Thread: California case offers hope to Denver, official says

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/local/ ... 92,00.html

California case offers hope to Denver, official says

By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
June 17, 2005

A man wanted for trying to gun down two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies has been extradited from Mexico to Southern California, officials announced Thursday.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said Wednesday's extradition of the Mexican fugitive was the first one since October 2001, when Mexico's Supreme Court decided to limit extraditions.

That could bode well for Denver prosecutors, who want to extradite Raul Gomez-Garcia, accused of killing Denver Detective Donald Young and wounding his partner, Jack Bishop.

Janice L. Maurizi, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney in charge of overseeing extraditions from Mexico, said she is aware of two other cases in which lower Mexican courts granted the extradition of fugitives back to California.

In all three cases, the suspects were facing determinate sentences, which could allow for the defendants to be eligible for parole hearings after serving a certain number of years, Maurizi said.

She said Denver prosecutors should be encouraged, given the recent "trend" of Mexico's lower court rulings and the decision by Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey not to charge Gomez-Garcia with first-degree murder.

"There's good reason, I believe, to hope that Denver will see the extradition, also," Maurizi said.

Morrissey could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

A Mexican lower court agreed last week to extradite Ricardo Rodriguez, 26, to Los Angeles, six months after the district attorney filed the formal extradition request.

Rodriguez faces two life sentences and 54 years in prison if he's convicted in the attack on the two sheriff's deputies, the district attorney said.

Deputies said Rodriguez ran a red light in his Honda Civic in Inglewood, Calif., on April 9, 2004. Deputies briefly chased him before he stopped the car in the middle of a street, jumped out and opened fire with an assault weapon. The deputies returned fire, but no one was wounded in the shootout.

Rodriguez escaped and managed to flee to Mexico, but was captured there Oct. 29, 2004.

His bail was set at $2.78 million.

One likely factor in Rodriguez's extradition was that he would eventually become eligible for a parole hearing, Maurizi said. But Rodriguez wouldn't be eligible for a hearing for 68 years and four months.

In a 2001 ruling, Mexico's Supreme Court prohibited the extradition of Mexican citizens to any nation where they face the possibility of life behind bars without the possibility of parole.

A 1978 treaty between the United States and Mexico also gave each country the option of not extraditing its citizens who could face the death penalty.

I hope California gets their guy and that this helps the Denver case.

Look at the time, energy, emotions, expense....associated with just trying to get this vermin tried for serious crimes. Think of the loss the family of the Denver Cop faces for the rest of their lives. Think of the Denver Cop killed for no reason other than a President and a Mayor of a major American city opted to:

Cheat the American People; put their lives in danger; and get them killed by failing to enforce immigration law.

The death of the Denver Cop is an example of the Wrongful Death of Americans at the hands of our Elected Officials including the President of the United States.

This President rushes back to Washington to try and save Terry Schiavo, but to my knowledge has never uttered a "peep" about the death of the Denver policeman killed by the willful misconduct of this President whose failure to secure our borders and enforce immigration law allowed this killer to be here in the presence of Americans, the people this President took an oath to protect.