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Thread: Shawna Forde - Arizona Death Row

  1. #11
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    Shawna Forde Arizona Murder Case Opens Amid Jared Loughner's Lingering Gunsmoke

    Opening statements are set today in what could be a lengthy Arizona trial to determine the fate of ex-Seattle prostitute Shawna Forde and, for that matter, Tucson. The national media is now covering the case, but likely wouldn't have if Jared Loughner had taken his pills. The Daily Beast, for one, calls its Forde story today "Arizona's Other Shooting Horror." It's not that Tucson is some idyllic desert crossroads - the sprawling city of a half-million had more than 50 homicides last year, 74 in 2008. (Seattle had 19 last year). But Loughner's mad-man slaughter was an aberration, and Forde's alleged murders took place down by the Mexican border.

    No matter. While Tucson Mayor Robert Walkup tries to tamp down his city's notoriety with his new "Civility Accord" - asking folks to be respectful and "choose words accordingly" - reporters will be telling the nation about this other "Tucson" horror, with a similar flavor and some of the same players.

    Minuteman leader Forde, a onetime Everett city council candidate, and Jason Bush, also wanted for two murders in Wenatchee, are facing the death penalty with a third member of her rebel border-watch band. They are charged with the first-degree murders of a Mexican man, Raul Flores, and his daughter Brisina, and the attempted murder of the man's wife May 30 in Arivica, Arizona. Forde is accused of masterminding the slayings to finance her border-watch group and grow it into a Blackwater-like organization, running mercenary missions south of the border.

    Like Loughner, they allegedly had no reluctance to mow down their victims - both Loughner and Bush are each accused of killing 9-year-old girls. Pima Count Sheriff Clarence Dupnik talked himself into the spotlight in both cases, as well.

    Dupnik, who gained worldwide fame after the Tucson shootings for condemning strident right-wing "rhetoric," didn't mince words in the wake of the Flores murders either. He described Forde as "at best, a psychopath" and called the murder of Brisenia "one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of."

    Dupnik has since fallen silent on both cases. Still, attorneys for Forde and Loughner say all the publicity in Tucson has made fair trials impossible for their clients. Loughner's case apparently will be heard in California, as a result. But Forde must take the stand in Tucson where Loughner's gunsmoke lingers. It sounds ready made for both a conviction and appeal.

    http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/daily..._murder_ca.php

  2. #12
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    Opening statements set to begin today in Shawna Forde murder trial

    Opening statements are scheduled to start this morning for the trial of Shawna Forde, accused of killing a man and his 9-year-old daughter during a home invasion in May of 2009. A jury was selected last week.

    Forde, along with Jason Bush and Albert Gaxiola, are charged with 2 counts of first degree murder. Authorities say the trio barged into an Arivaca home in May of 2009 looking for cash and drugs. They have all plead not guilty.

    9-year old Brisenia Flores was shot and killed, along with her father, Raul. Brisenia's mother was also shot but survived.

    Forde's defense attorney, Eric Larsen, said he was concerned to a degree about Forde receiving a fair trial. However, heading into opening statements, Larsen says he is satisfied with the jury.

    "We had a lot of people who were open and honest with their thoughts and feelings regarding the guilt-innocence issues, as well as the death penalty issues, and I think we ended up with a pretty good jury," Larsen said.

    Larsen said jurors were also asked about the January 8th shootings in Tucson and about how that might impact them both emotionally and with respect to the case.

    "They all gave answers that were satisfactory in their ability to satisfy any emotional responses to that," Larsen said.

    The Pima County Attorney's Office told News4 prosecutors will not comment on a pending trial. However if Forde is convicted, they say they will seek the death penalty.

    News4 asked Larsen for his plan of defense as opening statements begin.

    "The main thrust of the defense will be that there is absolutely no physical evidence linking Shawna Forde to this crime," Larsen said.

    Larsen says he expects the trial to last about 6 weeks. There are 60 or more witnesses, though they may not all take the stand.

    http://www.kvoa.com/news/opening-sta...-murder-trial/

  3. #13
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    Mom: Home invasion victim pleaded for life

    Trial has begun in Tucson for a woman charged with first-degree murder of a man and his daughter during a home invasion meant to fund an anti-immigrant group.

    Shawna Forde, 43, could face the death penalty if she is convicted, the Los Angeles Times reported.

    The trial began Tuesday with opening statements from lawyers and testimony from Gina Gonzalez, whose 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia Flores, was killed. Gonzalez said her daughter pleaded, "Please don't shoot me," after three men and a woman broke into their house in May 2009.

    Prosecutors say Forde made an alliance with drug dealers, saying she would help them rob business rivals. She allegedly planned to use the money for a vigilante group, Minuteman American Defense.

    Eric Larsen, Forde's lawyer, described her as "an exaggerator extraordinaire" who talked to other members of the Minuteman movement about big plans. She had actually been reported to the FBI, which apparently found the scheme so outlandish agents did not pursue the tip.

    "The state will present to you absolutely no witnesses that will put her in that home on May 30," Larson said.

    Two men, Jason E. Bush and Albert R. Gaxiola, are to be tried separately.

    http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/...#ixzz1CC86Q4jo

  4. #14
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    Shawna Forde Trial Moves Into the Tucson Spotlight With Bizarre Opening Week

    Now in its second week, the Arizona Minuteman murder trial of ex-Seattle prostitute Shawna Forde has become predictably weird, momentarily eclipsing talk of Tucson's other headline murderer, Jared Loughner. No longer the "fat white" blonde identified at the scene of a May 2009 trailer-home robbery/homicide of a suspected drug dealer and his 9-year-old daughter, a slimmed brunette Forde listened as a witness said she violated the local rules on killing dealers--they're game, but their families are off-limits.

    Meanwhile, Forde's die-hard believer, a woman by the pseudonym of Laine Lawless who has a fondness for neo-Nazis, snuck into the court dressed in a wig, sunglasses, and black overcoat, then got tossed. And Forde's sister Aranda took the stand to recall family moments with her sibling, including Shawna's dreams of someday robbing drug cartels.

    Forde, ex-leader of a fringe border-watch group--Minutemen American Defense (MAD)--and a onetime Everett city council candidate, is the first to go on trial in the first-degree murders of a Mexican man, Raul Flores, and his daughter Brisenia, and the attempted murder of the man's wife, in Arivica, Arizona.

    The onetime Boeing worker and self-proclaimed Seattle rock-music promoter is accused of masterminding the slayings to finance her outlaw band. Her family told Seattle Weekly she planned to grow it into a Blackwater-like organization, running mercenary missions south of the border. Jason "Gunny" Bush, also wanted for two murders in Wenatchee, is thought to be the shooter, and faces trial next. Forde, Bush, and a third accomplice all face the death penalty.

    Flores' widow, on the stand last week, recalled the seconds after her husband was shot and she was wounded by Bush. Her daughter was left standing, unharmed.

    He's all out of bullets by then because he used them on me and Junior. He stands there and he loads the gun right in front of her. I just hear her telling him, 'Please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me.' He did.

    The Weekly's sister paper, Village Voice, has been campaigning to get more national media focus on the trial; its impact on the immigration debate is important, the paper says, while chiding outlets such as The New York Times and TV networks for not covering the story.

    CNN, though, has been filing pieces, along with ABC. The wire services and dozens of important websites and bloggers are filing regular updates. Seattle civil-rights author and journalist David Neiwert has also been pushing for more national coverage--and is providing it as well at Crooks & Liars. "I have to admit," he says, "I'm baffled that, in a cable-TV business that prizes riveting audio snippets, it's gotten so little attention elsewhere."

    http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/daily...moves_into.php

  5. #15
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    Jurors sent home until next week in Arizona case

    TUCSON, Ariz. — The trial of a woman accused in a 2009 double killing in southern Arizona won't resume until resume next week.

    Due to scheduling issues, jurors hearing the trial of Shawna Forde were given Thursday and Friday off and won't be back in court until Tuesday.

    The Arizona Daily Star says the Pima County Superior Court jury will have another day off Wednesday while attorneys formalize final juror instructions.

    If Forde is convicted, the attorneys will present evidence and argue whether the death penalty should be considered.

    The 42-year-old Forde and two co-defendants are charged with first-degree murder in the May 2009 killings of a man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arivaca during a home invasion.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...lingtrial.html

  6. #16
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    Hate in Arizona: Two Mothers Mourn Their Murdered Children

    Two Latina mothers are the main witnesses in parallel murder trials that shed light on the political climate of a state that has become a hotbed of extremism, according to human rights organizations.

    The women’s stories have slipped under the radar of Arizona’s conservative political leaders, who have fueled the illegal immigration debate by shifting the spotlight to undocumented immigrants and border violence and away from deadly vigilantism.

    Paula Valera, Mother of Juan Varela

    Paula Varela testified recently about the day she watched her son, Juan Varela, fall to the ground after he was fatally shot in the head a few feet outside his home in South Phoenix on May 6, 2010.

    She took the stand as a key witness in the murder trial of the man accused of gunning him down, their next-door neighbor, Gary Kelley.

    According to Kelley’s attorney, Kelley approached Juan Varela to talk about Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070, and shot Varela in self-defense.

    But Juan Varela’s brother, Anthony, testified that Kelley, who was drunk at the time, was armed and looking for more than neighborly conversation.

    Kelley reportedly yelled racial slurs at his neighbor and said, “You f-----g Mexican, go back to Mexico!"

    Varela, 44, and his family are Mexican Americans who have lived in Arizona for several generations.

    In the aftermath of the passage of SB 1070— one of the toughest anti-immigration laws in the nation —the Varela family’s attempt to highlight the murder as a hate crime has gone largely unnoticed. And so has the trial of his accused killer.

    Gina Gonzalez, Mother of Brisenia Flores


    Varela’s mother is not alone in her sorrow. Another mother recently took the stand in a different trial in Tucson for a shooting that happened almost a year before Varela’s. This time the victims were a 9-year-old girl and her father.

    On May 30, 2009, Gina Gonzalez pretended to be dead after intruders shot her and fatally shot her husband Raul Flores inside their home in Arivaca, Ariz., a town about 13 miles from the Mexican border.

    She listened as her 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia Flores, pleaded for her life. Then the shooter reloaded the gun and killed the little girl.

    The alleged ringleader of the crime is 42-year-old Shawna Forde, a leader of Minuteman American Defense (MAD), an armed watch group whose goal is to detain and report undocumented immigrants attempting to cross the border. Prosecutors argue that Forde tried to finance her anti-immigrant activities with robberies like the one that led to the fatal shootings in 2009. She is facing the death penalty.

    Jury deliberations have started in the Varela murder case, and are expected to begin this week in the Flores shootings.

    Where Were the Media?

    Carlos Galindo, a local pro-immigration activist and radio talk-show host, calls the case of Brisenia Flores a “red flag.” If Arizona politicians and communities had rallied against the killing of the 9-year-old and her father, he says, Juan Varela might never have been slain.

    Galindo believes Varela’s murder would have created an uproar in Arizona but for the fact that Phoenix police made early statements pushing the case under the rug, denying that it was racially motivated or related to SB 1070.

    The case was later labeled a hate crime under former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, after pressure from the family with the help of ethnic media and community members like Galindo.

    Galindo speaks about the murder often on his bilingual radio show on Radio KASA in Phoenix. “If you allow rhetoric to continue to escalate against a certain ethnicity, it’s going to become a situation where it’s okay to violate, to abuse and to kill,” he says.

    Neither case has received as much media coverage as the death of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz on March 27, 2010, which was used by SB 1070’s sponsor, Republican Senator Russell Pearce, to rally votes for the bill’s passage.

    Conservative bloggers and talk show hosts immediately tried to tie Krentz’s unresolved murder to undocumented immigrants, after authorities found footprints leading from his property to the Mexican border.

    Steve Rendall, senior analyst for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based organization that monitors media bias, said news outlets jumped too quickly on the Krentz slaying when there was little information. He said the case received more coverage than the Flores and Varela murders because mainstream reporters and editors “fear being seen as liberal or left-leaning.”

    While conservative politicians used the rancher’s death to push an anti-immigration law, the murder of the 9-year-old and her father has been dismissed by many as the act of a mentally disturbed individual.

    “The political right has run away from the Shawna Forde case as fast as its feet can carry it, essentially suggesting that this murder has nothing to do with anything beyond a crazy woman,” says Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. “There’s a lot going on out there, and it’s not the headless bodies that (Arizona Governor) Jan Brewer likes to talk about.”

    Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, arguing that violence from Mexico was crossing the border and that numerous headless bodies had been found in the Arizona desert—a claim has never been proven.

    But Potok said popular support for anti-immigration measures and political gains for lawmakers who espouse them have opened a Pandora’s box demonizing Latinos that will be difficult to close.

    “I think that Arizona’s response to the vigilante movement was fundamentally to engage in the same kind of activity itself. Rather than trying to deal with the problem of immigration rationally, the politicians in Arizona ultimately endorse that kind of attack,” he says.

    Jesus Romo, a civil rights attorney in Tucson, agrees. He argued one of the successful civil lawsuits against Douglas vigilante rancher Roger Barnett for threatening two Mexican-American hunters and three young girls with a rifle in 2004. The Ninth Circuit last week upheld an Arizona jury’s decision on another lawsuit against the same rancher brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). He was fined more than $80,000 for assaulting a group of migrants on public land. The federal court found that he was not entitled to claim self-defense because none of the people he assaulted had threatened or attacked him.

    “There’s total impunity when it comes to assaults against minorities, especially against Mexicans,” says Romo, who blames the state for turning a blind eye to the activities of border vigilante groups. “Apart from that, they are treated as heroes for what they do, so they feel in the right of attacking people without anything happening to them.”

    Bill Strauss, the state director of the Anti-Defamation League, doesn’t believe the media “intentionally de-emphasizes crimes against minority individuals.”

    But he is concerned that the current tone of the immigration debate in Arizona has forced hate crime victims into the shadows.

    “We are not getting complaints about hate crimes against Latinos in this community as I imagine take place,” Strauss says.

    One Hate Crime Trial or Two?

    The shootings of Brisenia and her father have never been labeled hate crimes. But for human rights groups that have followed the case closely, the murders clearly meet that definition.

    Prosecutors are arguing that Forde and her two accomplices, Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Gaxiola, were motivated by financial gain. Forde is accused of targeting for robbery the little girl’s father, whom she suspected of being a drug dealer, and using the proceeds to fund her border watch group.

    Groups like the Anti-Defamation League had been monitoring Forde and her organization since 2007 with growing concerns.

    “She came onto our radar because she was increasingly taking more extreme action,” says Marilyn Mayo, director of right-wing research at the Anti-Defamation League. Mayo says Forde formed the more extreme MAD because she wasn’t satisfied with what other Minutemen groups were doing.

    Before the shooting, there were claims that Forde’s group was going directly after drug cartels. In 2008, Forde claimed that Hispanic intruders raped her in her home— the police dropped the investigation for insufficient evidence— and she suggested the attack could have been retaliation for her undercover investigations of drug dealers in Washington, according to the ADL.

    The ADL also noted that some of Forde’s ardent supporters have ties to white-supremacist groups, including Laine Lawless, who recently created the website www.justiceforshawnaforde.com. Lawless has been linked to white-supremacist organizations like the National Socialist Movement and National Vanguard.

    Attorney Jesus Romo believes Forde’s prosecution can’t be separated from her role in MAD and her stance on illegal immigration.

    “They are not tying this to what she dedicated herself to: the hunt of Mexicans, and this was yet another chapter within that hunt that ended in death,” he says.

    http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/07-5

  7. #17
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    Woman charged in Arivaca killings won't take stand

    The leader of a small border watch group charged in the home invasion killings of a southern Arizona man and his young daughter has decided not to testify at her trial.

    Shawna Forde told the judge overseeing her trial on two counts of first-degree murder about her decision on Tuesday.

    Forde's defense could wrap up with just the testimony of a memory expert, according to the Arizona Daily Star. Geoffrey Loftus is expected to try to cast doubt on an identification of Forde made by the mother of the dead girl.

    The judge told jurors they'll likely hear closing arguments Thursday.

    If Forde is convicted, she could get the death penalty.

    Forde, 42, was the leader of the Minuteman American Defense border watch group at the time of the May 30, 200 incident.

    Prosecutors allege that she and her two co-defendants dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter.

    Co-defendants Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola will be tried later.

    Ford is the leader of the Minutemen American Defense border watch group. She's accused of planning the May 30 attack to help fund her anti-immigrant operations.

    Her lawyer contends that she was not at the home when the killings happened.

    All three suspects have pleaded not guilty.

    http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-...c90ca4aa7.html

  8. #18
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    Shawna Forde trial heads to closing arguments

    Closing arguments are today in Shawna Forde's double murder trial in Tucson.

    Forde, formerly of Everett, was the self-styled leader of a group that she called Minuteman American Defense. She is the first of three defendants to face trial in connection with a May 30, 2009 home invasion robbery in Arivaca, Ariz. The robbery ended in the deaths of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter, Brisenia, 9.

    Tweets about the case can be found by searching for Forde or Brisenia's name or #Minuteman.

    Michel Marizco of borderreporter.com has been posting live to twitter about today's action in the courtroom. His tweets are here.

    The jury will first deliberate whether Forde should be held responsible for the deaths. If she's convicted, a second penalty phase of the trial would follow. Arizona prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.

  9. #19
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    Jury heads home for weekend without Forde verdict

    Jurors in Shawna Forde's double-murder trial in Tucson deliberated for about five hours Friday and left for the weekend without announcing a verdict. They are scheduled to resume deliberations Monday morning.

    Prosecutors in Arizona allege Forde, formerly of Everett, led a deadly raid on the home of an Arivaca, Ariz. family, searching for money and drugs.

    http://www.heraldnet.com/article/201...OG41/110219961

  10. #20
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    Forde convicted in killing of Arivaca man, daughter

    A Pima County jury convicted Shawna Forde today of two counts of first-degree murder in the May 30, 2009 deaths of Arivaca residents Raul Junior Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia.

    The jury also convicted Forde of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of Flores' wife, Gina Gonzalez, as well as related aggravated assault and robbery counts.

    Gonzlez started crying as soon as the first guilty verdict, the killing of her daughter, was read just before noon in a packed courtroom at Pima County Superior Court.

    The jury deliberated for seven hours over two days. Jurors will now be asked if the death penalty ought to be considered.

    On the first day of the trial, which has gained national attention, Gonzalez testified her husband woke her to say the police were at the door. The woman at the door identified herself and the man with her as law enforcement officers looking for fugitives, Gonzalez said.

    When her husband questioned the veracity of their story, Gonzalez said the gunman opened fire, shooting her husband and Gonzalez. As Gonzalez played dead on the floor, the gunman fired two bullets into their youngest daughter's head, despite the little girl's pleas. Their oldest daughter was spending the night at her grandmother's house.

    Moments after the couple and two accomplices left, Gonzalez testified the woman returned to find her on the phone with 911 and called out to the gunman to finish her off. Gonzalez said she fled to the kitchen, armed herself and fired back when the gunman tried to kill her again. He then fled.

    Forde, Jason Bush, 36, and Albert Gaxiola, 44, were arrested within two weeks of the slayings. Bush, the alleged gunman, and Gaxiola are scheduled to go to trial March 15 and June 1, respectively.

    Prosecutors Rick Unklesbay and Kellie Johnson presented evidence they said showed Forde recruited Gaxiola, Bush and others to rob Flores because she suspected he was a drug smuggler and she needed a way to fund her Minuteman American Defense border organization.

    They put a handful of witnesses on the stand who testified Forde either recruited them or spoke to them of their plans. The prosecutors also presented incriminating text messages and tape-recorded phone conversations.

    After the slayings, Forde and Bush told various people Bush was shot by border bandits on May 30, 2009, but Bush's blood was found at the Flores' house, in the getaway vehicle and on a pair of woman's boots found at Gaxiola's house leading authorities to believe one of Gonzalez's bullets found its target.

    Forde's DNA was also found on an item of jewelry belonging to Gonzalez and found in Forde's Honda Element after the slayings.

    In addition, the prosecutors gave jurors letters Forde wrote while in jail encouraging her son and another man to testify they had given her the jewelry prior to the slayings.

    Defense attorneys Eric Larsen and Jill Thorpe told jurors that while Forde may have bragged about taking down drug smugglers, the state had absolutely no proof she was in the house or getaway vehicle that night. There were no credible eyewitnesses, DNA, fingerprints, footprints or fiber evidence linking Forde to the crime, they said.

    The attorneys suggested Gaxiola's girlfriend, Gina Moraga, was the woman home invader.

    Moraga had helped Gaxiola and another man steal between 400 to 500 pounds of marijuana from Flores a few months prior to his death, she wears the same size shoes as the bloody ones found at Gaxiola's house and she somewhat resembled the description provided by Gonzalez, the attorneys said.

    Jurors must now decide if the facts of the case warrant the possibility of the death penalty.

    If they unanimously say "Yes," both sides will begin presenting evidence as to why Forde should or should not be executed.

    http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crim...cc4c002e0.html

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