone who’s functioning as well as you or I. We as a society don’t execute people who are striving to be good,” Ney said in his closing arguments. “You have the capacity to say ‘I can be merciful here.’ Mercy is just something we would give a fellow human being who tried to be good but failed.”
Ney also echoed emotional pleadings to jurors from Rodriguez’s family members. “Sure, you will be killing the man who murdered Dru Sjodin. But you’ll also be putting to death that little boy who was exposed to neurotoxins, who couldn’t keep up in school, who was exposed to racism and poverty, who was hungry, who was sexually abused,” said Ney. “Death here would just break one more mother’s heart, just devastate one more family.”
Several Rodriguez family members burst into tears when Ney talked about the specifics of execution. “The government is asking you to put a living, breathing human being to death. And if that’s what you decide today, make no mistake. That is exactly what will happen. He will be taken from his cell and strapped to a gurney,” said Ney. Ney also took aim at federal justice officials for failing to stop a killer. “The better angels in Alfonso Rodriguez cried out to the people who could stop his release and said ‘Stop.’ But nothing was done. There was a system failure here,” said Ney.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
The verdict was in. Alfonso Rodriguez would lose his right to live. On the third day of deliberations, jurors sentenced Rodriguez to die by lethal injection. The stunning decision was the first of its kind in North Dakota in more than a century.
“Justice has been served,” proclaimed Allan Sjodin in a tearful news conference following the long-awaited end. “For Dru’s sake, this needed to happen.”
Linda Walker thanked everyone who followed the difficult case and she hopes her daughter’s legacy lives on. “I know it wasn’t easy for the jurors. B
ut Dru’s voice was heard today and will hopefully be resounding around the world. We won’t tolerate violence against women, much less our children,” she said.
Prosecutor Drew Wrigley said Rodriguez was getting what he deserves. He also acknowledged the rarity of such a penalty. “And we hope the need doesn’t arise for another 100 [years],” Wrigley said. “But as I told the jury, ours is a gentle area. The people of this region are loving people,” Wrigley said. “It is the defendant’s acts of the last three decades that have brought us to this place, at this time. In the end, we believe this is justice.”
Rodriguez showed no visible reaction to the decision when it was read aloud by the court clerk shortly after 11 a.m. His mother and two sisters burst into tears. One juror was also crying, while the rest had stoic looks on their faces. Sjodin’s family and friends embraced outside court. In the end, it appeared Wrigley’s passionate argument that such a chilling crime cried out for the ultimate punishment was accepted.
“The jury decided this case with the care, dignity and integrity that Dru deserved,” Chris Lang said outside court. “These matters have been decided today. But don’t forget Dru. Celebrate her life as long as yours. She was beautiful, she was wonderful. Keep her in your thoughts forever.”
Alfonso Rodriguez is still alive as of the writing of this book. Like pretty every inmate condemned to death, Rodriguez is exhausting every single avenue of appeal in hopes of finding a court that might overturn his fate. His lawyers have repeatedly pushed the theory that Rodriguez is “mentally retarded” and therefore should be exempt from execution. They have lined up several medical experts to bolster their argument. They are also relying on a decision released by the US Supreme Court in the spring of 2014 that strikes down rigid intelligence tests used to determine if a prisoner has a mental disability.
Mike on Crime Page 14