Attorney General Eric Holder indicates MS 13 membership discriminates against gang member who murdered victims?
CNSNews.com) – Attorney General Eric Holder has directed prosecutors in a federal conspiracy and murder trial not to seek the death penalty for three El Salvadoran men who are in the United States illegally.
The three are accused of robbing and shooting Claros Luna on July 29, 2009 in Alexandria, Va., just a few miles from the Justice Department, as Luna transported a prostitute from Maryland to Virginia.
The suspects, Eris Arguera, Alcides Umana and Adolfo Amaya Portillo, admitted to being members of the MS-13 gang, court documents show. They were indicted on Nov. 24 on federal racketeering and murder charges.
A Justice Department spokeswoman told CNSNews.com that the department would not comment on Holder’s decision not to seek the death penalty in the case. She directed CNSNews to an online “resource manual” stating that the attorney general’s decision-making process and final decision on whether to seek the death penalty is confidential.
But the manual also states that no information on the process can be disclosed outside the Justice Department “without prior approval of the Attorney General.”
According to court documents, in a letter dated Feb. 3, 2010, Attorney General Holder “authorized and directed” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neal McBride “not to seek the death penalty against Alcides Umana, Adolfo Portillo and Eris Ramon Arguera.”
McBride filed a corresponding document – Government’s Notice of Intent Not to Seek the Death Penalty – on Feb. 16.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia, told CNSNews.com that Holder, as U.S. attorney general, makes death penalty decisions in federal cases. “The decision to pursue or not pursue the death penalty in a death-eligible case resides with the Attorney General, not the U.S. Attorney,” Carr said.
Court documents indicate that the death penalty at one time was being considered in the Salvadorans’ case.
Early on, a court-appointed attorney for one of the defendants was dismissed because he did not have the proper certification for a trying a death penalty case. Also, attorneys for one of the defendants entered a motion on Feb. 18 seeking to use a questionnaire that would eliminate jurors who might discriminate against Latinos. That questionnaire alluded to the death penalty.
Another motion by defense attorneys sought to keep gang affiliation from being part of the trial because of the possibility that it might bring a death sentence.
(Other questions for potential jurors included, “Do you believe people born in Central or South America deserve a lesser standard of justice or greater scrutiny because they are probably not really supposed to be here in the first place?” and “Do you believe people born in Central or South America deserve harsher punishment if they commit a crime because they are already accustomed to being uncomfortable and deprived?”)
An FBI press release issued the day after the three men were indicted by a grand jury stated that the case was under investigation by the FBI, Alexandria Police Department, Fairfax County and Arlington County Police Departments and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
ICE spokeswoman Cori Bassett said the immigration agency filed paperwork to begin deportation proceedings in case the men are not convicted or if they are released on parole. If that happens, the Salvadorans would be remanded to ICE custody.
“We do not have any record of ICE encounters with the individuals prior to 2009,” Bassett added.
The trial is set to begin on May 10 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63534
Will Napolitano sent them a thank you card…………w/ a personal note “welcome to Amercia, here’s how to get on the gravy train.“
Dee gangs weel keel heem.
Somebody please tell me that this is an April Fools Day joke.
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Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire for not disclosing a lot of information he withheld when confirm to be attorney general.You know who should be feeling really, really stupid and sorry right now?The 19 Republican Senators who voted to confirm Eric Holder as the nation’s attorney general despite his long track record of putting political interests of the public interest at the expense of public safety, conflicts of interest, and his own admissions of screwing up, then moving up.
Now, we learn that it just happened to conveniently slip Holder’s mind to mention during the Senate confirmation process that he had contributed to a legal brief with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism on behalf of al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla:
“The brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.”
Oopsy-doopsie!
GOP Sen. Sessions is “deeply concerned.” Unfortunately, Sen. Sessions was one of the 19 GOP Senators who misguidedly gave Holder the benefit of the doubt and voted to confirm him.
It’s not like they hadn’t been forewarned of Holder’s “forgetfulness.”
Let me remind you that before his confirmation, Holder “forgot” to mention that disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich had appointed him to probe corruption in the state’s casino licensing decisions. Holder pocketed $300,000 and — surprise, surprise — concluded that no corruption existed. Refresher:
Before Eric Holder was President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be attorney general, he was Gov. Blagojevich’s pick to sort out a mess involving Illinois’ long-dormant casino license.
Blagojevich and Holder appeared together at a March 24, 2004, news conference to announce Holder’s role as “special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board” — a post that was to pay Holder and his Washington, D.C. law firm up to $300,000.
Holder, however, omitted that event from his 47-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire made public this week — an oversight he plans to correct after a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry, Obama’s transition team indicated late Tuesday.
“Eric Holder has given hundreds of press interviews,” Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. “He did his best to report them all to the committee, but as he noted in the questionnaire itself, some were undoubtedly missed in the effort to reconstruct a list of them.”
Holder signed the questionnaire on Sunday — five days after Blagojevich’s arrest for allegedly putting Obama’s U.S. Senate seat up for sale. The Judiciary Committee asked him to provide lists and “copies of transcripts or tape recordings of all speeches or talks delivered by you” and “all interviews you have given to newspapers, magazines or other publications.”
The March 2004 Chicago news conference where Holder and Blagojevich spoke was widely covered because of a controversial 4-1 Gaming Board vote earlier that month to allow a casino to be built in Rosemont. That vote defied the recommendation of the board’s staff, which had raised concerns about alleged organized-crime links to the Rosemont casino’s developer.
What else has Holder “forgotten” to tell us?
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Dee gangs weel keel heem.
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this is why we have such a high crime rate of murders ,when even your top law offices are refusing to impose the death penalty, they do not seem to car anymore, abut cutting down on murders anymore then the states do. no wonder so many kid are being murdered each year, by gangs, no fear of being put to death themselves by the law, we have a bunch of wimps ruining our court systems who Take the easy way out.
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