Page 3 of 9 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 89

Thread: Joseph Edward Duncan III - Federal

  1. #21
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    August 15, 2008

    After her older brother was shot in the head, his remains were burned in front of her, an 8-year-old girl told a police officer in a gut-wrenching tape played for jurors deciding whether a convicted sex offender should die for his crimes.

    Shasta Groene spoke to Coeur d'Alene police Officer Shane Avriett on July 2, 2005, shortly after she was rescued from weeks of torture and despair.

    Avriett testified Thursday that he turned on his vehicle's dashboard-mounted video camera, with the camera pointed away from Shasta, and recorded her talking about her ordeal.

    When Avriett asked where her 9-year-old brother Dylan was, she told him, "in heaven ... there may be some evidence down in the Lolo forest, because that's where we were."

    She cried as she told Avriett how Joseph Edward Duncan III shot her brother in the stomach at a campsite, then shot him again in the head and burned the body.

    Source

  2. #22
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    August 21, 2008

    A boy who was kidnapped, tortured and shot by Joseph Edward Duncan III likely suffered excruciating pain before his death, a forensic pediatrician told jurors Wednesday.

    Dr. Sharon Cooper's testimony in U.S. District Court followed the presentation of a taped interview in which Shasta Groene, 8 at the time, related grim details of Duncan's sexual abuse and slaying of her older brother, Dylan. Groene, who also said she was sexually abuse and tortured, told the jury Duncan accidentally shot her brother in the stomach and then intentionally shot him in the head after deciding the boy's life couldn't be saved.

    Cooper said the description of the boy's injury - he was eviscerated, his sister said, with his "guts" hanging out - indicated it was "a very potentially salvageable injury."

    "We see this on the battlefield fairly often," Cooper told the jury. "They can live for several hours like that."

    Cooper also said Duncan may have had enough time to get Dylan Groene to a hospital from the remote western Montana campsite where the shooting occurred.

    Duncan pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal counts in the 2005 kidnapping of the Coeur d'Alene-area children and the murder of the boy. A jury must decide whether Duncan should be executed or spend life in prison without parole.

    Duncan, acting as his own attorney in the sentencing phase, suggested in cross-examining Cooper that the girl was exaggerating her brother's injury.

    "How much in your experience do children tend to elaborate or exaggerate and fill in details ... especially after a traumatic experience like that?" Duncan asked.

    Children who exaggerate are typically much younger, between 4 and 6, and lack the vocabulary to describe what happened to them, Cooper said.

    Duncan bludgeoned to death the children's older brother, mother and her fiance at their home before abducting the pair in May 2005, setting off a nationwide manhunt. Duncan has pleaded guilty in state court to the killings at the house.

    While it is The Associated Press' policy not to identify victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for Shasta and Dylan Groene was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.

    Duncan, formerly from Tacoma, Wash., has a long string of arrests and convictions for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation. He is suspected in the slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996 and is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, Calif., in 1997.

    Source

  3. #23
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    August 26, 2008

    A convicted murderer confessed that he killed three children before his 2005 attack on a northern Idaho family that left four people dead, an FBI agent told a federal jury.

    FBI Agent Mike Sotka testified that after Joseph Edward Duncan III was caught at a Denny's restaurant with a kidnapped 8-year-old girl, he eventually confessed to the 1996 slayings of half-sisters Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias in Seattle and the 1997 slaying of Anthony Martinez in Riverside County, Calif.

    Authorities are trying to convince jurors at Duncan's federal sentencing hearing that the convicted child molester should be executed for the kidnapping, torture and murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene in 2005. Duncan has already been convicted in state court of murdering the boy's older brother, mother and stepfather at their Coeur d'Alene area home.

    Testimony in the case was to resume Tuesday.

    At Duncan's request, an attorney advising him asked U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to bar the testimony about Sammiejo, Carmen and Anthony, saying it was irrelevant and prejudicial.

    Since the jury only has the choice of imposing the death penalty or life without parole when it comes to sentencing Duncan, there's no likelihood he could prey on children in the future, the attorney, Mark Larranaga, said.

    But Lodge sided with Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson, who argued the confessions to multiple murders show a lifelong pattern of violence.

    "All of his crimes ... certainly illustrate that he could be a danger in the prison setting," Olson said.

    Margaret Delaney, the mother of Sammiejo, 9, and Carmen, 11, sobbed frequently on the stand as she testified about the day her daughters disappeared.

    Delaney said she left the two girls with their 15-year-old brother and another younger sibling with instructions to stay at a motel where they were staying. Then Delaney went to pick up a change of clothing for the children and to a friend's house where she could get money to buy some groceries.

    While she was gone, the two girls decided to walk to a nearby fast food restaurant to see if they could get some food, Delaney said.

    Their bodies were found months later in a suburban subdivision in Bothell, Wash. Duncan said he grabbed the girls on an impulse, and that he killed them by hitting them in the head with a crowbar, Sotka testified.

    Anthony's stepfather, Ernesto Medina, told the jury about the day his 10-year-old boy disappeared, April 4, 1997. Medina said he was in his apartment with his wife, mother-in-law and 4-year-old daughter when he heard other children outside screaming "A man's got Tony! A man's got Tony!"

    Medina called 911, then jumped in his car and began searching the neighborhood, thinking the abductor was on foot.

    Vultures in a remote part of a canyon led authorities to the little boy's body, bound with duct tape and partially buried under a pile of rocks.

    The boys who had been playing with Tony Martinez before his abduction reported that a man in a white car had offered them a dollar each to help him find his lost cat. After looking for a time they approached the car to get their money, and that's when the man grabbed Tony.

    Sotka said Duncan told him he bludgeoned the boy with a rock that he found at the scene and wasn't sure whether the child was dead when he left him in the desert, but knew the wound was fatal. Duncan also said he taped the boy's mouth shut to stop him from crying out, because he'd been haunted by hearing Carmen scream "No!" after seeing her older sister murdered, Sotka said.

    Authorities matched a partial fingerprint found on a roll of the duct tape near the body with Duncan's thumbprint, Richard Kinney, a fingerprint expert with the California attorney general's office, told the jury. Prosecutors in Riverside County have charged Duncan in Anthony's slaying and are seeking the death penalty.

    King County sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said from Seattle on Monday that Duncan remains a "person of interest" in the murders of the two Seattle girls but has not been charged.

    Of the seven people Duncan has acknowledged killing, only two are adults _ the rest are between the ages of 9 and 13. All but one were bludgeoned to death. Dylan Groene was shot twice. Shasta Groene was rescued when Duncan was arrested in July 2005.

    Source

  4. #24
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    August 27, 2008

    The death penalty hearing of Joseph Edward Duncan III is nearing a close, and his standby lawyers say the confessed child killer wants the jury to have an “epiphany” when considering his fate.

    The comments came as both sides discussed instructions to be presented to a U.S. District Court jury after closing arguments on Wednesday. The jury was not in the courtroom at the time.

    Normally, jurors consider aggravating factors, including those that make an offender especially dangerous, and mitigating factors, which can be weighed against the heinousness of the crime, when deciding on the death penalty.

    Duncan, representing himself, offered no mitigating factors to the jury.

    “Mr. Duncan believes that mitigation was presented,” his standby lawyer, Judy Clarke, told U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge. “He received an epiphany on the mountain through S.G. and that’s why she’s alive today.” S.G. refers to Shasta Groene, the lone survivor of his attack on a Coeur d’Alene family in 2005. She was 8 at the time.

    Duncan believes the jury should be allowed to have the same epiphany, Clarke said.

    He feels that allowing lawyers to speak on his behalf would hamper that discovery " 'as words hinder the understanding of the truth,’ ” she added, apparently quoting Duncan. " 'All mankind are on the path of epiphany and the understanding of the truth and this trial will help all mankind.' That is Mr. Duncan’s view of mitigation."

    Last week, the jury unanimously decided that Duncan was eligible for the death penalty. Phase two of the hearing was on whether he should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole.

    Duncan won the right to represent himself earlier this year after telling the judge that his court-appointed lawyers couldn’t ethically represent his “ideologies.”

    He faces the death penalty for kidnapping Dylan and Shasta Groene in May 2005. Dylan, 9, was later tortured and killed at a remote campsite in the Lolo National Forest in Montana.

    Duncan pleaded guilty to 10 federal counts involving the two children in December.

    The children were abducted after Duncan fatally bludgeoned their mother, Brenda Groene, their 13-year-old brother, Slade, and their mother’s fiance, Mark McKenzie. He has pleaded guilty to those killings in state court.

    Source

  5. #25
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    August 28, 2008

    A longtime sex offender was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old northern Idaho boy after federal jurors who watched video of some of the brutality deliberated just three hours.

    The jurors' recommendation was binding on U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, who thanked them, dismissed them and then sentenced Joseph Edward Duncan III.

    Relatives of the victim, Dylan Groene, remained somber as the jury's decision was announced. Duncan murdered Dylan's mother, older brother and his mother's fiance to kidnap him and his younger sister, who was sexually abused along with her brother but survived.

    "The jury speaks the mind of the community," U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said. "By the verdict today, they have given voice to the victims."

    Duncan showed no reaction other than smiling as the verdict was passed to the judge.

    Source

  6. #26
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515
    January 26, 2009

    Riverside County prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the man accused in the 1997 kidnap-murder of a 10-year-old Beaumont boy, the District Attorney's Office announced today, shortly after the suspect was sentenced to death in Idaho for torturing and killing a boy in that state.

    Joseph Edward Duncan III is expected to be brought to Riverside County to face prosecution for the slaying of Anthony Martinez.

    It was unclear how long it would take for Duncan to be extradited, but prosecutors will seek the death penalty when he is tried, according to Michael Jeandron of the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

    Duncan, 45, was tied to the 1997 abduction and murder of Anthony Martinez when the boy's name surfaced during questioning in Idaho and partial fingerprints found at the scene where the boy's body was discovered matched Duncan, officials said.

    Duncan left a fingerprint on the duct tape that was used to bind Anthony, who was abducted by a stranger with a knife as he played with friends in an alley behind his family's Beaumont apartment on April 4, 1997, prosecutors said.

    Anthony's nude body was found by a Bureau of Land Management Ranger April 19, 1997, on Berdoo Canyon Road in Indio -- some 90 miles east of where he was snatched -- south of Joshua Tree National Monument.

    The Riverside County District Attorney's Office charged Duncan with Anthony's murder in 2007.

    Duncan was sentenced to death today by a federal court judge in Boise, Idaho, for murdering 9-year-old Dylan Groene. Duncan kidnapped the boy and his 8-year-old sister in May 2005, then tortured and sexually abused both of them over the course of several weeks before shooting Dylan in the head while his sister watched.

    Duncan also killed the children's brother and mother, and the mother's fiance.

    Duncan was arrested after a waitress at a Denny's restaurant recognized him and the kidnapped younger sister. Ever since, law enforcement agencies nationwide have been investigating whether the drifter and high school dropout, whose first sex offense was committed when he was 12, could be tied to some other cases.

    Source

  7. #27
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Condemned killer accused in kidnap-slaying of Beaumont boy gets new attorney

    Trial for an already condemned child killer continued its slog through the Riverside County court system today when his new attorneys requested more time to prepare his defense against charges that he murdered a Beaumont boy in 1997.

    Joseph Edward Duncan III, 47, who has already been sentenced to death for the slaying of an Idaho boy, would also face capital punishment if convicted of abducting and killing 10-year-old Anthony Martinez.

    He was extradited to Riverside County in January 2009 to stand trial in the Beaumont killing.

    With his second set of lawyers appearing together for the first time today before Judge David B. Downing, trial appears to be a long way off.

    “To think I can try this case in the next 12 months in unrealistic,” said Scott O’Meara, who is working with fellow deputy public defender Gail O’Rane.

    In order to update the court on the defense team’s progress in reviewing more than 30,000 documents, O’Meara requested that another status hearing be held in mid-March. But Judge David B. Downing set a Feb. 22 date at the behest of Deputy District Attorney Otis Sterling.

    Because Duncan did not waive his right to start trial within 60 days after Feb. 4, the prosecutor expressed concern that the defendant may yet again drop his attorneys and seek a trial in that time frame.

    Duncan has not cooperated with his court-appointed attorneys in the past.

    “If Duncan decides to go pro per, I want to have time to prepare the case,” Sterling said.

    Duncan had been representing himself until the new defense team was appointed last October. He relieved his earlier attorney in August 2009, when he was deemed competent to stand trial by a jury.

    Whatever progress is made by next month, the volume of information that Duncan’s legal team must digest had Downing dismayed about when a trial may actually begin.

    “I think it is realistic this case is not getting off the ground in 2011,” the judge said.

    The convicted killer was brought into the courtroom with his hands shackled behind his back. His head was shaved, in contrast to the unkempt mass of hair he sported during his last court appearance.

    Duncan was tied to the Coachella Valley slaying when Anthony’s name surfaced during questioning in Idaho and partial fingerprints found at the scene where the boy’s body was discovered matched Duncan, authorities have said.

    Duncan allegedly left a fingerprint on the duct tape that was used to bind Anthony, who was abducted by a stranger with a knife as he played with friends in an alley behind his family’s apartment on April 4, 1997.

    The child’s nude body was found by a Bureau of Land Management Ranger on April 19, 1997, on Berdoo Canyon Road in Indio — some 90 miles east of where he was snatched — south of Joshua Tree National Monument.

    The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office charged Duncan with Anthony’s murder in 2007.

    Duncan was sentenced to death in August 2008 by a federal judge in Boise, Idaho, for murdering 9-year-old Dylan Groene. Duncan kidnapped the boy and his 8-year-old sister in May 2005, then tortured and sexually abused both of them over the course of several weeks before shooting Dylan in the head while his sister watched.

    Duncan also killed the children’s brother and mother, and the mother’s fiance.

    He was arrested after a waitress at a Denny’s restaurant recognized him and the kidnapped younger sister.

    Law enforcement agencies nationwide subsequently began investigating whether the drifter and high school dropout, whose first sex offense was committed when he was 12, could be tied to other cases.

    While representing himself, Duncan worked with two court-appointed private investigators. The judge also allocated funds to allow Duncan to have access to a laptop computer to view nearly 30,000 pages of evidence.

    Duncan has indicated he does not deny the allegations against him, but cannot plead guilty because of a California law that stipulates a defendant must be represented by an attorney and have that lawyer’s consent to enter a guilty plea in a potential death penalty case.

    http://www.swrnn.com/southwest-river...#ixzz1B3Wgzlrd

  8. #28
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Killer offers to end case of Beaumont boy

    Already sentenced to death for killing an Idaho boy, a man accused in the 1997 slaying of Beamont's 10-year-old Anthony Martinez offered a settlement Tuesday that could draw the case to a close without going to trial.

    Attorneys for Joseph Edward Duncan III said they were prepared to submit an offer to the Riverside County district attorney, spurred by his decision to review all capital cases in the county. They spoke at a brief hearing Tuesday morning in an Indio courtroom.

    The defense attorneys declined to go into detail about the offer. Prosecutors would not comment.

    If Duncan pleads guilty, it may end his two-year stay in Riverside County and finally bring closure in Anthony's case, 14 years after his death.

    Duncan, 47, has been uncooperative until recently, following extensive delays and questions about his competency and attorneys. The case has long been a balancing act between justice for Anthony's family and the strain on county resources.

    Anthony was abducted outside his Beaumont home in April 1997 by a man who first asked a group of boys for help looking for his lost cat, then forced Anthony into his car at knifepoint. His body was found 15 days later, bound in duct tape, north of Indio near Joshua Tree National Park. He had been molested and beaten to death.

    Duncan received three death sentences and nine life terms for the brutal kidnapping and murder of an Idaho family in 2005. After he was arrested in that case, he confessed to killing Anthony, according to investigators in Idaho.

    Then-Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco filed murder charges against Duncan and said he would seek the death penalty. Duncan was extradited to Riverside County in January 2009.

    Pacheco was replaced last month by District Attorney Paul Zellerbach, who has started to review about 40 death penalty cases throughout the county to determine whether to pursue capital punishment or if a settlement is possible. In a handful of cases ready to go to trial, the death penalty has already been withdrawn and settlements have been reached in exchange for guilty pleas.

    Zellerbach would have to approve Duncan's settlement offer.

    A hearing was set for March 7 for the district attorney's office to tell the judge whether a settlement has been reached.

    UNDER REVIEW

    Deputy Public Defender Scott O'Meara said the defense has always been interested in settling the case, in order to end the case for Duncan, and give justice to Anthony's family.

    "It's always been about serving justice for our client, and a question of what does that mean in a case like this where he has a death sentence pending in another jurisdiction," O'Meara said. Though the public defender's office has long questioned the cost of trying the case, Duncan's attorneys said cost was not a factor in offering a settlement.

    Records provided last spring showed that up to that time, Duncan's case had cost Riverside County $167,000 in expenses such as hiring experts and housing him in jail. The total did not include attorney fees.

    District attorney's officials declined to comment on any ongoing negotiations. Spokesman John Hall would not say if Zellerbach had made a decision about pursuing the death penalty against Duncan.

    "We are reviewing all death penalty cases and will also review any case where the defense comes to us with an offer," Hall said.

    Since Duncan was extradited to Riverside County and flown from the federal prison in Terra Haute, Ind., landing amid a press conference at a Bermuda Dunes airport, the case has faced several hurdles.

    Beginning with his first hearing in January 2009, a judge entered a not-guilty plea on Duncan's behalf after Duncan refused to comply and requested to act as his own attorney. Duncan did not deny the charges, but he was not permitted to enter a guilty plea without a consenting attorney.

    The judge appointed two public defenders who immediately cast doubt on Duncan's competency to stand trial or represent himself. The judge suspended criminal proceedings and ordered a competency trial before a jury.

    Jurors found Duncan competent to face trial, and he was permitted to act as his own attorney.

    Last October, he changed course, declaring he would not be ready for trial for several years and requesting an attorney be appointed.

    FEDERAL APPEALS

    Offering a settlement in a capital case could be a way to get the death penalty off the table and could allow a defendant to focus on post-conviction appeals, said Laurie Levinson, a former federal prosecutor.

    In the Idaho case, Duncan recently allowed the federal defender's office to appeal his conviction before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Death penalty appeals generally take about 10 to 15 years, Levinson said.

    "He might not want to fight the death penalty on multiple fronts. If the Idaho case sticks, then the California case would be moot," Levinson said. "It will also depend on if the families feel justice is being served, or if they see it as compromised.

    "The closure of the case could avoid the agonizing process of going through a trial."

    http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/...3.51a75ef.html

  9. #29
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    DA asks for more time in Duncan settlement

    Riverside County prosecutors told a judge today the district attorney needs more time to consider a settlement in the 1997 killing of Anthony Martinez.

    Attorneys for Joseph Edward Duncan III have offered to settle the case, potentially entering a guilty plea in exchange for life sentence to avoid facing the death penalty and taking the case to trial. Duncan is already sentenced to death in another case.

    The settlement offer came originally came when newly elected District Attorney Paul Zellerbach took office in January and began a process to review each of the county's approximately 40 death penalty cases to see if capital punishment is appropriate or if a settlement is possible.

    Duncan, 47, is charged with murder and torture in abducting the 10-year-old Beaumont boy from an alley near his home.

    He has already been given multiple life sentences and ordered to federal execution for murders in Idaho.

    Anthony disappeared April, 4, 1997 when a man approached him asking to find his lost cat, and abducted him at knifepoint as he was playing outside with his brother.

    The abduction galvanized the San Gorgonio Pass community and launched a countywide manhunt for Anthony and his captor. Anthony's body was found 15 days later, bound in duct tape, in the desert north of Indio near Joshua Tree National Park. He had been sexually molested and beaten to death with a rock.

    For the next eight years the case left an open wound for Riverside County and the community of Beaumont.

    A break in the case came unexpectedly in 2005 when a partial finger print found on the duct tape matched Duncan's thumb print when he was arrested in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for the rampage killing of four members of a family and abduction of two children. He later confessed to Anthony's killing to FBI agents.

    Idaho prosecutors and the U.S. Attorney's office prosecuted Duncan for the murders and abduction of the Groene family in Idaho. Duncan pleaded guilty and was given three death sentences and nine life terms.

    In 2008, then-Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco charged Duncan with murder in Anthony's death. He was extradited from federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. in January 2009 to face trial, facing the death penalty.

    Duncan's tenure in an Indio courtroom has been tumultuous. The trial has been delayed for more than a year.

    Upon his arrival, Duncan immediately requested to represent himself. Though he never denied the charges that he killed Anthony, the court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf when he refused to identify himself or enter a plea.

    A judge appointed two defense attorneys who argued that Duncan was incompetent to stand trial, let alone act as his own attorney.

    The defense requested a jury trial on Duncan's competency. Attorneys presented several experts who testified Duncan was delusional and psychotic, but also said he understood his actions and the charges against him.

    Jurors found Duncan competent to stand trial and a judge allowed him to act as his own attorney.

    A year later, he requested an attorney. New capital defenders were appointed.

    http://blogs.pe.com/news/digest/2011...re-time-i.html

  10. #30
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Riverside County reaches plea deal with convicted child killer Joseph Duncan

    Riverside County prosecutors have reached a plea deal that will allow a convicted child killer to avoid the death penalty in California. Joseph Duncan faces multiple death sentences in Idaho in a separate case. Now he’s pleaded guilty to killing a 10-year-old boy in Riverside County.

    The plea deal will save Duncan from the death penalty, but will earn him a tenth life sentence. Duncan was convicted of killing two other boys, their mom and her fiancé in Idaho six years ago.

    He already faces multiple death sentences there. Duncan allegedly told Idaho authorities that he also abducted and murdered Anthony Martinez near Joshua Tree 14 years ago.

    Riverside County district attorney Paul Zellerbach spoke to KPCC last week before he reached the settlement. He wasn’t surprised that Duncan finally agreed to a plea deal.

    “Mr. Duncan has already been sentenced to death by the federal court up in Idaho, he’s already received multiple life sentences," says Zellerbach. "I think everyone is aware that the state of the evidence with respect to the murder in this county, he confessed to that or acknowledged culpability in that homicide. So I’m not surprised by it given all the facts and circumstances surrounding this case.”

    The plea deal means Riverside County will avoid a lengthy and expensive capital trial. Joseph Duncan is scheduled to be sentenced next month. After that, authorities could extradite him to Washington where he’d stand trial for murder, or they could return him to Idaho for execution.

    Riverside County district attorney Paul Zellerbach will explain his decision to accept a settlement in the Duncan murder case at a news conference later this afternoon.

    http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/03/15/...nvicted-child/

Page 3 of 9 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

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

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

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