The Murder of Dru Sjodin and the DP Sentence!

[♫anna♫]

Dru Sjodin, a 22 year old college student, was abducted on Nov. 22, 2003 in Grand Forks, ND by a violent sex offender negligently released into society. She was beaten, tortured, raped and murdered.

The predator, who committed these horrific crimes has been sentenced to death in a Federal Court! North Dakota and Minnesota, where the crimes occurred do not have the DP, so the federal government prosecuted the case and senternced the predator to death! The predator's appeal is expected to be heard this coming Feb. 12..

[♫anna♫]

The predator's appeal was based on the claim that the prior rape and assault convictions of the predator should not have been admissible in court and "biased" the jurors! We should insist that a predator's "history of evil" in a DP trial should be presented to the jury as standard procedure!
minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/12/dru_sjodin_alfonso_rodriguez_appeal/?refid=0 QUOTE:
St. Paul, Minn. — It's been nearly five years since 22-year-old Dru Sjodin's half-naked body was found in northwestern Minnesota.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. was convicted for her death in 2006.

This morning, her father, Allan, sat through the first in what may be a series of appeal hearings on behalf of Rodriguez.

Sjodin's parentsSjodin and his former wife, Linda Walker, said they have an obligation to keep their daughter's memory alive.

"That is that somewhere along the line, that Dru's death won't be in vain, nor will everyone else that's suffering these terrible crimes," Sjodin said.

Rodriguez's defense attorney Robert Hoy didn't dispute that the convicted sex offender kidnapped Dru Sjodin from the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall, or that he raped and killed the young woman and dumped her body in a ravine.

But Hoy said the crime shouldn't cost Rodriguez his life, and he offered a series of technical arguments to three judges from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hoy told the judges that testimony about two previous sexual assault cases should not have been allowed. Jurors were given details about the crimes, for which Rodriguez served decades in prison.

The defense attorney said the cases weren't legally serious enough to have been considered as the aggravating factors that a death penalty requires.

But the U.S. Attorney for North Dakota, Drew Wrigley, told the judges it was appropriate for the jury to consider previous sexual assaults Rodriguez had committed.

Rodriguez served 23 years in prison, and was considered at heightened risk to attack more women when he was released. That was just six months before Sjodin disappeared from the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall.

The prosecutor in the case also argued that the depravity of the slaying and the interstate kidnapping also qualified Rodriguez for the federal death penalty.

Wrigley talked about the future of the case outside the courthouse in St. Paul this morning. He is likely to be replaced by a new federal prosecutor to be named by the administration of President Barack Obama.

"The case is going to go into a different phase now, get into more what I'll call a hyper-technical sort of litigation about appellate issues," Wrigley said. "But it's always going to be capably handled in that office."

"I know the depth of commitment to the case in the U.S. Attorney's office of North Dakota, and in the Department of Justice," Wrigley continued. "We're going to litigate this case, we're going to fight to convict that verdict to the very end. It was justly won, and correctly decided by that jury."

Neither Minnesota nor North Dakota have a death penalty.

The case was charged by federal authorities because Sjodin was kidnapped in North Dakota and found dead in Minnesota.

A decision on the appeal is likely this summer, and both sides expect an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. is now being held on federal death row in Indiana.

[chefmate]

His past does make a difference in his court case about Dru.

We need to change our laws about sexual predators like this case; I'm not talking the guy who dropped his pants and mooned the judge or the guy who at nineteen banged a seventeen year old who wanted to be banged, but the hardcore predators that never need be released back to the free world.

There should be no second chances never ever.

[♫anna♫]

Feb 13, 2009 18:16:21 GMT @chefmate said:

His past does make a difference in his court case about Dru.

We need to change our laws about sexual predators like this case; I'm not talking the guy who dropped his pants and mooned the judge or the guy who at nineteen banged a seventeen year old who wanted to be banged, but the hardcore predators that never need be released back to the free world.

There should be no second chances never ever.

Absolutely Chefmate and an exalt for you! The 3 prior victims of the remorseless predator's attacks will carry the trauma with them to some degree for the rest of their lives! Why should the predator be free of his past while his victims carry the injury he caused with them for the rest of their lives! The unrepetant predator's VIOLENT history should and must come back to stiffen the sentence should he reoffend!

There is a world of difference between VIOLENT sex offenses and illegal consensual sex offenses and offenses without a victim. I'm sure the admission of the unrepentant predator's past as evidence swayed the 2 holdouts in the jury to finally approve the DP as the sentence!

[♫anna♫]

www.montereyherald.com/national/ci_13392978 QUOTE:
Death sentence affirmed in Dru Sjodin kidnap case
By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press Writer
Updated: 09/22/2009 08:38:18 AM PDT

MINNEAPOLIS—A federal appeals court on Tuesday affirmed the death sentence of a convicted rapist in the 2003 kidnapping and death of a University of North Dakota student in a case that led both Minnesota and North Dakota to toughen their sex-offender laws.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minn., got a fair trial and rejected his bid to overturn his death sentence.

The decision came three years to the day that a federal jury in Fargo, N.D., decided Rodriguez should die for the kidnapping and killing of Dru Sjodin. The jury earlier found him guilty of abducting Sjodin on Nov. 22, 2003, from the parking lot of a Grand Forks, N.D., shopping mall where she worked.

Despite massive searches that included National Guard troops, the 22-year-old Pequot Lakes, Minn., woman remained missing for five months until her body was found near Crookston, where Rodriguez lived with his mother. Authorities said she had been raped, beaten and stabbed.

Rodriguez, who had been released from prison just a few months before the kidnapping, appealed on several grounds, including the venue for the trial, the composition and selection of the jury, evidentiary rulings, statements by the prosecution and Sjodin's family and friends during the penalty phase of his trial, the jury instructions during the penalty phase and the constitutionality of the death penalty.

In its 2-1 ruling, the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit
rejected the defense arguments on all those points. Among other things, it said the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the defense motion to move the trial from North Dakota to Minnesota. It disagreed with the defense's criticisms of the jury selection process. It said the evidence about semen in Sjodin's body was properly admitted, as was evidence of Rodriguez' previous convictions for sexual assault. And it rejected the defense's claims of errors by the judge and prosecution through his trial.
Judge Michael Melloy dissented from part of the opinion. He said there were several errors in the government's penalty-phase closing arguments that were so serious that the death sentence should be vacated and that the case should be sent back to the district court for a new penalty phase.

Sjodin's mother, Linda Walker, said the family was pleased with Tuesday's ruling, but she's sure that the process isn't over yet.

"We have absolutely the best legal team as possible. This latest success is because of them. We're very grateful as a family," Walker said.

A dozen new laws against sex offenders have been enacted in North Dakota because of the case.

Minnesota toughened its procedures for handling sexual predators after coming under fire for letting Rodriguez go free six months before Sjodin's abduction, after he served 23 years in prison for a previous conviction. While state officials had classified him as a Level 3 sex offender, the kind most likely to re-offend, they opted not to try to commit civilly, which would have let the state hold him indefinitely.

Minnesota now keeps more sex offenders locked up longer, supervises them more closely once they do get out of prison and commits more of them to its security hospitals once their prison sentences run out.

"This is another reason why we should not let these predators out to reoffend time and time again," Walker said of the state's failure to keep Rodriguez confined earlier.

Lynn Jordheim, acting U.S. attorney for North Dakota, said the ruling had just arrived on his desk Tuesday morning and he didn't want to comment until he read it. Former U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley, who prosecuted the case, planned a news conference for 10:30 a.m. in Fargo.

Defense attorney Robert Hoy did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

———

[♫anna♫]

www.twincities.com/ci_14383893?nclick_check=1 QUOTE:
Dru Sjodin's killer loses appeal for new hearing on death sentence
Associated Press

Updated: 02/11/2010 05:36:19 PM CST

FARGO, N.D. — A federal appeals court has denied a new sentencing hearing for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., who was given the death penalty for kidnapping and killing University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin.

Rodriguez, of Crookston, Minn., a convicted sex offender, was found guilty in 2006 of abducting and killing the 22-year-old Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn.

Sjodin was abducted outside a Grand Forks shopping mall in November 2003. Her body was found the following spring near Crookston. She had been beaten, stabbed and sexually assaulted.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September affirmed the death sentence against Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, 56, asked for a new hearing in front of the entire circuit court, a request that was denied in an order released Thursday.

[♫anna♫]

The US Supreme Court has rejected hearing the predator's appeal. Still the predator's defense team has more stalling tactics.
www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/179909/ QUOTE:
Published October 18 2010
High court won’t hear Rodriguez appeal
Former Crookston man remains on death row
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.'s appeal of his death sentence for kidnapping and killing UND student Dru Sjodin in 2003. A separate habeas corpus appeal is expected to be filed within a year.
By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald

The Supreme Court on Monday denied Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.’s request that it review his death sentence conviction in the 2003 kidnapping and killing of UND student Dru Sjodin, said Lynn Jordheim, who is acting U.S. attorney in the case against Rodriguez.

The decision was no surprise, and it ends his direct appeal process. But a standard separate “collateral” appeal process now is expected to be led by a new defense team.

“This is what we expected,” Jordheim said Monday.

The longtime top assistant U.S. attorney in the Fargo office, Jordheim has been in charge of the office’s case against Rodriguez since former U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley stepped down more than a year ago.

When he took office last month, new U.S. Attorney Timothy Purdon recused himself from the case because a member of his former law firm had a tangential connection to the case.

Sjodin was abducted Nov. 22, 2003, from a parking lot at Columbia Mall by Rodriguez, a high-risk sex offender from Crookston who had been released only six months earlier after three decades behind bars in Minnesota for sex attacks on women.

A likely suspect, Rodriguez was questioned and arrested three days later but always has denied the charges in state district court in Grand Forks.

His alibi never held up and blood with Sjodin’s DNA was found in the car he was driving that day, as well as a folding knife that matched a sheath found on the ground near Sjodin’s car in the parking lot.

Despite massive searches through the winter, Sjodin’s body wasn’t found until April 2004, only a mile west of Crookston in a ravine. It then became a federal death penalty case.

A federal jury in Fargo in 2006 convicted Rodriguez and decided his sentence should be death, the first such case in a century in North Dakota, which doesn’t have a state death penalty.

Rodriguez remains on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind.

A year ago, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul denied Rodriguez’s direct appeal of his sentence by a vote of 2-1, after hearing arguments in spring 2009.

One judge found that Wrigley’s impassioned arguments before the jury pushed too far, implying the defense was trying to “sell” its arguments to the jury, and unfairly pressured the jury that it had a duty to find for death.

Rodriguez’s attempt to appeal the 2-1 denial to the entire “banc” of judges in the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit was denied early this year.

That left little hope the U.S. Supreme Court would take up his direct appeal, legal experts said.

But it does not mean that Rodriguez’s appeals are finished.

Already a separate legal team has been appointed to pursue the separate, collateral appeal under the traditional concept of habeas corpus — which translates roughly to mean “you shall produce the body,” of the prisoner in court to determine that he is being lawfully imprisoned.

It’s an old and fundamental right considered a sort of last ditch defense in which the general constitutionality of a sentence can be reviewed.

In July, U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson, who presided over Rodriguez’s trial in Fargo, and imposed the death sentence decision by the jury in January 2007, appointed Joseph Margulies, a law professor at Northwestern University, to lead the habeas corpus appeal. He also named Neil Fulton, Minot, and Katherine Mendez and Andrew Mohring from Minnesota, to assist Margulies, according to wire reports.

“Time is short and the need is great,” Margulies wrote in seeking to be assigned to the case earlier this year, according to The Associated Press.

The active prosecution, meanwhile, shifted from Fargo to Washington a year ago.

The federal government’s response in the habeas corpus process in the collateral review, as well as to Rodriguez’ petition for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court in his direct appeal, has been handled by the solicitor general’s office in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, Jordheim said.

That means the U.S. attorney’s office in Fargo, after devoting so many people and hours to the case for five years, mostly is standing by to see if any assistance is needed.

“There is nothing for us to do at this time but wait and see,” Jordheim said.

Rodriguez’s original federally appointed defense team also is standing down from any active role in the case.

Richard Ney, the Wichita, Kan., expert defender of death penalty cases who was appointed — along with local counsel Robert Hoy of West Fargo — to represent Rodriguez in summer 2004, said he and Hoy no longer are Rodriguez’s lawyers.

“Yes, this ends our work (representing Rodriguez) on the case,” Ney said Monday. “Whether we will be witnesses or if his lawyers will talk with us about the case,” is up to Margulies’ team, Ney said.

A year ago, after hearing of the 8th Circuit’s decision, Ney said he was disappointed but also gratified that one of the three judges “would have reversed the death sentence based on prosecutorial misconduct.”

“I guess we are left with the disturbing thought that we can put a man to death even when one of the three learned judges who heard the case believes he did not get a fair trial,” Ney said.

Under federal death penalty rules, a defendant has a year after his conviction is final — that is, his direct appeal is denied by the Supreme Court — to file a habeas corpus case.

But many other strategies still are possible, experts say.

About 60 people are on federal death row but none has been executed since 2003.

Many legal experts say that challenges since 2006 of the constitutionality of lethal injection, including the effectiveness of the sedation included, have put a hold on any more executions.

And several federal prisoners on death row in recent years have had death sentences reversed or reduced because of what prosecutors said or did during trial.

[♫anna♫]

www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/214318/group/homepage/ QUOTE:
DRU SJODIN CASE: ‘Nothing but sadness’
Five years later, Sjodin’s killer remains on death row
Five years ago this week, a federal jury in Fargo convicted and later sentenced to death the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered UND student Dru Sjodin. But the pain is still there.

By: Dave Roepke, Forum Communications

FARGO — Five years ago this week, a federal jury in Fargo convicted and later sentenced to death the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered UND student Dru Sjodin.

But the pain is still there.

For Sjodin’s mother, time does nothing to remedy the deep emotional scars inflicted by the brutality of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.

“I have to live my life without Dru every single day,” said Linda Walker. “The wounds are far deeper than anyone can see or even imagine unless they have been there.”

For the lead prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney and now North Dakota Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley, the highest-profile case in his career as a prosecutor brought him no sense of catharsis.

“It doesn’t work that way at all,” he said. “In the wake of it, there’s nothing but sadness. That’s all there is.”

For one of the 12 jurors who unanimously agreed a killer deserved to be killed, the three arduous months in the jury box were the source of a repeating post-trial nightmare. It was the same scenario, waking her up in a panic on 50 nights, by her own estimate.

At a fair, a sea of heads everywhere, she would lose track of her own daughter before suddenly being in a quiet room, and as a police radio pierces the silence, a thought hits her: It’s been three days. Where is she?

“When you sit through that every day, it’s hard not to personalize yourself with her mom. That could be me sitting there. That could be my daughter,” said Rebecca Jensen, a single mother from Jamestown, N.D., who served on the Rodriguez jury.

The Rodriguez case, the first in North Dakota in which a federal execution has been ordered, is often credited as the impetus for a stiffening of sex offender laws given he was a convicted rapist released just six months before Sjodin, 22, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., was kidnapped at a Grand Forks mall on Nov. 22, 2003.

The imprint left on those involved might be just as lasting, and the effect both personal and broader intersect for Walker. She has worked as an advocate for reforming laws pertaining to sexual predators, helping establish a national sex offender registry and arguing against cuts to task forces investigating online crimes against children.

Lately, she’s been pushing schools nationwide to take up radKIDS, which is a safety program aimed at teaching children to resist aggression defensively. A memorial road race was held for her daughter in Pequot Lakes in August, an event that keeps growing and had nearly 500 participants this year, with all proceeds being donated to radKIDS.

Walker said her advocacy work is part of her healing process, and she hopes it helps people realize that violence can strike anyone.

“That’s what I hope people get out of hearing Dru’s name again,” she said.

Wrigley said in an interview this week that every case of violence he’s prosecuted affects him, but there is no denying the impact of what happened five years ago.

“I don’t know that a week of my life goes by that something doesn’t remind me about that trial,” said Wrigley, whether its memories of the trial springing to mind on a long run or strangers who stop him in the street to thank him for his work on the case.

Wrigley said he hopes the element of the trial that doesn’t get lost is that the prosecution and decision to seek an execution, a move he argued in favor of with the U.S. Department of Justice, sprang from the violent history for which Rodriguez was responsible.

“People need to remember this was a just result based on the facts of the case,” Wrigley said. “Alfonso Rodriguez is where he belongs — precisely the place, death row.”

The 58-year-old Crookston, Minn., man remains on federal death row in an Indiana prison. His direct appeals have been denied, and he’s been appointed a new attorney to assist in preparing what’s considered one of the final steps in the appeals process, a habeas corpus motion.

Lynn Jordheim, the first assistant U.S. Attorney for the district of North Dakota, said there’s an October deadline for filing the motion, a constitutional provision allowing inmates to contest imprisonment. The defense attorney, Joseph Margulies, didn’t return a message seeking comment.

“I believe the verdict was justly won, and now it’s being justly defended,” said Wrigley, adding that he thinks the defense of the appeal is in good hands.

Jensen said while no one should be put in the sort of position she and her fellow jurors were, deciding if a person should be sentenced to die, she has no regrets.

“I feel comfortable with the decision,” she said. “I didn’t do this to him. He did this to him.”

Jensen said the jury met a few times as a group after the trial was over, though most of those connections faded over the years. Her experience serving on the case, however, has made her sensitive to fairness in the court system. Outrage earlier this summer when a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty in the death of her daughter was not shared by Jensen.

“They didn’t do anything wrong,” Jensen said. “They probably wanted to convict her, but they couldn’t. I just want to stand up and say, ‘Stop blaming them; it’s not their fault.’”

The main effect, though, was making her appreciate her children and to educate them on how to stay safe. She reminds them often to look right at a video camera every time they see one so it can get a good look.

“She’ll wave up at it, like, hey, here I come,” Jensen said of one of her children.

[jihu]

They should execute him by flame thrower. He belongs in hell, and a flame thrower would give him a preview of where he is going.

[♫anna♫]

Sept 5, 2011 17:50:40 GMT jihu said:

They should execute him by flame thrower. He belongs in hell, and a flame thrower would give him a preview of where he is going.

Hi Jihu!
A part of me shares your opinion. BUT toxic waste such as this predator should be disposed of in such a manner so that nothing remains! By rejoicing in the predator's suffering we bond with the predator and thus form a relationship with it and become infected. We should dispose of the predator with the same unemotional and surgical precision that a doctor has when he removes a deadly cancer from a patient. Our thoughts and feelings remain solely with the victim!

[♫anna♫]

www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/214318/group/homepage/ QUOTE:
DRU SJODIN CASE: ‘Nothing but sadness’
Five years later, Sjodin’s killer remains on death row
Five years ago this week, a federal jury in Fargo convicted and later sentenced to death the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered UND student Dru Sjodin. But the pain is still there.
By: Dave Roepke, Forum Communications

FARGO — Five years ago this week, a federal jury in Fargo convicted and later sentenced to death the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered UND student Dru Sjodin.

But the pain is still there.

For Sjodin’s mother, time does nothing to remedy the deep emotional scars inflicted by the brutality of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.

“I have to live my life without Dru every single day,” said Linda Walker. “The wounds are far deeper than anyone can see or even imagine unless they have been there.”

For the lead prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney and now North Dakota Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley, the highest-profile case in his career as a prosecutor brought him no sense of catharsis.

“It doesn’t work that way at all,” he said. “In the wake of it, there’s nothing but sadness. That’s all there is.”

For one of the 12 jurors who unanimously agreed a killer deserved to be killed, the three arduous months in the jury box were the source of a repeating post-trial nightmare. It was the same scenario, waking her up in a panic on 50 nights, by her own estimate.

At a fair, a sea of heads everywhere, she would lose track of her own daughter before suddenly being in a quiet room, and as a police radio pierces the silence, a thought hits her: It’s been three days. Where is she?

“When you sit through that every day, it’s hard not to personalize yourself with her mom. That could be me sitting there. That could be my daughter,” said Rebecca Jensen, a single mother from Jamestown, N.D., who served on the Rodriguez jury.

The Rodriguez case, the first in North Dakota in which a federal execution has been ordered, is often credited as the impetus for a stiffening of sex offender laws given he was a convicted rapist released just six months before Sjodin, 22, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., was kidnapped at a Grand Forks mall on Nov. 22, 2003.

The imprint left on those involved might be just as lasting, and the effect both personal and broader intersect for Walker. She has worked as an advocate for reforming laws pertaining to sexual predators, helping establish a national sex offender registry and arguing against cuts to task forces investigating online crimes against children.

Lately, she’s been pushing schools nationwide to take up radKIDS, which is a safety program aimed at teaching children to resist aggression defensively. A memorial road race was held for her daughter in Pequot Lakes in August, an event that keeps growing and had nearly 500 participants this year, with all proceeds being donated to radKIDS.

Walker said her advocacy work is part of her healing process, and she hopes it helps people realize that violence can strike anyone.

“That’s what I hope people get out of hearing Dru’s name again,” she said.

Wrigley said in an interview this week that every case of violence he’s prosecuted affects him, but there is no denying the impact of what happened five years ago.

“I don’t know that a week of my life goes by that something doesn’t remind me about that trial,” said Wrigley, whether its memories of the trial springing to mind on a long run or strangers who stop him in the street to thank him for his work on the case.

Wrigley said he hopes the element of the trial that doesn’t get lost is that the prosecution and decision to seek an execution, a move he argued in favor of with the U.S. Department of Justice, sprang from the violent history for which Rodriguez was responsible.

“People need to remember this was a just result based on the facts of the case,” Wrigley said. “Alfonso Rodriguez is where he belongs — precisely the place, death row.”

The 58-year-old Crookston, Minn., man remains on federal death row in an Indiana prison. His direct appeals have been denied, and he’s been appointed a new attorney to assist in preparing what’s considered one of the final steps in the appeals process, a habeas corpus motion.

Lynn Jordheim, the first assistant U.S. Attorney for the district of North Dakota, said there’s an October deadline for filing the motion, a constitutional provision allowing inmates to contest imprisonment. The defense attorney, Joseph Margulies, didn’t return a message seeking comment.

“I believe the verdict was justly won, and now it’s being justly defended,” said Wrigley, adding that he thinks the defense of the appeal is in good hands.

Jensen said while no one should be put in the sort of position she and her fellow jurors were, deciding if a person should be sentenced to die, she has no regrets.

“I feel comfortable with the decision,” she said. “I didn’t do this to him. He did this to him.”

Jensen said the jury met a few times as a group after the trial was over, though most of those connections faded over the years. Her experience serving on the case, however, has made her sensitive to fairness in the court system. Outrage earlier this summer when a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty in the death of her daughter was not shared by Jensen.

“They didn’t do anything wrong,” Jensen said. “They probably wanted to convict her, but they couldn’t. I just want to stand up and say, ‘Stop blaming them; it’s not their fault.’”

The main effect, though, was making her appreciate her children and to educate them on how to stay safe. She reminds them often to look right at a video camera every time they see one so it can get a good look.

“She’ll wave up at it, like, hey, here I come,” Jensen said of one of her children.

[jihu]

Sept 6, 2011 0:36:29 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

Sept 5, 2011 17:50:40 GMT jihu said:

They should execute him by flame thrower. He belongs in hell, and a flame thrower would give him a preview of where he is going.

Hi Jihu!
A part of me shares your opinion. BUT toxic waste such as this predator should be disposed of in such a manner so that nothing remains! By rejoicing in the predator's suffering we bond with the predator and thus form a relationship with it and become infected. We should dispose of the predator with the same unemotional and surgical precision that a doctor has when he removes a deadly cancer from a patient. Our thoughts and feelings remain solely with the victim!

Hi Anna,
While a flame thrower will give out a lot of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, if they do it properly, there wouldn't be anything left of him but ashes, and it would be painful for only a few minutes. No corpse to bury, and very little cleanup.
Jihu

[sadie1263]

Monsters are supposed to look like monsters......unfortunately they evolved and look like every day people. No one is immune to random acts of violence.

My husband has a friend whose wife drove to work one morning and was abducted and killed. She did the same thing she did five days a week for years........he will carry the pain of it forever. Killing the person responsible doesn't make that go away or make it any easier.

The death penalty has not been a deterrent to other criminals.......the only thing it does accomplish is to keep that one person from doing it again, which may have to be enough. Our system has proven that many will get out and just start killing again.

[♫anna♫]

Dru Sjodin, In Loving Memory!

www.inforum.com/event/article/id/335266/ QUOTE:
FARGO – Attorneys held a private hearing by phone this morning in the appeal of Alfonso Rodriguez, the man awaiting an execution for murdering Dru Sjodin.

By: Forum staff reports, INFORUM

FARGO – Attorneys held a private hearing by phone this morning in the appeal of Alfonso Rodriguez, the man awaiting an execution for murdering Dru Sjodin.

Lynn Jordheim, the first assistant U.S. attorney for North Dakota, declined to say what issues attorneys broached in the hearing, as it was closed to the public.

Federal court documents described the hearing held in the chambers of Judge Ralph Erickson as a status conference.

Since being convicted in 2006, Rodriguez has lost all of his direct appeals. The next step for his is filing a habeas corpus motion.

Based on when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Rodriguez’s appeal last year, the deadline for a habeas corpus filing would be Oct. 18, Jordheim said.

No execution date is set yet for the 58-year-old who raped and killed Sjodin, 22, Pequot Lakes, Minn., after kidnapping her from a mall in Grand Forks in 2003.

[toby]

Toby comments.:- A Terrible waste of a lovely girls life, my heart goes out to her Parents.

I want to know, why the creep who killed her has not got what he deserves ?

[♫anna♫]

The transcripts of the interview with Dru Sjodin's murderer have been released and can be heard on the link below! The murderer is now trying to claim he's mentally retarded to avoid the death penalty.
kstp.com/article/stories/s2496952.shtml?cat=63

[♫anna♫]

It was this tragic case that got me involved on internet forums!

May 21, 2013
www.inforum.com/event/article/id/400556/group/news/ QUOTE:
www.inforum.com/event/article/id/400556/group/news/ QUOTE:
Parents of slain student Dru Sjodin: Justice will be served
FARGO — Ten years ago this month, a Minnesota prison released Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to his Crookston, Minn., home, where he lived prior to kidnapping and killing University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin six months later.

Her parents continue driving hours each time there’s a court hearing for Rodriguez, who is appealing a federal death sentence for murdering Sjodin.

“Ten years,” said Dru’s mother, Linda Walker, after a brief Tuesday hearing in Fargo. “We think of Dru every single day. We’ll get justice.”

Allan Sjodin, now retired from his career as a road construction manager, said their faithful attendance during years of the appeal isn’t going to change.

“Justice will be served,” he said. “We aren’t going anywhere. We will be here.”

Tuesday’s motion hearing, part of Rodriguez’s appeal of his federal death sentence imposed in February 2007 by U.S. Judge Ralph Erickson, focused on prosecutors’ seeking notes from medical doctors hired by Rodriguez’s defense to examine him in 2011 and 2012, as well as notes from a defense expert who in the past year or so interviewed family and friends who knew Rodriguez before he was 18 and first went to jail for attacking women.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Reisenauer told Erickson it appeared defense attorneys were refusing to turn over information simply to delay the process. “And frankly, it’s been prolonged quite a while already,” said Reisenauer, who helped prosecute the 2006 murder trial.

The prosecutor said Rodriguez’s attorneys should turn over doctors’ notes “instead of playing this hopscotch-around game.”

Reisenauer said federal prosecutors plan to have experts examine Rodriguez in June and July and should have all available information from defense experts before those tests.

Michael Wiseman, a defense attorney from Pennsylvania who took part in Tuesday’s hearing by telephone, argued that his experts’ notes wouldn’t add anything to the prosecution experts’ exams.

During the 25-minute hearing, Erickson said he was puzzled by the defense’s reluctance to turn over the information. If it was important enough for the defense experts to conclude that Rodriguez was so damaged as a child and by 30 years of incarceration in Minnesota prisons that it affected his mental health, why isn’t the information important for the prosecution to have in making its own evaluation of Rodriguez, Erickson questioned.

“Mr. Wiseman, why not give this information? I just don’t get it,” the judge said.

He and other defense attorneys are arguing a habeas corpus motion, often called the last appeal in death penalty cases. Such appeals can be sweeping in challenging basic constitutional issues.

In 2011, the defense filed a 300-page brief arguing Rodriguez’s original defense team didn’t properly pursue experts’ examinations and reports in studying Rodriguez’s mental health, from the time he was a child and during his attack on Sjodin. It also included the first account by Rodriguez of his killing Sjodin, through a psychiatrist’s report.

This team’s experts, from examinations of Rodriguez in 2011 and 2012, concluded he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of what he did to Sjodin, that he is mentally retarded, suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome from childhood sexual and other abuse and was insane at the time he killed Sjodin.

Erickson didn’t say when he would rule on the motion argued Tuesday.

Rodriguez is imprisoned in Terre Haute, Ind., one of 59 people on federal death row. The last federal prisoner executed was Louis Jones in March 2003; he was only the third federal prisoner executed since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988.

[♫anna♫]

I take this case very personally! The prosecution has presented overwhelming and convincing evidence against the final appeal of Dru Sjodin's tormenter and murderer.

No we can't bring Dru back, but we can reduce this predator to a deterring example for any potential predators at large entertaining the evil thoughts that Dru's murderer had and has.
www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/23963651/death-row-convicts-final-appeal-unveils-details-of-dru-sjodin-murder QUOTE:
Death row convict's appeal unveils details of Dru Sjodin murder
Nov 14, 2013
A decade ago, the story of Dru Sjodin's kidnapping and killing gripped the hearts and minds of Minnesotans -- but on Wednesday, prosecutors made a 400-page filing in what may be her murderer's final appeal.

Alfonso Rodriguez has been on death row for 6 years, but new details are coming out now that prosecutors have filed dozens of pages of documents that reveal how Sjodin died -- and that Rodriguez didn't kill her by accident as his previous attorneys had claimed in earlier appeals.

Ever since a judge sentence Rodriguez to the death penalty for kidnapping and killing Sjodin in 2003, his attorneys have argued that he shouldn't be put to death because he is intellectually disabled; however, prosecutors dispute that.

Two new doctors interviewed Rodriguez over the summer, and prosecutors say both found Rodriguez was mentally competent when he killed the 23-year-old University of North Dakota student.

Furthermore, prosecutors claim Rodriguez admitted to following Sjodin at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, N.D., in November. The documents filed Wednesday explain that Rodriguez grabbed her at knifepoint in her car in the parking lot when she was at her most vulnerable and promised to return her to the place where he had abducted her.

The documents go on to say that Rodriguez also admitted to killing Sjodin after she became hysterical in the car, explaining that he grabbed her airway while trying to calm her down. He then took back roads to dump her body so he wouldn't run into police and even placed a bag over her head because he didn't want her blood to get on him or the back seat.

In the end, prosecutors say Rodriguez's own rendition of the event illustrate that he used reason and planning to attack and kill Sjodin and dispose of her body so that he wouldn't get caught.

According to prosecutors, Rodriguez has an average IQ. When they went back through his work history and job reviews through 1975, supervisors described him as someone who would be a good man to have aboard a team.

The 417-page brief concludes by asking the judge to deny Rodriguez's appeal.


Read more: Death row convict's appeal unveils Dru Sjodin murder details - KMSP-TV www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/23963651/death-row-convicts-final-appeal-unveils-details-of-dru-sjodin-murder#ixzz2kglAYlXK

[♫anna♫]

Dru Sjodin, In Loving Memory!

The defense is using every trick in the book to delay the execution of this 100% guilty and legally sane predator.

www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/3814305-juror-outraged-claims-jury-misconduct-sjodin-killers-trial QUOTE:
Juror outraged by claims of jury misconduct Sjodin killer’s trial
Aug. 9, 2015RGO, N.D. — A juror who helped convict and sentence to death the man who raped and killed Dru Sjodin is indignant over apparent allegations of juror misconduct the defense is making in its appeals aimed at sparing Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. from execution.

Rebecca Brandt Vettel, one of the five men and seven women on the jury in the 2006 trial, wants to know what the defense claims they did wrong.

“What are you saying about this awesome group of people who had nightmares, lost relationships and lost lives?” Brandt Vettel said in an interview on Friday.

Brandt Vettel plans to take off work and drive from Bismarck to Fargo next month to attend Rodriguez’s habeas corpus hearing in U.S. District Court, even though she might not get the chance to observe the arguments. Rodriguez’s attorneys have asked Judge Ralph Erickson to consider a “temporary and partial closure” of the hearing.

Defense attorneys are expected to address at the Sept. 8 hearing their claims that there was juror misconduct in the trial, in which Rodriguez was found guilty of the 2003 murder of Sjodin, a University of North Dakota student abducted from a mall in Grand Forks, N.D.
Much of the court documentation that lays out the details of their allegation is sealed, unavailable for public review.
During the proceedings, jurors suffered through distressing and sometimes graphic photos and descriptions of how Rodriguez kidnapped the 22-year-old Sjodin at knifepoint from the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, forcing her into his car and driving her across the border.
There, the twice-prior convicted sex offender restrained, raped, stabbed and strangled Sjodin before dumping her half-undressed body in a frozen Minnesota field, where it wasn’t discovered until after the spring thaw.
The highly publicized case drew intense attention, and Sjodin’s murder is credited with leading to increased scrutiny of sex offenders in the region. It remains the only federal death penalty case ever prosecuted in North Dakota, a state where no death sentenced had been handed down since 1914.
Since the trial, many jurors in the case have kept in contact. One of them, an older woman, has died. A younger male juror has died by his own hand, Brandt Vettel said.
It’s inconceivable that any of her fellow jurors could have played fast and loose with court rules enjoining them from discussing the case and consuming news coverage during the trial, Brandt Vettel said.
She recalled asking motel workers where they were staying to move the newspaper dispenser from the front lobby, so she could avoid headlines about the previous day’s proceedings.
Each juror reached a decision on the death penalty based on his or her own independent analysis, Brandt Vettel said. Nor were there strong death penalty advocates or opponents flogging an agenda on the jury, she said.
The misconduct claim diminishes the hard work and deep consideration each member put into sending Rodriguez to death row, and the long drawn-out nature of the appeals process prolongs the pain for both Sjodin’s family, and for Rodriguez’s, she said.
“What makes me angry is the whole stupid process. ... I said this from day one,” Brandt Vettel said. “I did not put him there. He put himself there. We just made it legal.”