Maria Magdalena Rodriguez
Juan Carlos Rodriguez
Attorneys for man accused of killing wife want death penalty option removed
The attorneys for a Winston-Salem man charged with kidnapping and killing his wife about three years ago want the death penalty taken off the table because Winston-Salem police destroyed the original files in the investigation.
Copies of the files are available through a document management system, but attorneys for Juan Carlos Rodriguez allege an irreparable discovery violation because the original files are no longer available, according to a motion filed Oct. 15 in Forsyth Superior Court.
Rodriguez, 37, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Maria Magdalena Rodriguez, 31. Her decapitated body was found Dec. 12, 2010, at the end of Williamsburg Road in the Minorcas Creek area off Bethabara Park Road. She was reported missing after she left the couple’s Trellis Lane home Nov. 18, 2010.
Judge Gary Gavenus of Forsyth Superior Court ruled last year that prosecutors could seek the death penalty, based on two of 11 possible aggravating factors — that Maria Rodriguez’s murder was “especially heinous, atrocious and cruel” and that she was killed during the commission of another felony, which was kidnapping.
Robert Campbell and Kim Stevens filed their motion a day after Judge William Z. Wood of Forsyth Superior Court held a hearing in which the two attorneys sought to inspect original investigative files from several law-enforcement agencies, including the Winston-Salem Police Department. Several law-enforcement agencies were involved in the search for Maria Rodriguez. The search stretched from Winston-Salem to Eden and as far north as Danville, Va.
Campbell and Stevens say in the motion that prosecutors Jennifer Martin and Patrick Weede, as well as an attorney for the police department, spoke in opposition to their request to inspect the original files.
Wood issued an order filed Oct. 18 that allows Campbell and Stevens to inspect the original investigative files, not copies, from the Winston-Salem Police Department and the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office.
But Campbell and Stevens allege in the motion that prosecutors cannot comply with that order because the original files don’t exist anymore. They say in the motion that on the day after the hearing, Oct. 15, they received an email from Martin, telling them that the Winston-Salem Police Department had destroyed the original files and that the reports are only available through a document management system called Application Extender.
“Long story short, the WSPD doesn’t have the original reports any longer,” Martin said in the email, which is included with the motion.
Martin said in the email that the only original paperwork in the case is forms that Rodriguez signed waiving his rights to have an attorney present during police questioning.
Martin said Tuesday that the rules of professional responsibility prevent her from commenting on a pending legal matter. Campbell also declined to comment, saying it is a pending legal matter.
Lori Sykes, a city attorney who represents the Winston-Salem Police Department, said that paper records are scanned into Application Extender, which she describes as a central and secure means to maintaining police reports. The department does not destroy any paper record, she said, until police staff verifies that every page in the case file folder has been scanned and is legible.
According to Winston-Salem police policy, incident reports in a felony have to be kept for a period of 20 years.
Campbell and Stevens argue in the motion that Rodriguez’s constitutional rights have been violated as a result of the police destroying the original files and that a Forsyth County judge should dismiss the case or at the very least take the death penalty off the table, meaning that if Rodriguez is convicted, he would only face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
They also ask that a judge hold an evidentiary hearing to “determine when these files were destroyed, how they were destroyed, who gave permission for the original law enforcement files to be destroyed, and who had knowledge that these files were destroyed prior to the hearing conducted on Oct. 14, 2013, in Forsyth Superior Court.”
A hearing on the motion has not been set. Rodriguez’s trial is set to start Jan. 27 in Forsyth Superior Court.
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local...a4bcf6878.html
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