Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 33

Thread: Areli Carbajal Escobar - Texas Death Row

  1. #11
    It's so easy to sentence someone to death in Texas. Juries actually have common sense in that state. You go to other states and juries tend to be a lot more lenient. Remember that guy Brian Nichols in Georgia who killed a Judge , an FBI Agent, a court reporter and a civilian I believe? I think like 4 jurors voted against the death penalty in his case and he ended up with LWOP.. A Texas jury would have put him on D.R in a heartbeat

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Blog, good read.

    In a Sanctuary City, An Illegal Immigrant Gets the Death Penalty

    By David Paulin
    americanthinker.com

    Areli Carbajal Escobar, a violent 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, had a long rap sheet. Over the years in the sanctuary city of Austin, Texas, police and prosecutors had many contacts with him.

    Yet Escobar was never deported.

    Now, immigration problems are the least of Escobar's worries. Last week, a Travis County jury sentenced him to death for the brutal rape and murder of a high school honor student.

    Texas may lead the nation for executions, but most condemned murderers aren't from Austin, the capital, and surrounding Travis County -- for both are enclaves of liberal Democrats in an otherwise red state. In Travis County, murderers aren't often sentenced to death.

    But an exception was made for Escobar -- given the brutality of his crime, lack of remorse, and long criminal history. As a reader of the Austin American-Statesman observed in an online comment: "When a latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening Travis County jury straps you down, you know you've earned it!"

    The trial of Areli Carbajal Escobar captivated Austin and provided a glimpse into the world of sanctuary cities and illegal immigration. According to court testimony, he was born in Central Mexico to poor and illiterate parents; when he was six his father immigrated illegally with him to Texas. But Escobar didn't grow up to be a poster child for the DREAM Act. A gang member, he was fond of beating up and terrorizing women, including his wife -- facts known to Austin's police. In one incident, he shoved a friend of his wife's against a wall and held a screw driver against her neck. He was involved in organized crime relating to car burglaries and had a long list of other offenses: drunk driving, driving with a suspended license, and other such offenses.

    Yet despite numerous brushes with the police and courts, Escobar's immigration status never apparently raised eyebrows. Nobody should be surprised: Austin is a sanctuary city. Police there invariably turn a blind eye to the immigration status of suspects and illegal immigrants who aren't causing major problems. By doing this, police claim they're better able to fight crime, because illegal immigrants will supposedly be more comfortable dealing with the police and report crimes. It's a questionable law-enforcement philosophy, however. And it's undercut by what seems to animate it -- an open-borders philosophy and politically correct notion that immigration enforcement amounts to "racial profiling."

    In 2009, Escobar committed a crime that was too much even for open-borders Austin and its touchy-feely criminal-justice system. He forced his way into an apartment near his own, then brutally raped and murdered a 17-year-old single mom and high school student named Bianca Maldonado. She put up a struggle, but died of blood loss from a terrible beating and 47 stab wounds. Her 1-year-old son, Cesar, suffered a cut hand and bruised eyes.

    Why did Escobar do it? A forensic psychologist for the defense testified that Escobar was in a "psychotic state" and animated by a rage he felt for his girlfriend. "I think he spun out of control," said Matthew Ferrara. He added that Escobar had a "borderline personality disorder" and there was a "98.2 percent" chance he wouldn't commit a violent crime in prison -- if sent there instead of going to the death chamber. The jury didn't buy any of it. Nor was the jury moved by testimony from Escobar's loyal family members who called him a good man. "To me, he's the most wonderful person in the world," said Escobar's 21-year-old sister Nancy.

    Escobar was tied to the crime through DNA evidence and fact that he briefly answered his cell phone during the assault, and his girlfriend at the time heard some of what was happening -- a woman's screams, grunts, and groans. Escobar was separated at the time from his wife with whom he'd had five children. The children are receiving counseling.

    Escobar didn't know Maldonado. When he raped and killed her, he was unemployed, separated from his wife, and, according to his girlfriend at the time, "stressed out." He also was in trouble with the law again; a Travis County judge had released him on a "personal recognizance bond." In Travis County, such bonds are approved more often than anywhere else in Texas.

    Maldonado was a sympathetic victim. The Statesman continually reminded readers that she was not just another Latina who, like so many others in Austin, had a baby as a teen and dropped out of high school. Rather, she was getting her life together. She was described as an honor student who had a "B" average -- all while caring for her baby and working a part-time job at a Jack in the Box managed by her mother. She was destined to go to college, her teachers said.

    Escobar's trial got prominent news coverage, but Austin's news media tiptoed around Escobar's immigration status. As is often the case, one had to read between the lines in newspaper and television coverage to figure it out; or check a web site operated by the Travis County Sheriff's office: It shows an "immigration hold" for Escobar.

    Illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America -- mostly poor and uneducated -- have free run in Austin. Escobar is one example. His home in Mexico had a dirt floor; there was no indoor plumbing or electricity. The abject poverty of his early years and illiterate parents were introduced during his trial's penalty phase -- part of an effort by defense lawyer to win the jury's sympathy and spare Escobar from the death penalty.

    The trial had some strange moments. One of Escobar's lawyers suggested that wounds made by a "hard object" to Maldonado's vagina and anus were inflicted after her death. It was an important legal technicality. As the Statesman explained: "Because sexual assault is a crime on a live person, if the jury finds that there was no sexual assault, then Escobar could only be found guilty of murder and would not qualify for the death penalty."

    Why wasn't Escobar deported years ago after first attracting the attention of Austin's police, prosecutors, and judges? It's a question that even Austin's liberals are now asking, including Statesman columnist Alberta Phillips. "Law enforcement officials need to explain to Bianca's mother -- and this community -- why Escobar, with a rap sheet of serious crimes, was not in jail or sent back to Mexico," Phillips wrote. Her column's title aptly summed up Escobar's life: "A History of Violence." Phillips was outraged that Austin's police didn't do more to keep Austin's "Latinas" safe from Escobar.

    But at least Maldonado's mother, Jaqueline Hernandez, was satisfied that Escobar got the death penalty. Speaking in Spanish, she said: "I feel good. I feel like it's justice." She'd discovered Bianca's mutilated body when she and a second daughter came home from a job delivering newspapers.

    One of Republican Gov. Rick Perry's priorities has been to pass legislation to essentially outlaw sanctuary cities. But two separate bills that passed the House have stalled in the Senate, blocked by Democratic lawmakers who say the bills would lead to "racial profiling" and undercut the relationship between the police and Latino community.

    Racial profiling, however, wouldn't occur if police had a reason to check on a suspect's immigration status. And it's also questionable that the bill would hamper the police by undermining their relationship with the Latino community. For one thing, many unassimilated Latinos are reluctant to cooperate with the police anyway, even when it's in their interest to do so. It's not because they're afraid of being deported. It's become of their culture, a fact that's well known to police.

    According a Berlitz-style guide on Spanish language and culture used at a local police academy, unassimilated Latinos "will most likely side with each other than an outsider. An individual will assist family members and friends regardless of the consequences, and expect the same in return. A sense of honor is so important in Latino culture, that it may keep an individual from cooperating with the police against a friend or family members, even though he or she may not condone any of the actions."

    Interestingly, some Latina women did phone Austin's police about Escobar, but then failed to do the necessary follow-up with a detective -- and detectives failed to follow-up with the women who'd filed the initial complaints. So much for the desire of Austin's police to have splendid cooperation from the Latino community in order to fight crime. Escobar thus continued his rampage, until raping and murdering Maldonado.

    Austin's police and prosecutors have much explaining to do regarding Escobar -- and liberals for a change are demanding answers in a city where the large Hispanic subculture will, thanks to changing demographics, be the prevailing culture in not too many years.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...n_illegal.html

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Areli Escobar transported to death row

    Areli Carbajal Escobar arrived today on Texas’ death row.

    Travis County sheriff’s department spokesman Roger Wade said deputies transported Escobar from the Travis County jail to death row at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston this morning. Livingston is about 75 miles northeast of Houston.

    Escobar, 32, was sentenced to death last week for the 2009 sexual assault and fatal stabbing of Bianca Maldonado, a 17-year-old LBJ High School student.

    Escobar, like other death row prisoners, will spend 23 hours a day alone in a 60-square-foot cell.

    Escobar is the seventh person convicted in Travis County who is awaiting execution. He will join Milton Gobert, Paul Devoe, Selwyn Davis, Guy Allen and Louis Perez in Livingston. Cathy Henderson, convicted of killing a child she had been babysitting, is awaiting execution at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, the home of Texas women’s death row.

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...obar#post16936

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    TDCJ information



    Name
    Escobar, Areli Carbajal
    TDCJ Number 999564

    Date of Birth 04/23/1979

    Date Received 05/26/2011

    Age (when Received) 32

    Education Level (Highest Grade Completed)

    Date of Offense 05/31/2009

    Age (at the time of Offense) 30

    County Travis

    Race Hispanic

    Gender Male

  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Oral argument on direct appeal set for April 17, 2013.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  6. #16
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    ARELI ESCOBAR v. THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Death sentence affirmed in LBJ High student’s death

    The state’s highest criminal court Wednesday affirmed the murder conviction and death sentence for Areli Escobar in the 2009 rape and murder of 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado of Travis County.

    On direct appeal, often called the automatic appeal, Escobar raised 18 points of error, including claims that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of capital murder and that improper search warrants yielded evidence that should have been suppressed at trial.

    In an 8-0 ruling, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Escobar’s arguments, including his claim that the victim was dead at the time of the sexual assault, instead of killed during the commission of a rape, an element that made him eligible for the death penalty. The claim ignored forensic evidence and testimony from other witnesses, said the opinion written by Judge Elsa Alcala.

    Alcala also said that details provided more than enough probable cause to issue six search warrants, including information that his clothes were bloody on the morning of the murder and the fact that his apartment was about 100 yards away from Maldanado’s in East Austin.

    Maldanado was an LBJ High School student and mother of a 1-year-old son who was found next to her body with a cut on his hand and bruises around his eyes.

    Judge Paul Womack did not participate in the case, Escobar v. Texas, AP-76,571.

    http://www.statesman.com/news/news/d...s-death/nbyjs/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #17
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Lawyers seek new trial for death row inmate Areli Escobar

    Lawyers for death row inmate Areli Escobar are seeking to overturn his conviction, contending that one of the jurors who sentenced him in May 2011 hid the fact that he had once worked with the defendant before his murder trial.

    In a petition filed in Travis County district court, the attorneys say Charles Lancaster was prejudiced against Escobar and lied during the jury selection process when he told the defense team that he did not recognize the defendant. The two men had been employed about five years earlier at a North Austin circuit board assembly plant, where Lancaster had unrequited romantic feelings for a woman who had a close relationship with Escobar, they claim.

    Continue reading/get access here »
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  8. #18
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    In today's orders, the US Supreme Court DENIED Escobar's certiorari petition.

    Lower Ct: Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
    Case Nos.: (AP-76,571)
    Decision Date: November 20, 2013
    Rehearing Denied: March 12, 2014

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...s/13-10544.htm

  9. #19
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    1,363
    ARTICLE 11.071 APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS DENIED WITH WRITTEN ORDER:

    http://www.search.txcourts.gov/Searc...4-69a0ae5934cb

  10. #20
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    1,363
    ARTICLE 11.071 APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS REMANDED TO TRIAL COURT WITH WRITTEN ORDER:

    http://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMed...7-6652e81e14f4

Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

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

Posting Permissions

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