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Thread: Jeremy Valdes Sentenced to Minimum 30 Years in 2009 UT Murders of Pamela Jeffries and Matthew Roddy

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    Jeremy Valdes Sentenced to Minimum 30 Years in 2009 UT Murders of Pamela Jeffries and Matthew Roddy




    April 21, 2010

    Prosecutors will seek death penalty in Roy killings

    The Weber County Attorney's Office officially notified the state's 2nd District Court this week that it intends to seek the death penalty for Jeremy Lee Valdes if he is convicted of killing a Roy woman and her adult son.

    Prosecutors say Valdes killed Pamela Jeffries, 56, and her son, Matthew Roddy, 31, on Nov. 25, 2009, in the Roy mobile home they shared, as part of a dispute over prescription drugs that reportedly had been stolen.

    Valdes' girlfriend, Miranda Mandy Statler, testified March 10 that she saw Valdes emerge from a bedroom carrying a knife and wearing bloody pants. Statler also said she saw Valdes kick Jeffries, who was on her hands and knees in another room, in the face, knocking the woman backwards. He then wrapped a plastic garbage bag over Jeffries' head and secured it with duct tape.

    Medical evidence showed Roddy had been stabbed 31 times and bled to death. Jeffries died from head injuries, although asphyxiation from suffocation might have contributed to her death.

    Valdes, 33, is charged with two counts of capital murder. He also is charged with obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; joy riding and two counts of abuse of a dead human body, all third-degree felonies.


    Statler was given immunity for her testimony and, as part of a plea deal, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. Four other felony charges were dismissed. She will be sentenced April 26


    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700026489/Prosecutors-will-seek-death-penalty-in-Roy-killings.html?s_cid=rss-30

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    Suppression motion to stretch past 6 months in murder case

    A suppression hearing for accused double-murderer Jeremy Valdes that began in June is scheduled to spill over into January.

    Valdes is charged with aggravated murder and faces the death penalty if convicted in the slaying of Pamela Knight Jeffries, 56, and her son, Matt Roddy, 30, the day before Thanksgiving 2009 in their Roy mobile home. Roddy was stabbed multiple times, and Jeffries was suffocated by a plastic bag over her head, sealed with duct tape.

    Final oral arguments before 2nd District Judge Mark DeCaria are expected in late January, which gives the suppression motion a life of more than six months since the first hearing held in June, the month it was filed.

    The defense argues Valdes was denied an attorney despite his numerous requests when being interrogated by police and that his incriminating admissions to the murders may have been coerced.

    Attorneys on both sides indicated even before the latest postponement that the hearing is possibly headed for some kind of record as the longest on a single motion in recent memory.

    Last month attorneys on both sides asked for more time to file final briefs in the case, canceling a Dec. 14 date for oral arguments.

    DeCaria set a Dec. 1 deadline for lead public defender Gary Barr's final pleadings, which has already been extended. Prosecutors have a Dec. 22 deadline to respond, with Barr given until Jan. 6 for any rebuttal. Oral arguments will follow.

    "This is really only the first major motion in a death penalty case," said Deputy Weber County Attorney Branden Miles, Valdes' lead prosecutor. "There are likely many more to come."

    The first evidentiary hearing in the case, on June 25, ran long because of the number of Roy officers who testified to conversations with Valdes over an eight-hour period leading up to his arrest.

    It was continued to July 2, but that hearing was then postponed with the surfacing of tapes of phone calls made between Valdes' mother and his codefendant girlfriend, Miranda Statler, while Statler was still in Weber County Jail. Both sides asked for more time to plumb the recordings for evidence.

    The hearing reset for Aug. 13 was postponed again when a paperwork snafu failed to deliver Statler from the state prison to testify. She is already serving a potential 20-year prison term for her part in the slayings. The evidence phase of the suppression hearing was finally completed Sept. 17.

    Valdes and Statler were staying at the mobile home at the invitation of Jeffries and Roddy when the killings took place.

    The fatal altercation came after Valdes' hosts called police to report Valdes for stealing Jeffries' prescription painkiller OxyContin, police say. The bodies of Jeffries and Roddy were found hidden in a closet in the trailer.

    Valdes has a long history of abusing prescription drugs. He turned down a plea negotiation April 19 in which prosecutors would have agreed not to seek his execution if he pleaded guilty to charges.

    In a disjointed diatribe in open court that day, Valdes seemed to scold Statler, who is testifying against him, saying, "Unless you call Dionne Warwick and the Psychic Friends hotline, you won't know what Miranda knows ... Miranda knows the truth. Even I don't know the whole truth. In the end, you will all know the truth."

    He briefly proclaimed his innocence, saying that upon his acquittal, "I will expect an apology."

    http://www.standard.net/topics/court...hs-murder-case

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    Death penalty option back on calendar for Valdes

    Jeremy Valdes' death penalty prosecution is back on the 2nd District Court calendar as the defense prepares to attack capital punishment.

    Valdes is charged with aggravated murder and faces the death penalty if convicted in the slaying of Pamela Knight Jeffries, 56, and her son, Matt Roddy, 30, the day before Thanksgiving in 2009.

    Roddy was stabbed multiple times, and Jeffries was suffocated by a plastic bag over her head sealed with duct tape.

    The deadline for Valdes' defense motions has been set for Oct. 11 for his public defenders, with prosecutors to respond by Nov. 15. The defense would then have until Dec. 6 to file rebuttal motions.

    The dates were set Monday before 2nd District Judge Mark DeCaria at a scheduling conference without any discussion of exactly what motions would be filed.

    Prosecutors have been expecting the constitutional challenges, and on Tuesday, Ryan Bushell, Valdes' co-counsel, confirmed that multiple challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty are planned in the coming motions.

    Such attempts to throw out the death penalty have been a regular and unsuccessful occurrence in Northern Utah capital cases lately.

    Glenn Howard Griffin's 2009 aggravated murder conviction in Box Elder County was preceded by two years of defense motions targeting capital punishment. Riqo Perea's trial last year was delayed almost three years by such defense motions attacking the practice as cruel and unusual before his conviction in a 2007 Ogden gang double homicide.

    A jury opted against execution in Griffin's case, and prosecutors abandoned it as a possibility on the eve of Perea's trial. Both men are serving life prison terms without possibility of parole.

    Doug Lovell's public defenders have indicated such motions are coming in his death penalty case, sent back to Ogden recently by the Utah Supreme Court in a 1985 homicide.

    Valdes' case has already drawn one lengthy motion fight. A suppression bid was argued for almost a year in multiple hearings before the Weber County Attorney's Office conceded his Miranda warnings were flawed.

    Judge DeCaria ruled in June that Valdes' damning admissions to police can only be used in rebuttal at trial, if for example, Valdes takes the stand to proclaim his innocence.


    http://www.standard.net/stories/2011...alendar-valdes

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    Hearing set for Valdes attorneys

    Oral arguments have been set for the latest defense motion for Jeremy Valdes, facing the death penalty for a 2009 double homicide in Roy.

    Second District Judge Mark DeCaria scheduled a Feb. 7 hearing for the debate on Valdes' public defenders' request for additional money to hire experts.

    The case will be back in court for the first time since a September status conference, and mark the first development in the proceedings since April when Valdes' alleged confession was ruled inadmissible over a Miranda warning snafu.

    Valdes, 35, is charged with aggravated murder in the Nov. 25, 2009, killings of Matthew Roddy, 30, and Roddy's mother, Pamela Jeffries, 56, in their Roy mobile home.

    Valdes' co-defendant and former girlfriend, Miranda Statler, already is serving a potential 20-year prison term for her role in the slayings. She was sentenced in April 2010 after testifying against Valdes a month earlier at his preliminary hearing.

    Valdes is heard on the now-inadmissible tape made by Roy police, which has been played in court several times, saying of Roddy, "Oh my God, I've killed him."

    The new motion filed this month by Valdes' public defenders seeks additional money to hire experts to assist in the case. The motion is sealed and they hope to argue it "ex parte and in camera," meaning without prosecutors present and in the judge's chambers instead of in open court.

    The motion in that respect is identical to one also filed this month by Doug Lovell's lawyers, Lovell faces the death penalty for a 1985 killing. Lovell's motion seeking money to hire experts is set for a status conference Jan. 12 before Judge Michael Lyon.

    In both cases, the public defenders point to case law that allows for "safeguarding defense strategy from the government."

    Public defenders must ask the Weber County Attorney's Office, the opposition, to sign off on fees to cover their cases, as the county funds both prosecutors and public defenders locally. The county attorney's office has a role in advising how legal fees are allocated.

    The office maintains a "Chinese wall" policy in that civil attorneys -- nonprosecutors -- are banned from divulging to their prosecutor co-workers any public defender funding requests.

    But a privately funded defense never faces such hurdles, the public defenders argue.

    The court-appointed counsel say extra measures are necessary beyond the usual restrictions because of the seriousness of the cases, which could end in execution.

    Lovell's case is extraordinary because he took the stand at his 1993 sentencing hearing and openly described how and why he killed South Ogden's Joyce Yost. He was sentenced to death, a conviction since overturned on a legal technicality in the entering of his guilty plea 18 years ago.

    http://www.standard.net/stories/2011...ldes-attorneys

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    Valdes death penalty case enters its third year

    Behind closed doors Thursday, attorneys debated a defense request for expert witness fees for Jeremy Valdes, who faces the death penalty in a 2009 double homicide.

    Valdes, 35, is charged with aggravated murder in the Nov. 25, 2009, killings of Matthew Roddy, 30, and Roddy’s mother, Pamela Jeffries, 56, in their Roy mobile home.

    The case has lingered after a suppression hearing that stretched on for almost a year ended in February 2011 with prosecutors conceding to a defense challenge of Valdes’ admissions to police. Valdes was not fully read his Miranda rights, so the alleged confession was out.

    But prosecutors were successful in arguing last June that the damning statements could be used in rebuttal if Valdes takes the stand to testify at trial.

    Trial seems a long way off after Thursday’s hearing before 2nd District Judge Mark DeCaria.

    The pace is typical of death penalty cases, with extra work required of defense attorneys because of the stringent review by appeals courts of capital cases.

    The hearing was closed and prosecutors were excluded as Valdes’ public defenders, Gary Barr and Randall Marshall, made their case for the court-ordered witness fees.

    The arguments are confidential and their fee motion sealed, as the defense has the right under rules of evidence to shield potential defense strategy from prosecutors.

    But because Weber County pays the public defenders, the county has the right to have legal counsel present when funds are requested.

    Chris Allred, a nonprosecutor with the county attorney’s office, attended the hearing but is banned from sharing the details with his prosecutor co-workers.

    Officials declined any comment on the hearing beyond the scheduling of another closed-door hearing March 2, when DeCaria will announce his decision on the fees he will allow.

    Thursday was the first time Valdes has been back in court since a Sept. 9 status conference in which Barr said he anticipated filing three to six motions.

    http://www.standard.net/stories/2012...its-third-year

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    Trial set in double homicide case in Roy

    Trial has finally been set for Jeremy Valdes, who is facing the death penalty in Roy's 2009 double homicide.

    Valdes, 35, is charged with aggravated murder in the Nov. 25, 2009, killings of Matthew Roddy, 30, and Roddy's mother, Pamela Jeffries, 56, in their Roy mobile home.

    The jury trial is now set for early 2013, for seven days beginning Jan. 8 and spread over a period ending Feb. 15, in Ogden 2nd District Court.

    The dates were set Wednesday after the conclusion of several closed-door hearings since Feb. 23 on confidential defense motions.

    The case has lingered in the motion phase, including a suppression hearing that stretched on for almost a year before it ended in February 2011 with prosecutors conceding to a defense challenge of Valdes' admissions to police. Valdes was not fully read his Miranda rights, so the alleged confession was out.

    But debate continued for another few months before Judge Mark DeCaria agreed to allow prosecutors limited use of the statements in rebuttal, meaning if Valdes ever took the stand to declare his innocence.

    The closed-door hearings begun last month were shuttered as Valdes' public defenders, Gary Barr and Randall Marshall, made their case for court-ordered witness fees.

    The arguments are confidential and their fee motion sealed, as the defense has the right under rules of evidence to shield potential defense strategy from prosecutors.

    But because Weber County pays the public defenders, the county is allowed to have legal counsel present when funds are requested. Chris Allred, a nonprosecutor with the county attorney's office, attended the hearings but is banned from sharing the details with his prosecutor co-workers.

    In scheduling the trial, DeCaria set a motion deadline for Aug. 1 this year. Barr has indicated challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty will be filed.

    Roy police say the killings came to prevent Roddy and Jeffries from reporting prescription drug thefts by Valdes and his girlfriend Miranda Statler. Roddy was stabbed to death and Jeffries beaten and suffocated by Valdes, according to the allegations.

    Statler has already been sentenced to prison for a potential 20-year term for her involvement, which came short of being charged with homicide.

    http://www.standard.net/stories/2012...icide-case-roy

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    Roy murder suspect wants to defend self

    Accused double-murderer Jeremy Valdes has filed a motion requesting he be allowed to act as his own attorney.

    Valdes, 35, in jail since his arrest in November 2009, apparently surprised his public defenders with the pro se motion.

    “I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know anything about it,” said Gary Barr, Valdes’ lead counsel. The motion was filed Friday in 2nd District Court and formally entered into court files Monday morning. It is listed as “sealed” with the text unavailable, although that is typically done through a judge’s order.

    Barr said he couldn’t know why Valdes would seal the motion. Barr has filed motions placed under seal in requesting appointments of defense experts. Defense attorneys are allowed that confidentiality from prosecutors as they develop their theory of a case.

    A hearing date on Valdes’ motion has not yet been set. Valdes has made unusual public statements in the past, but has been relatively silent for more than a year.

    In April 2010 he declined a plea negotiation which would have precluded the death penalty in the case, going on a rant for several minutes in open court to proclaim his innocence. He suggested calling “Dionne Warwick and the Psychic Friends Hotline” to learn the truth of the case. He concluded by saying, “In the end, you will all know the truth … and I will expect an apology.”

    Barr said Valdes has expressed no dissatisfaction with his defense.

    “I am on the case until the judge says otherwise.”

    Barr has had some success, getting Valdes’ purported confession to Roy police thrown out last year because of a faulty Miranda warning.

    Trial is set for seven days stretched between Jan. 8, 2013, and Feb. 15 before 2nd District Judge Mark DeCaria.

    Valdes is charged with the murders of Pamela Knight Jeffries and her son, Matthew Roddy, in their Roy mobile home the day before Thanksgiving 2009.

    Jeffries, 56, and Roddy, 30, were found dead in a closet in their home five days later. Police say Valdes killed the two after they reported to police that prescription drugs had been stolen from their home and that Valdes and his girlfriend Miranda Statler may have taken them. Statler pleaded guilty to lesser charges as an accomplice and is serving a potential 20-year prison term. She has testified against Valdes.

    An autopsy found 31 knife wounds in Roddy’s body. Jeffries suffered severe head injuries but died from asphyxiation.

    In July 2010, Valdes in a letter to the editor sent from jail faulted the case against him and complained about the newspaper’s coverage, then commented on a reader’s poll on Standard-Examiner comics:

    “While I have you here, my friends and I would like to request that you bring back the comics, Pearls Before Swines and Garfield. Thank you.” The letter was widely circulated on the Internet.

    http://www.standard.net/stories/2012...ts-defend-self
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Alleged killer of Roy mother and son to retain defense team

    Ogden • Jeremy Valdes considered representing himself in the murder trial of a Roy mother and son, but he and his defense attorneys talked it out and they’re still a team.

    Valdes, 35, filed a sealed motion with the 2nd District Court earlier this month seeking to represent himself. He had "some concerns," said his attorney Randall Marshall, who declined to comment specifically on what those concerns were.

    Whatever they were, Marshall said that he and his fellow court-appointed attorneys talked about those concerns with Valdes, and he’s retaining them as his defense team.

    "We’re going to work through some of those concerns and we’ll be able to move on and represent him," Marshall said, following a status conference Monday morning.

    On Nov. 25, 2009, Valdes allegedly fatally stabbed Matthew Roddy, 30, during an argument about stolen prescription drugs. Police believe Valdes then beat the man’s 53-year-old mother, Pamela Knight Jeffries, before leaving her unconscious with a plastic trash bag around her head and stuffing both she and Roddy into a closet.

    Valdes is charged with two counts of aggravated murder, which is punishable by the death penalty.

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    Ogden death penalty case moved forward

    The pile of defense motions in the way of Jeremy Valdes� death penalty murder trial was whittled down somewhat this week in 2nd District Court.

    In August, Valdes' public defenders filed 18 motions raising numerous pretrial issues, including multiple challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty.

    This week's session was to be oral arguments on one set of motions, but officials instead met in chambers with Judge Mark DeCaria for about an hour on the progress in negotiations.

    When prosecutors and the defense emerged, they declined to say which motions had been resolved - because many are sealed - but said about 1/3 of the motions had been dealt with. Still pending is a Nov. 20 hearing for oral arguments on remaining motions.

    Valdes faces the death penalty in the Nov. 25, 2009, killings of Matthew Roddy, 30, and Roddy's mother, Pamela Jeffries, 56, in their Roy mobile home.

    Trial is set for 7 days stretched between Jan. 8 and Feb. 15, 2013.

    One motion apparently still pending is the defense request to prevent evidence debunking the deterrence value versus the excessive expense of capital punishment cases.

    In a response filed a week ago, the Weber County Attorney's Office writes that such discussions should not be part of a death penalty prosecution.

    The motion cites a 1983 Utah Supreme Court decision that said a sentencing hearing in a capital homicide isn't "a forum to consider the appropriateness of capital punishment in general. This is an issue for the Legislature, not the court."

    The case has lingered following a suppression hearing that was drawn out for a year, ending last year with Valdes' purported confession to Roy police thrown out because of a faulty Miranda warning.

    Chief among the 18 motions, all filed Aug. 24, are four challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty, including claims it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment as well as being a violation of a right to life.

    Another motion would exclude potential jurors who believe in a doctrine of blood atonement, a religious tenet requiring the shedding of blood as punishment for any crime in which blood was shed.

    Jeffries and Roddy were found dead in a closet in their home on Nov. 30, 2009, 5 days after they died. Police say Valdes killed the 2 after they reported to police that prescription drugs had been stolen from their home and that Valdes and his girlfriend, Miranda Statler, may have taken them.

    Statler pleaded guilty to lesser charges as an accomplice and is serving a potential 20-year prison term. She has testified against Valdes.

    An autopsy found 31 knife wounds in Roddy's body. Jeffries suffered severe head injuries but died from asphyxiation.

    (source: Standard-Examiner)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Valdes asks again to fire lawyers

    For the second time in two weeks, Jeremy Valdes has asked a judge to replace his public defenders or let him defend himself against two death penalty murder charges.

    Valdes, 36, is charged with two counts of capital homicide in the Nov. 25, 2009, killings of Matthew Roddy, 30, and Roddy’s mother, Pamela Jeffries, 56, in their Roy mobile home. Trial is set to begin Jan. 8.

    As a Nov. 20 hearing on pre-trial motions concluded, Valdes suddenly spoke up, complaining to 2nd District Judge Mark DeCaria about his court-appointed lawyers, Gary Barr and Randall Marshall.

    “I just essentially dread if I go forward with these guys … They don’t know me, how are they going to know my peers?” he told the judge, asking for replacements or to serve as his own lawyer.

    The judge interrupted to say Barr and Marshall have effectively represented him. “They have your best interests at heart. I’m not going to boot them from the case.”

    Valdes’ complaints come despite the fact Barr was able to have Valdes’ purported confession to Roy police thrown out over Miranda flaws after a suppression hearing that took the better part of last year. Barr and Marshall recently filed 19 motions in the case, many dealing with trial details, as well as several challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty. DeCaria had said he will soon rule on all the motions, likely early next month.

    But since Nov. 20, Valdes, his mother and his sister have written letters to DeCaria asking for new lawyers or for Valdes to be allowed to serve pro se — to be his own attorney.

    “How much worse could it get?” the sister, Nicole Valdes, asked in her letter. She accuses Valdes’ defense team of not caring about her brother, saying “he deserves a chance to prove himself” as his own defense counsel.

    Valdes and his mother both claim Barr and Marshall have medical problems that will prevent them from effectively running his trial.

    They also both claim the lawyers have not done the research they said they would do in the case, to the point they both feel lied to.

    In urging that her son be allowed to be his own lawyer, Marilee Valdes wrote, “Obviously Jeremy lacks the education necessary for one to practice law. He may not have the education, but he is very intelligent ... He has faith and determination. He has the desire for the truth to be heard and believe it or not, for justice to be served.”

    At a hearing Wednesday on jury questionnaires for the coming trial, DeCaria brought up the letters, discussing them with attorneys on both sides of the case. He also had Valdes given a Waiver of Counsel form to look over, which he would have to sign to show he fully understood the consequences of serving as his own lawyer.

    DeCaria set a Tuesday hearing date for Valdes to make his case for dismissing Barr and Marshall. Barr and Marshall did not immediately return calls for comment.

    Jeffries and Roddy were found dead in a closet in their Roy home Nov. 30, 2009, five days after they died. Valdes killed the two, according to the charges, after they reported to police that prescription drugs had been stolen from their home and that Valdes and his girlfriend, Miranda Statler, may have taken them.

    Statler pleaded guilty to lesser charges as an accomplice and is serving a potential 20-year prison term. She is testifying against Valdes.

    http://www.standard.net/stories/2012...n-fire-lawyers
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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