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Thread: John Montenegro Cruz - Arizona

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    John Montenegro Cruz - Arizona


    Officer Patrick Hardesty





    Facts of the Crime:

    On May 26, 2003, Cruz murdered Officer Patrick Hardesty, an on-duty law enforcement officer with the Tucson Police Department. Cruz fired four shots at Officer Hardesty, including shots to the head and adbomen, from point-blank range.

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    No. 08-6083 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    John Montenegro Cruz, Petitioner
    v.
    Arizona
    Docketed: September 3, 2008
    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Arizona
    Case Nos.: (CR-05-0163-AP)
    Decision Date: April 21, 2008
    Rehearing Denied: June 5, 2008

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Aug 29 2008 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due October 3, 2008)
    Oct 7 2008 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including December 2, 2008.
    Dec 2 2008 Brief of respondent Arizona in opposition filed.
    Dec 16 2008 Reply of petitioner John Montenegro Cruz filed. (Distributed)
    Dec 18 2008 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 9, 2009.
    Jan 12 2009 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/08-6083.htm

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On May 29, 2013, Cruz filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/ari...v00389/783689/

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    On March 31, 2021, Cruz’s habeas petition was denied by the Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ar...cv00389/783689

    On April 22, 2021, Cruz filed an appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...s/ca9/21-99005
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    Post-conviction relief denied by the Arizona Supreme Court.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/arizona...7-0567-pc.html
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    Distributed for conference March 18, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/21-846.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court GRANTED Cruz's petition for certiorari, limited to the question whether "the Arizona Supreme Court’s holding that Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g) precluded post-conviction relief was an adequate and independent state-law ground for the judgment".

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Arizona
    Case Numbers: (CR-17-0567-PC)
    Decision Date: June 4, 2021
    Rehearing Denied: June 23, 2021

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...22zor_f2bh.pdf

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Supreme Court to hear appeal of death-row inmate in death of Tucson cop

    The Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear an Arizona death-row inmate’s claim that he was wrongly denied the chance to tell jurors he would be ineligible for parole if they sentenced him to life instead of death.

    John Montenegro Cruz killed a Tucson police officer in 2003 and has been on death row since 2005 – more than a decade after the Supreme Court said defendants have a due process right to tell jurors they would spend the rest of their lives behind bars if sentenced to life.

    Arizona courts did not allow that right until 2016, when the U.S. Supreme Court directly ordered the state to do so. Cruz asked for a resentencing, citing the 2016 ruling, and his attorneys said it “should have been an easy case” for the Arizona Supreme Court to order the new hearing.

    Instead, the state court in June said Cruz should not get another sentencing hearing because the high court’s 2016 ruling was not a “significant change in the law” that would merit a new hearing.

    “The Arizona Supreme Court’s refusal to follow the same approach here creates a square conflict on an important issue of federal law in a case with life-or-death stakes,” Cruz said in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    That petition said the decision in Cruz’s case could affect more than 2 dozen other defendants in Arizona who have sought review under the 1994 ruling that established the due process right – Simmons v. South Carolina – or the 2016 ruling, Lynch v. Arizona, that enforced it in the state.

    Calls seeking comment from Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office were not immediately returned Monday. But an attorney for Cruz welcomed the high court’s decision to hear the case.

    “We are gratified that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, and look forward to the Court’s hearing later this year,” Neal Katyal said in an emailed statement.

    The case began in 2003, when Cruz was being questioned by Tucson Police Officer Patrick Hardesty as part of hit-and-run investigation. Cruz started to run, according to court documents, and Hardesty gave chase. At some point Cruz opened fire and hit

    Hardesty five times, with four of the shots fired from less than a foot away, killing the officer on the spot.

    Cruz was charged with 1 count of 1st-degree murder, convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. Among the factors contributing to the death sentence was the fact that the victim was a police officer.

    Under Arizona law, defendants in capital cases are not eligible for parole if sentenced to life, and Cruz’s trial attorney tried to call a witness from the state’s Board of Clemency to testify to that fact. But the request was denied.

    The jury foreperson said after the sentencing that jurors wanted to find a reason to be lenient, but they did not think they had “an option to vote for life in prison without possibility of parole,” so they voted for the death sentence, according to Cruz’s petition.

    When Cruz filed for post-conviction relief, citing the 2016 Lynch ruling, the Arizona Supreme Court said that Lynch was not a change in the law but merely a “significant change in the application of the law,” which did not merit a new hearing.

    “Thus, Cruz could not obtain the benefit of Simmons now because it had been clearly established when he was sentenced to death, even though Cruz had been denied the benefit of Simmons when he was sentenced to death because the Arizona Supreme Court misapplied it,” Cruz’s lawyers wrote.

    In its response, the state said that Cruz also failed to ask the trial judge to inform jurors that state law “did not allow parole for defendants, like Cruz, who committed felonies after 1993,” ignoring his claim that he was denied the chance to call a witness who would have said that.

    Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted that the Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the question in the case to whether or not the Arizona Supreme Court’s grounds for ruling against Cruz were adequate.

    “What that means is if Arizona has its own state law grounds for rejecting Cruz’s claim, and that state law has been adequately applied and this is not a new procedural rule … then Cruz doesn’t get a review of this claim,” Dunham said.

    This is not the only Arizona death-row case the justices have considered. The U.S. Supreme Court in December heard the appeals of two inmates who argued they had ineffective assistance of counsel and needed new hearings.

    No ruling has been handed down in those cases. But Dunham said it isn’t a coincidence that Arizona is again before the high court.

    “Arizona has historically provided defendants substandard representation and denied death row prisoners meaningful access to judicial review,” he said.

    Dunham said it’s unclear whether Cruz’s death sentence will be overturned if the Supreme Court rules in his favor, or if it will be returned to the lower courts for resentencing. Arguments in the case have not yet been scheduled, but it will not likely be heard until after the next court term begins in October.

    “Regardless of what the outcome of this case is, it raises significant questions about whether Arizona can be trusted to provide fair trial and fair appeals in death penalty cases,” Dunham said.

    (source: cronkitenews.azpbs.org)
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  9. #9
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    Arguments set before SCOTUS November 1, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/21-846.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Man on Arizona death row has justices splitting hairs

    By KELSEY REICHMANN
    CNS

    A court that has appeared of late apathetic to precedent considered an argument Tuesday over whether the overturning of precedent represents a significant change.

    The case comes from a capital punishment case in Arizona where John Montenegro Cruz seeks postconviction relief for what he claims was a violation of his due process rights. In denying this relief, however, the state argues that there has been no significant change that would warrant overturning his sentence.

    While the details of the case had some of the justices splitting hairs this morning, there was concern that a ruling in favor of Arizona could create a roadmap for other states to skirt the high court’s rulings.

    “If we were to rule in your favor, it will give other states a roadmap for defying this court’s precedents,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told Arizona’s chief deputy attorney general.

    Justice Elena Kagan said the state’s arguments sought to avoid applying the court’s precedents.

    “It sounds like you are thumbing your nose at us,” the Obama appointee said.

    Cruz was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2003 murder of a Tucson police officer, Patrick Hardesty, whom Cruz shot five times during a confrontation about a hit-and-run accident.

    During his trial, Cruz now claims, the judge denied all his requests to inform the jury of his parole ineligibility. He attempted to call the chairman of the Arizona Board of Clemency, Duane Belcher, as a witness, claiming Belcher would demonstrate that parole was unavailable for Cruz, but was denied.

    Arizona focused on Cruz’s dangerousness at sentencing. While Cruz had a former prison warden testify that he was unlikely to be a danger in prison, the state questioned the warden’s credibility. The jury was given instructions with three possible sentences, one of which had been life imprisonment with a possibility of parole after 25 years. Cruz was sentenced to death.

    When deciding to impose the death penalty, Supreme Court precedent requires juries to be informed of the defendant’s “future dangerousness.” The reasoning behind the court’s ruling in Simmons v. South Carolina is based on the thinking that a jury may be more inclined to sentence a defendant to death if they believe the defendant could pose a future danger to society. Defendants thus have a due-process right to tell juries if they could never be paroled, even if they are spared from the death penalty.

    For a time the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Simmons is not applicable in the state. This forced the court to issue a rare summary reversal holding that Simmons does apply in Arizona. Even after the court’s ruling in Lynch v. Arizona, however, approximately 30 prisoners have still been denied this right.

    Cruz’s trial falls between the court’s ruling in Simmons and Lynch. When Cruz attempted to bring a Simmons claim to the Arizona Supreme Court, it ruled against him, concluding that Simmons did not apply in Arizona. Once the court ruled in Lynch, Cruz again tried to file for relief.

    Part of Cruz’s arguments before the Arizona Supreme Court involves a procedural rule that authorizes a defendant to bring a successive petition for postconviction relief if there has been a significant change in the law that could overturn the defendant’s judgment or sentence. The Arizona Supreme Court found that Cruz did not qualify under that procedural rule because there was no significant change in the law, even though the court had previously said overturning precedent qualified as a significant change.

    The high court then took up the case in March to examine if Arizona’s procedural rule provided an adequate reason for the denial of relief.

    Cruz claims that the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation of the procedural rule in his case represents a departure from precedent and disregards the justices’ rulings.

    “It is the essence of novel, the essence of discrimination against this court’s rulings,” said Neal Katyal, an attorney for Cruz with the firm Hogan Lovells.

    Arizona’s Chief Deputy Attorney General Joseph Kanefield argued that the state’s high court relied on the principle of finality in its ruling. He urged the justices to give the court a chance to flush out the law.

    Kagan said the state’s arguments represented an attempt to win no matter what.

    “It’s not consistent with the legal system that you win no matter what,” Kagan said.

    While the three liberal justices did not seem swayed by the state’s arguments, it was not clear where all the court’s conservatives stood on the issue. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito offered tough questions for Cruz and leaned toward the state’s arguments. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed skeptical of the state.

    “It just seems like you’re hairsplitting,” Barrett said to Kanefield.

    https://www.courthousenews.com/man-o...litting-hairs/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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