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Thread: Jose Sandoval - Nebraska Death Row

  1. #11
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Is this guy through federal courts yet?

  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    He must be out of appeals.

    The state Department of Correctional Services notified death-row inmate Jose Sandoval of the lethal injection drugs to be used in his execution, although no date has been set.

    State officials are required to notify an inmate of the drugs to be used at least 60 days before Nebraska’s attorney general asks the state Supreme Court for an execution warrant. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said state attorneys plan to seek the warrant after the waiting period has ended.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...=.2c470f068706
    "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

  3. #13
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Expect an execution date for Sandoval in late April / early May 2018.

  4. #14
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Well this will set off a firestorm of legal challenges. The good news is Nebraska is in the Eighth Circuit. That court is one of the most reliable so I guess Nebraska has some slight hope to execute.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Id say very slight. Nebraska hasn't executed in 20 years and never with lethal injection. He will say he is mentally retarded or mentally ill, and if that doesn't work he will say lethal injection is cruel. Some liberal judge somewhere is already plotting to stop this.

  6. #16
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Victims' families say Sandoval's execution can't come soon enough

    BY JOANNE YOUNG
    The Lincoln Journal-Star

    There are villains and there are villains.

    Jose Sandoval stood in a Norfolk bank on Sept. 26, 2002, orchestrating death; murdering three people himself, abetting the killing of two more and terrorizing three others. In 40 seconds, he turned a would-be robbery into a homicidal frenzy.

    He certainly rises to the top of the list for many Nebraskans — especially in northeast Nebraska — of the most heinous of villains.

    In 2003, Sandoval was found guilty of killing customer Evonne Tuttle, 37, of Stanton, and tellers Samuel Sun, 50, of Norfolk, and Jo Mausbach, 42, of Humphrey. He was also convicted of the murders of bank employees Lola Elwood, 43, and Lisa Bryant, 29, both of Norfolk.

    For those crimes, he was condemned to die. He also has two first-degree murder convictions for the unrelated deaths of a onetime roommate, 19-year-old Travis Lundell, and Lundell's friend, Robert Pearson Jr., for which he has life sentences.

    Former state Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk on Friday called Sandoval a "supreme risk to human life," someone about whom you have doubts could be held safely in prison.

    "There's not many people locked up in the prison system that have seven murders on their record. ... He kills for sport."

    Many people say Sandoval's death sentence is the only just punishment for the cold-blooded, execution-style murders he committed. They remember him looking into a news camera and smiling, defiant, flashing a gang sign as he was led out of a courthouse after his capture.

    They say it's about time the punishment is carried out, 15 years too late, in fact.

    Nebraska Corrections Director Scott Frakes served notice to Sandoval on Thursday of the lethal injection drugs that would be administered to cause his death if an execution takes place. Sixty days following the notification, Attorney General Doug Peterson can request the state Supreme Court issue Sandoval's execution warrant.

    Those who are against the death penalty in Nebraska say he won't be executed any time soon. There are too many legal questions.

    For Dave Mausbach, whose wife was killed by Sandoval, an execution would be 15 years too long in coming. He thinks about the senselessness of the crime, the money it has cost Madison County and the state to put on trial and to house the Norfolk killers, when there is no question about their guilt.

    "They took a lot of innocent lives and ruined them. For what?" he said.

    He resents all that he, his family and others had to put up with during those trials.

    Jo Mausbach was a caring person and lived for their kids, he said. Her life was all about family.

    "She was easy to get along with. It was always about somebody else instead of her," he said. "She'd drop everything and help you with anything."

    That day 15 years ago, he had to pull their two kids out of school and watch as they came out, excited, thinking it must mean they would be getting to do something special. And then the heartbreak of telling them their mother was dead, gunned down at work.

    "That's something I'll never forget," he said.

    He's fortunate, though, he said, that in the ensuing years those two — Rebecca, now 28, and Jacob, 24 — continued to be excellent students, never got in trouble, graduated, got college degrees and then good jobs.

    Sandoval's execution will bring him relief, he said.

    "I'll feel a hell of a lot better, and I'm not a mean person," he said. "I hope I'm alive when this happens. It's what I'm waiting for."

    Jo Mausbach's brother, Micheal Tichy, has a different take on the announcement that Sandoval has been served notice of his potential execution.

    "To be honest with you I'm not a firm believer in the death penalty, even though what happened," he said in a phone call from his home in South Dakota. "If it does happen, well, he probably gets what he deserves."

    He would rather have seen Sandoval's punishment be solitary confinement or hard labor for the rest of his life, he said.

    With that said, though, he does not appreciate hearing death penalty opponents talk about the inhumanity of Sandoval being a test subject for a never-used cocktail of lethal injection drugs.

    "I'll tell you what. What was cruel and inhumane is my sister down on her hands and knees choking on her own blood," Tichy said. "That wasn't a very pretty picture. I saw it."

    So did their mother, Ina Mae Tichy, who died last year.

    "She was like a rock through the whole thing, and took care of us kids," he said. "She did not believe in the death penalty, either. But she would have accepted it."

    Joe Smith is the Madison County Attorney who prosecuted Sandoval, Erick Vela, Jorge Galindo and Gabriel Rodriguez, an accomplice also convicted of the five murders but given life sentences.

    In 2003, after a jury held Sandoval responsible for four aggravators in the deaths of all five victims at U.S. Bank, paving the way for the death sentence, Smith said people in Madison County won't ever get over what happened in that bank.

    Smith looks at the notification Thursday of Sandoval's impending execution as potentially the first step in the last part of a long process.

    "It's something that I'm sure nobody is excited about. On the other hand, it's about time the process got off stall," he said.

    Flood, as speaker of the Legislature from 2007-13, presided over multiple death penalty-related debates. Every time he would rise to speak in support of the death penalty, he would talk about the Norfolk bank killings.

    As a reporter for his radio station, he was also on the scene of the murders that September day.

    "What happened on that day was pure evil. Unconscionable," he said.

    And then, Sandoval, Vela and Galindo were cold and indifferent at their trials, he said. Those jury panels were made up of teachers, farmers and pastors who had to listen to weeks of testimony about what occurred inside the bank. They had to decide the mitigating and aggravating factors to recommend whether the death penalty was appropriate.

    "The justice system in Madison County has invested quite a bit, not just dollar-wise, more importantly though the human capital that went in to rendering a just verdict," he said.

    Lincoln attorney Bob Evnen was a spokesman for death penalty proponents during a campaign to overturn the Nebraska Legislature's elimination of the death penalty, and is now a candidate for Nebraska secretary of state. He has studied capital punishment, researched death row cases and appeals and pondered the arguments.

    It's not something anyone should take pleasure in, Evnen said. The best thing would have been if the crime had never been committed in the first place.

    "But the punishment that he is receiving is a just one. And it's in accordance with what the people of the state of Nebraska have voted to retain, and rightly so."

    Rachel Pokora, a Lincoln college professor, remembers meeting Sandoval in 2008 on two visits to the prison as a member of Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty. He was one of the more interesting people on those visits, she said.

    "Of all the other people I talked to, a lot of them were maybe not as bright, but it also then really scared me because I thought, 'He knows what he's doing.'"

    Shortly after that visit, she had said it stuck in her mind what he had said to her.

    I'm a very bad man, he told her. I'm the worst man you've ever met.

    http://columbustelegram.com/news/loc...808a3dab3.html

  7. #17
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Bank Murderers Want Resentencing in Death Penalty Case

    By Rachel Urbanski
    The Sand Hills Express

    MADISON, NE — Two men lined up on Nebraska’s death row believe they don’t deserve the death penalty.

    Jose Sandoval, the ringleader in a 2002 failed robbery in Norfolk that left five dead, filed a motion for post conviction relief Monday evening. One of his partners in crime, Erick Vela filed the same motion.

    Their attorneys argue in court documents that they were effectively resentenced to life in prison as opposed to death when the Nebraska Legislature passed LB 268 in 2015, which repealed the death penalty. Their attorneys say resentencing them to death now, without a trial, is a violation of their constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

    Madison County Attorney Joe Smith says, “The theory they have is that at the time they committed the crimes there was a death penalty statute, and the time they were sentenced there was a death penalty statue. The legislature, perhaps attempted to repeal the death penalty and was unsuccessful and the voters had a election. As I read into the theory it’s that thats analogous to the defendants being sentenced to death, being sentenced to life and resentenced to death without a hearing.”

    Sandoval was sentenced in 2002 for the murders of five people at the U.S. Bank branch in Norfolk. His other two accomplices, including Vela are on death row.

    His convictions were upheld by the Nebraska Supreme Court and again in 2011 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his petition for review.

    Smith says they usually file a response within 60 days of post conviction but in this case it will be filed a whole lot faster.

    http://sandhillsexpress.com/featured...-penalty-case/

  8. #18
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Omaha attorney signs on to help fight Jose Sandoval's execution

    An Omaha attorney will represent condemned killer Jose Sandoval in his bid to fight the state's attempt to execute him via lethal injection.

    Attorney Stu Dornan filed a motion in Madison County District Court this week arguing that Sandoval, 38, should be resentenced to life in prison or have another capital sentencing hearing.

    The Legislature repealed the death penalty in May 2015, then nullified the governor's veto of the bill (LB268) with another vote. The repeal, Dornan said, went into effect Aug. 30 before it was suspended again because of an initiative referendum vote.

    "Mr. Sandoval is subject to a uniquely cruel and unprecedented form of psychological suffering through alternating periods of relief and terror as he has been told that his life would be spared, and then told again that he would be executed," the motion said.

    That raises constitutional issues that must be addressed, Dornan said Friday. It's possibly the 1st time that something like this has happened.

    Among other issues, the motion argues the repeal of the Legislature's bill was unconstitutional because it imposed a new death sentence on condemned inmates without an additional court hearing or trial.

    Madison County Attorney Joe Smith, who prosecuted Sandoval, Erick Vela, Jorge Galindo and Gabriel Rodriguez for killing five people at a Norfolk bank in 2002, said it was his view the death penalty repeal never went into effect, and so there was never a lapse in the death sentences. That's what he would argue, he said.

    Attorney General Doug Peterson declined to comment Friday on the Sandoval motion. Both he and Solicitor General James Smith have filed with the court as attorneys to represent the state in the case.

    No request to the Nebraska Supreme Court for an execution warrant for Sandoval has been made, but Corrections Director Scott Frakes served notice to Sandoval of the lethal injection drugs that would be administered to cause his death if an execution takes place. The combination of drugs chosen has never been used in an execution.

    Medical research highlights the psychological and emotional pain felt by those who face impending death, and how that anxiety is aggravated when uncertainty does not allow a person to prepare adequately. The motion compared it to a form of torture.

    "The state has ping-ponged Mr. Sandoval from death to life and to death again," the motion said. "His individual fate became hostage to an ongoing political contest between the Legislature, the governor and the voters."

    Sandoval has been in prison since 2003, sentenced for 14 crimes, including 5 death sentences for murders of 5 men and women in a U.S. Bank branch in Norfolk, and 2 life sentences for murders of 2 other men in Madison County.

    Dornan took on Sandoval's case after he was asked by ACLU of Nebraska to file the motion in Madison County. He also agreed to a different request to accept an appointment in federal court as the local attorney for any lawsuits or appeals that would be filed there.

    As the previous Douglas County Attorney, Dornan has prosecuted cases that sought the death penalty. He has represented people in capital cases, but has not represented a condemned prisoner fighting execution, he said.

    The death penalty is important to all Nebraskans, Dornan said.

    "I believe there is no higher calling for a lawyer than to represent an indigent person on an important question of constitutional law, especially when the stakes are as high as they are in death penalty cases," he said.

    In the motion, Dornan said those who led the execution reinstatement petition drive went beyond campaigning for the state to keep the death penalty, by focusing on the execution of Sandoval, and others on death row.

    Television advertisements showed pictures of the men and described their crimes while ominous music played in the background, the motion said. An ad linked to the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty website opened with a photo of Sandoval and talked about how the men on death row terrified communities and devastated families, and how the death penalty protects the public, acts as a strong deterrent and gives justice to families.

    Dornan said other lawsuits on behalf of death row inmates are pending, including ACLU litigation regarding the legality of the ballot initiative, a separation of powers issue involving Gov. Pete Ricketts, and the secrecy of lethal injection drug suppliers.

    http://journalstar.com/news/state-an...6fa89504a.html

  9. #19
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    20th anniversary of Norfolk bank killings approaches, no execution date in sight for 3 shooters

    By Lori Pilger
    Lincoln Journal Star

    Twenty years after five people were slain in a Norfolk bank in one of the deadliest bank killings in U.S. history, the three men who shot them remain on death row with open appeals and no execution date in sight.

    In just 40 seconds on the morning of Sept. 26, 2002, Lola Elwood, Lisa Bryant, Jo Mausbach and Samuel Sun, employees at the US Bank branch in the northeast Nebraska town, and a customer at the counter, Evonne Tuttle, had been gunned down, the terrible crime captured on video and in the accounts of two employees who survived the nightmare.

    Jose Sandoval walked to the front, quickly shooting Sun, Tuttle and Mausbach.

    Erick Vela and Jorge Galindo went to offices on either side, Vela shooting Bryant and Galindo shooting Elwood, then firing at a customer who started to walk in.

    The three left empty-handed as the five died.

    Police later would describe the acrid smell of spent gunpowder and blood heavy in the air when they arrived.

    Within hours, Sandoval, Galindo and Vela would be locked up for it after stopping at a McDonald's in O'Neill, 75 miles away.

    But nothing else in the cases has happened quickly.

    The three ultimately landed on death row, Sandoval and Galindo after being found guilty at trial and Vela after pleading guilty.

    Separate three-judge panels found their crimes warranted death sentences.

    Then came automatic appeals, all rejected.

    But in the years since, legal twists complicated matters. First, a U.S. Supreme Court decision over how it's determined who gets life versus death. Then, Nebraska lawmakers' repeal of the death penalty in 2015, which voters reinstated the next year.

    Attorneys argued the sentences for everyone on the state's death row had been commuted to life in prison. And they've raised dozens of other issues that they say should lead to a new trial or a life sentence rather than death for them.

    In March 2019, the state filed a response in Sandoval's case arguing the district judge should deny his motion for post-conviction relief without a hearing.

    "The case files and records affirmatively show that the defendant is entitled to no relief," Solicitor General James Smith wrote.

    But court records indicate in the three and a half years since the filing, District Judge Geoffrey C. Hall of Fremont has yet to rule either way.

    In Vela's case, his attorney, Jerry Hug, told a federal court judge this May that he anticipated progression of the state court proceedings "with the understanding that the state court records of the petitioner’s capital case are voluminous and have necessarily involved considerable time to gather, review and organize. Additional time will be required for briefing, submission, and a state court decision."

    And Hug referenced a number of postconviction cases pending resolution in the Nebraska Supreme Court, including Galindo's.

    At oral arguments Sept. 1, Adam Sipple, Galindo's attorney, tried to convince the justices that a district court judge was wrong to deny a hearing on a motion for post-conviction relief.

    In a 138-page motion filed in 2019, he detailed a laundry list of issues, including the state's last-minute disclosure it was going to present evidence of Galindo's alleged involvement in the death of Travis Lundell, a 21-year-old who had gone missing a month before the bank robbery, in pursuit of a death sentence.

    "When Mr. Galindo's sentencing case is assessed and evaluated consistent with the law and consistent with the Constitution, his youth, his confession, his cooperation and his demonstrated remorse provide a strong case to spare him from execution," Sipple said.

    He said there were two huge issues that could have led to a life sentence if the sentencing panel had known. One, his trial counsel's failure to introduce the evidence of remorse. And two, his failure to argue Galindo's youth as a mitigating factor.

    Sipple said defense counsel at sentencing left sworn deposition testimony in his file from, among others, a captain at the jail who told a defense investigator that Galindo expressed remorse to him and another jail deputy, and testimony from a teacher who said he was immature and easily influenced by others.

    He also raised issues over a criminal investigation by the Nebraska State Patrol of the lead prosecutor, Madison County Attorney Joe Smith, "including his associations with drug-dealing suspects he called as jailhouse informants against Galindo."

    But Justice Jonathan Papik said, even if they found that trial counsel had been deficient and that the panel shouldn't have considered Lundell as an aggravator, "Wouldn't we then have to ask 'Well, is there prejudice?'"

    Is there a reasonable probability that the outcome would be different, he asked.

    Sipple agreed, but said the allegations created legitimate issues warranting an evidentiary hearing, which would lead to findings.

    On the other side, James Smith, the solicitor general, said even if the sentencing panel didn't consider the Lundell evidence and did consider Galindo's youth and remorse, it wasn't sufficient to outweigh all the aggravating circumstances.

    "In short, if you go in and murder five innocent people saying that 'Gee, I shouldn't get the death sentence because I really didn't kill the sixth,' that doesn't really indicate a prejudicial error in the sentencing that would justify having a futile evidentiary hearing," he argued.

    The Supreme Court hasn't yet ruled.

    Norfolk Mayor Josh Moenning wasn’t living there on Sept. 25, 2002.

    “But as a native of the area, I precisely recall the shock and bewilderment I experienced upon hearing the news,” he told the Journal Star on Friday.

    Moenning called it an unthinkable horror that sent shockwaves throughout the community and entire state.

    “Norfolk’s response, though, was telling,” he said. “Immediately the community embraced the victims’ families, supported their needs, and recognized the importance of honoring their loved ones’ legacies.

    "Ultimately created in the place of these heinous crimes was a place of solace and peace — a natural landmark that to this day welcomes travelers on U.S. Highway 81 with a profound message: love and community always outlasts hate and violence."

    https://journalstar.com/news/state-a...1fa28d7a5.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

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