Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Death Penalty Pursued for Kaheem Justin Arbelo in 2015 FL Machete Slaying of 17-Year-Old Jose Amaya Guardado

  1. #1
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875

    Death Penalty Pursued for Kaheem Justin Arbelo in 2015 FL Machete Slaying of 17-Year-Old Jose Amaya Guardado


    Jose Amaya Guardado





    Death Penalty Waived for 4 of 5 Charged in Machete Murder of Homestead Teen


    By Claudia DoCampo
    NBC Miami

    Prosecutors have waived the possibility of the death penalty for four of the five suspects charged in the killing of a classmate in a federal job training program in Homestead.

    Police say 17-year-old Jose Amaya Guardado was hacked with a machete and made to lie in a grave in his final moments in July 2015. Guardado's family found his mutilated body in the woods after he had been missing for about a week. The crime scene was near The Homestead Job Corp school he attended.

    Fellow students Christian Colon, Desiray Strickland, Jonathan Lucas, Joseph Cabrera and Kaheem Arbelo all confessed their involvement in the murder, police said. They allegedly planned killing Guardado for a couple of weeks before they decided to go through with it.

    Prosecutors on Tuesday said the death penalty will only be allowed for Arbelo, if he's convicted. Detectives believe he was the one who hacked the victim to death while the other suspects watched.

    "Based on these childrens' ages, I think they did exactly the right thing in this matter," said Colon's attorney, G.P. Della Fera.

    "There all very young, immature, it's a very unusual case," said Strickland's attorney, Scott Sakin. "The evidence is questionable as to Ms. Strickland and with the changing landscape of the death penalty here in Florida and it's changing all the time now."

    Even though four out of the five defendants will avoid death, if convicted, they won't escape spending the rest of their lives in prison for first-degree murder. No trial date has been set yet.

    http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/D...414390653.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #2
    Member Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Melbourne Australia
    Posts
    86
    'I think they did the right thing in this case'....

    So at what age should people know that hacking someone to death with a machete is wrong?

  3. #3
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    April 26, 2017

    Hearing in machete-murder case can be secret, Miami appeals court rules

    By David Ovalle
    Miami Herald

    A key pretrial hearing in a South Florida murder case can be held in secret because of publicity surrounding the killing, a Miami appeals court ruled Wednesday.

    The decision upends decades of press access to Miami criminal court and bans reporters from covering a bail hearing for two defendants accused in the machete death of a Homestead student in 2015.

    The panel of three judges from the Third District Court of Appeal agreed with a trial court that the flood of information available in the modern digital age could potentially sway jurors at a future trial.

    “The speed of dissemination and the high percentage of likely jurors with access to social media and the internet also support the trial judge’s concern,” Judge Vance Salter wrote in the opinion.

    The panel also cited a Miami Herald article that described a police version of events as a “bloody scene” and “reads like a scene from the classic novel ‘Lord of the Flies.’ ”

    “These circumstances could not be ignored as the trial court reviewed inflammatory images and sought to assure the respondents’ constitutional right to a fair trial in Miami-Dade County,” Salter wrote.

    The decision also pointed to “sensational print and online stories and images from Florida, England, Ireland, Iceland, El Salvador,” among other outlets.

    Wednesday’s ruling upheld a decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis, who said that Desiray Strickland and Joseph Cabrera’s right to a fair trial would be violated if the media were allowed to attend a so-called “Arthur” hearing to determine whether they can be released on bail before trial.

    Her decision was highly unusual — Florida is generally known as having one of the most transparent criminal-court systems in the country, and hearings are rarely, if ever, closed to the public.

    She ruled that “pervasive publicity” surrounding the case would jeopardize the right to a fair and impartial jury in the future. At the Arthur hearing, prosecutors are expected to detail the confessions of four defendants; those statements have been sealed by the court under Florida law.

    Potential jurors are normally questioned about their exposure to the media during jury selection, and whether they can be fair and impartial despite having learned about the case before.

    Strickland and Cabrera, along with three others, are accused of conspiring to murder Jose Amaya Guardado, whose viciously stabbed body was discovered in June 2015 in a shallow grave in the woods of Homestead. All of them, including the victim, attended Homestead Job Corps, a live-in school and vocational training program run by the U.S. Department of Labor.

    Guardado vanished from the Homestead campus in June 2015. His brother found him buried in a shallow grave in the woods near the campus in South Miami-Dade. He had been hacked so viciously that “his face caved in,” according to an arrest report released by the police department.

    According to the police report, Strickland and Kaheem Arbelo had sex in the woods after the group cleaned up the crime scene and buried the dead teen.

    A lawyer for Arbelo, suspected of being the ringleader, hailed the decision on Wednesday.

    “These are difficult decisions and we are mindful of the First Amendment and the public’s interest in this case but we also must first protect our client,” said lawyer Phil Reizeinstein. “We are grateful the trial and appellate court understood our concerns.”

    The closure of the courtroom was opposed by the Miami Herald and WPLG-ABC10, who appealed to the Third DCA.

    “We are disappointed in the court’s ruling and are now evaluating our options,” said Miami Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marqués Gonzalez.

    Wednesday’s ruling was met with dismay by advocates of the free press, who point out that recent murder cases with much greater coverage — defendants such as Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman and Facebook killer Derek Medina — managed to seat juries without closing pretrial hearings.

    Barbara Petersen, of the Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation, said the ruling sets a “troubling” precedent that could lead to the potential closing of virtually any criminal-case hearing in Florida.

    “Of course, it’s bothersome. To say we have to close a bond hearing because it’s going to taint a jury pool, frankly, I don’t buy it,” Petersen said, adding: “The fact that people in Iceland are interested — so what? They are not in the jury pool.”

    Samuel J. Morley, the general counsel for the Florida Press Association, said the closing of the entire hearing seemed “overly broad.”

    “It seems a stretch to close the hearing to allow seating of an impartial jury in such a large county as Miami-Dade, where the trial has not been scheduled yet,” Morley said. “I would think there are less drastic ways to deal with this issue including voir dire in selecting of the jury pool.”

    https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...146877304.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #4
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Related:

    Plea deal offered for woman in Homestead teen’s machete death

    Desiray Strickland would serve 15 years in prison if she takes deal

    By Amanda Batchelor
    Local 10 News

    MIAMI – A woman accused of participating in the machete killing of a teenage boy nearly seven years ago in Homestead is prepared to take a plea deal that would allow her to avoid a life sentence.

    Her attorney told a Miami-Dade judge Wednesday that the deal would send Desiray Strickland to prison for 15 years.

    She wanted to go over a couple of items in the deal with her parents before accepting.

    The next hearing is set for June.

    Police say Strickland was 19 when she and four others killed 17-year-old Jose Amaya Guardado in 2015 over a drug debt.

    Kaheem Arbelo, Christian Colon, Joseph Michael Cabrera and Jonathan Lucas have also been charged in the killing. In 2017, the state waived the death penalty option for all of the suspects, with the exception of Arbelo, who they said was the ringleader.

    According to a police report, the suspects and victim were students at the Homestead Job Corps center, a live-in school and vocational program.

    Detectives said the suspects dug a hole in the woods two weeks before they killed Guardado on June 28, 2015, and buried him.

    According to the report, Arbelo used a machete to slash Guardado after the group lured him into the woods and ambushed him.

    Police said Arbelo’s friends watched him kill Guardado, and said Strickland complained that she missed part of the attack because she left for a few minutes to urinate in the woods.

    According to the report, as the victim was dying, he was instructed to lie in the grave. Police said Guardado made a final attempt to fight off Arbelo, but was struck by the machete multiple times until his face caved in.

    According to the report, the suspects got rid of the shovel and murder weapon and attempted to burn their clothes and Guardado’s belongings after the attack occurred.

    Police said Strickland and Arbelo then had sex in the woods until it was time for them to return to campus at the Job Corps.

    Guardado’s body was found by his brother days later on July 1.

    The medical examiner determined the victim’s cause of death to be trauma and ruled the death a homicide.

    https://www.local10.com/news/local/2...machete-death/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #5
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    For role in vicious machete murder, Miami woman will serve 15 years in prison

    By David Ovalle
    Miami Herald

    The woman believed to have goaded on the machete murder of a teen in Homestead will spend 15 years in prison for her role in the gruesome killing.

    Desiray Strickland, 25, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit the murder of Jose Amaya Guardado, who was hacked to death with a machete and found buried in a shallow grave in the woods in 2015.

    After the prison term, she’ll also have to serve six months of house arrest and 10 years of probation.

    As part of the plea deal, she agreed to testify, if called, against her former boyfriend, Kaheem Arbelo, who is accused of inflicting the fatal blows on Jose. He is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty if convicted.

    “It was the right thing to do for Desiray,” said her defense attorney, Scott Sakin. “She felt very badly for the family of Mr. Amaya. She felt bad for what happened. She decided this was best to move on with her life.”

    The murder involved a group of students from Homestead Job Corps, the live-in school for at-risk students. The shocking murder raised concerns about oversight and security at Job Corps, which operates over 100 campuses across the country designed to help at-risk people between the ages of 16 and 24 earn their high-school degrees and learn vocational skills.

    Arbelo, Strickland and three others were arrested in 2015 for planning and carrying out the murder, which is believed to have stemmed from a debt owed to Arbelo. Witnesses told police that Strickland, then 19, “complained that she had missed the first series of machete strikes because she had walked away for a few minutes to urinate in the woods,” according to her arrest report.

    She was not accused of striking any of the blows. Strickland and Arbelo allegedly had sex in the woods after the group of Job Corps students buried the teen’s body.

    Fellow students Jonathan Lucas, Christian Colon and Joseph Michael Cabrera were also charged in Jose’s death. Arbelo, Lucas and Colon all confessed — in video-recorded statements — when they were detained in August 2015, according to Miami-Dade police.

    In 2020, Lucas and Cabrera pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Lucas was sentenced to five years in prison and 15 years’ probation. Cabrera received less punishment.

    Besides Arbelo, Colon is the only other defendant awaiting trial. He faces life in prison if convicted.

    https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...265204311.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •