Thread: VA: Attorneys allege bias in Hispanic man's case

Attorneys allege bias in Hispanic man's case
Say Stafford office should not be able to seek death penalty

Friday, Oct 19, 2007 - 12:08 AM

By KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
STAFFORD -- Attorneys for an alleged Latino gang member accuse Stafford County prosecutors of racial and gender discrimination in seeking the death penalty for the illegal immigrant.

Citing cases dating to 1990, lawyers for Jose Santos Portillo-Chicas allege that the office of Stafford Commonwealth's Attorney Daniel M. Chichester "values white life far more highly than life of minorities."

The defense is asking that a judge bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the case of Portillo-Chicas, the accused triggerman in the killing of a young woman in July 2006. Authorities allege Portillo-Chicas, 31, is a member of the MS-13 street gang.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday, and the defense has subpoenaed Chichester to testify.

In their motion, defense lawyers Joseph T. Flood and Allen Bareford cite a study by the Northern Virginia Capital Defenders Office that shows Chichester's office since 1990 has sought the death penalty in only four of 13 death-eligible cases and that three of those cases involved male, minority defendants. Each of those three cases, including Portillo-Chicas' case, involved the killing of a white female.

In the lone death-penalty case involving a white male defendant, the defense asserts, prosecutors agreed to drop the death penalty in exchange for the cooperation of the defendant, LeRoy Bullock, who was charged with killing two white women in Stafford. In all, Bullock killed seven people in Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee in the late 1980s.

Portillo-Chicas' lawyers say Stafford prosecutors effectively rewarded Bullock for his serial criminal behavior, but that prosecutors have refused to entertain Portillo-Chicas' offer to plead guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping the death penalty.

Chichester's refusal to negotiate is a "conscious or unconscious result of racial prejudice against Mr. Portillo-Chicas, an Hispanic man, either as a result of Mr. Portillo-Chicas' race or the race and gender of the victim," the lawyers wrote in the motion filed Wednesday.

Efforts to reach Chichester at his office and at home yesterday were unsuccessful.

Jim Peterson, one of three prosecutors involved in the case, declined to comment on the allegations in the motion, except to say, "Mr. Chichester is one of the most respected commonwealth attorneys in the commonwealth of Virginia."

Efforts to reach Flood and Bareford were unsuccessful yesterday.

The defense attorneys also allege women, minorities and young people have been underrepresented in grand jury proceedings. In a separate motion, they say Stafford Circuit Court Clerk Barbara G. Decatur hand-picks grand jurors and that she knows the race of many of them beforehand. Several of the grand jurors have served multiple times during the span of a few years and include several members of the county Board of Supervisors, according to the motion.

Decatur said yesterday that she had not yet seen the motion and therefore would not comment.

The defense also is again asking the judge in the case, Stafford Circuit Judge J. Martin Bass, to recuse himself because Bass approved the grand jury selection method.

Portillo-Chicas, also known as Little Blue, is scheduled to be tried for capital murder starting Dec. 3 in the slaying of 21-year-old Shannah Marie Angeles. Two other defendants have pleaded guilty, with one of them sentenced to 18 years in prison and the other to 30 years in prison. A third defendant has not yet been tried, and a fourth suspect, Henry Mejivar, 18, has not been arrested.

Investigators believe the suspects thought Angeles, who was visiting from the Chicago area, was a member of a rival gang. Authorities have said they do not know if she was a rival gang member.

MS-13 is the shorthand name for Mara Salvatrucha, a gang with a documented presence in Northern Virginia. MS-13 took root during the 1980s in Los Angeles as Salvadorans fled their country's civil war. The name is Salvadoran slang: "mara" for posse and "salvatrucha" for street-tough Salvadoran. Portillo-Chicas is in the U.S. illegally, prosecutors say, but some of the other defendants are legal residents.

www.inrich.com

Here is some background on this story. Didn't just add to the old thread because a couple other threads were done too re this sad story:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-38895-shan ... ie+angeles

Judge rejects motions in capital death case
October 31, 2007 12:37 am


Portillo-Chicas

BY KEITH EPPS

Stafford County's commonwealth's attorney yesterday angrily denounced allegations that race was a factor in seeking the death penalty for a Hispanic man accused killing a white woman in Stafford last year.

Attorneys for Jose Santos "Little Blue" Portillo-Chicas filed a motion in Stafford Circuit Court this month asking Judge J. Martin Bass to forbid prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Portillo-Chicas, an MS-13 gang member, is accused of executing Shannah Marie Angeles in July 2006 after bringing her to Stafford under the pretense of going to a party. Angeles was shot in the back of the head and the body.

Defense attorneys Joe Flood, Allen Bareford and Daniel Morissette wrote in their lengthy motion that Chichester's office "values white life far more highly than life of minorities."

They noted that all of the victims in Stafford's four capital murder cases were white women and three of the defendants were either black or Hispanic.

Chichester told Bass yesterday that the study the defense lawyers cited was "garbage" and accused the defense of engaging in "smear tactics" and "pure theater."

In making decisions on how to proceed in criminal cases, Chichester said his office doesn't "take into account race, sex, or the deceitfulness of the lawyers on the other side."

Bass denied Chichester's request for a gag order, but he also ruled that Portillo-Chicas' rights have not been violated and that the death penalty can be sought.

Morissette said he never accused Chichester of personally being a racist but was merely pointing out the facts.

He said Portillo-Chicas shouldn't be deemed more "death worthy" because he's Hispanic, an illegal immigrant and killed a white woman.

Morissette also cited a state study that shows that defendants who killed white women are more likely to get the death penalty than others.

The defense also complained that Chichester's office has not agreed to their request to have Portillo-Chicas plead guilty to capital murder and serve life in prison.

Chichester, whose three sons have a Hispanic mother, said the defense tried to blackmail his office by threatening to go public with the racial allegations if he didn't succumb to the requested plea agreement. He said his office won't be intimidated.

According to evidence presented in an earlier hearing, the 21-year-old Angeles was a resident of Palatine, Ill., and the mother of three small children.

She was visiting someone in Northern Virginia when she met Portillo-Chicas and other MS-13 members.

One witness said Angeles was killed because the MS-13 members believed her to be a member of a rival gang.

Four other gang members are also charged in connection with the slaying, but Portillo-Chicas is the only one prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for. A trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 3.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007 ... 007/329536