Thread: TX:Jury Can’t Be Seated In Gruesome Rape Case; Venue Heari

Jury Can’t Be Seated In Gruesome Rape Case; Venue Hearing Scheduled
(July 9, 2007)—Jury selection ended abruptly Monday morning in Groesbeck in the trial of an illegal immigrant charged in the gruesome abduction, rape and attempted murder of a Limestone County teenager who was stabbed and left for dead on a rural roadside.

A district court judge set a hearing on whether to move the trial of Noel Darwin Hernandez after determining that an impartial jury could not be seated in Limestone County.

Hernandez is charged with aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault and attempted capital murder in the June 2006 abduction, rape and stabbing.


He was to have gone on trial on the aggravated kidnapping charge.

Hernandez and Javier Guzman-Martinez were indicted last September in connection with the attack.

Guzman-Martinez pleaded guilty in a plea-agreement and was sentenced to a life term.

The victim of the June 2006 attack was a recent Mexia High School graduate whose car was run off a rural road.

The teenager was kidnapped and then raped repeatedly, beaten and stabbed during a terrifying three-hour drive.

The teenager was dumped along a rural roadside and left for dead, but bleeding profusely, the girl somehow made her way to a house a half-mile away where she awakened residents with a faint knock on the front door.

Guzman-Martinez was later arrested in Limestone County and Hernandez of Honduras was arrested at a bus station in Waco as he tried to leave the country.
The hearing on a change of venue motion is scheduled for July 20.

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/8392112.html

but why?

Originally Posted by Dagmar

but why?

I know?! What a name... Noel Darwin Hernandez?!

A district court judge set a hearing on whether to move the trial of Noel Darwin Hernandez after determining that an impartial jury could not be seated in Limestone County.

I think this sentence says it all, and can you blame the folks in Limestone County for being impartial? I'm sure many of the summoned jurors have already determined his guilt, and what he should receive as punishment.

Illegal immigrant sentenced to life in prison after brutally attacking a Limestone County teenager

Updated: Jul 27, 2007 6:47pm
An illegal immigrant will spent the rest of his life in prison for his role in the brutal beating and rape of a Limestone County Teenager last summer.

Noel Darwin Hernandez pleaded guilty Friday in a Freestone County Courtroom for the June 2006 attack.


Investigators said Hernandez and Javier Guzman Martinez, who's also serving a life sentence, approached an 18-year-old girl outside a strip mall in Mexia.


According to police, they later ran her off Highway 171, then kidnapped, raped and stabbed her for two hours, before leaving her for dead near Coolidge.


Hernandez’s trial was scheduled to begin Monday, after a Limestone County judge declared a mistrial earlier this month.


http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.ph ... &nid=13613

Is anyone in Washington, or Austin listening?

Originally Posted by nntrixie

Is anyone in Washington, or Austin listening?

I have a feeling if they are listening this is something they enjoy.