On Saturday morning after Thanksgiving in 2022, a panga piloted by two cousins from Baja California capsized as it was approaching the shore of the imperial beach. The cousins and five of the undocumented immigrants they transported went safely to the beach, but three others have drowned.
The cousins were finally sentenced to less than five years each in federal detention for their roles in the deadly incidence. The two should be released from prison in 2026.
Their destiny contrasts strongly with the punishment that the secretary of the Department of Internal Security of US Security, Kristi Noem, recommended this week for the two alleged smugglers accused in connection with the Panga which capsized Monday morning near Del Mar, killing three people and a 10 -year -old girl who disappeared and presumed dead.
“I’m going to … Use the Attorney General to ask for the death penalty in this case,” Noem said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “The Ministry of Internal Security will not tolerate this level of criminal depravity or reckless contempt for human life.”
The American prosecutor General Pam Bondi will finally be responsible for deciding to ask for the death penalty against Jesus Ivan Rodriguez Leyva, 36, and Julio Cesar Zuniga Luna, 30. But the penalty penalty penalties would be much more severe than federal convictions in San Diego in recent years to condemn simulators in similar cases.
In the southern district of California, which covers the counties of San Diego and Imperial, the most severe sanction in such a case in the last decade seems to be the sentence of 18 years in prison rejected at a boat captain responsible for three deaths in May 2021 near Point Loma, according to a business examination involving the smuggling of death. A man who led a group of 14 migrants through an underground drainage pipe, leading to the death of his brother and another guide and the quasi-noyad of a migrant woman, was sentenced to only three years and nine months in prison.
“The cases must be decided on the facts, not according to the administration in power,” said the defense lawyer of San Diego on Friday, who represents any of the accused, said on Friday. “I hope that (the Ministry of Justice) treats this case as any other case and will not be under pressure by what (Noem) says.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice and a spokesperson for the US prosecutor’s office in San Diego, both refused to comment on Noem’s request.
During his first day of mandate in February, Bondi issued a memorandum to federal prosecutors raising the moratorium of the Biden administration on federal executions.
“In the absence of significant attenuation circumstances, federal prosecutors should ask for the death penalty in cases involving the murder of an agent of the application of laws and capital offenses committed by foreigners who are illegally present in the United States,” said the memorandum.
Prosecutors identified Rodriguez and Zuniga as Mexican nationals. One does not believe that one or the other was authorized to be in the United States
Defense lawyer Gerald McFadden, who was assigned by the court to represent Rodriguez, said Thursday when he was contacted by phone that he had not yet met his client but that he planned to meet him this afternoon. McFadden said that he did not yet know enough details about the case to discuss it and refused to comment Noem by pushing the death penalty against his client.
A defense lawyer assigned to represent Zuniga did not respond to messages asking for comments.
Friday morning, the two defendants appeared before the court for hearings provided for in detention, which would generally imply arguments on the reasons for which they should be held in detention or released on bail while waiting for the trial. But the lawyers of the two men asked for additional time to prepare, and a judge established new hearings for the following week. No additional details on the case have been discussed.
Rodriguez and Zuniga are faced with three charges of each of the undocumented immigrants leading to death, accused that everyone bears a maximum perpetuity or death penalty. But cases of federal death penalty are rare and the examination process is vast. The decision to request the death penalty would require the approval of Bondi after the contribution of the US prosecutor’s office in San Diego and officials at the highest levels of the Ministry of Justice.
Federal executions are also rare, with only 50 made since 1927, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
But 13 of these 50s were carried out during the first mandate of President Donald Trump, all in the last six months, standing in contrast with the four federal executions carried out between 1958 and 2020. Among those who were executed, Brandon Bernard, a man from Texas who was 18 years old, when he was involved in the murder in 1998 of an iowa couple, although he was not the murder and lisa still alive baby in his body.
Former president Joe Biden campaigned on the promise to abolish the federal death penalty but never acted to do so. Instead, his Attorney General published a moratorium at the start of his mandate, and last year, Biden commissioned the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners of Federal Death. The three who did not receive switches were all mass murderers – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who bombed the 2013 Boston marathon, killing three and injuring hundreds; Dylann Roof, a white man who in 2015 killed nine faithful in a black church in South Carolina; and Robert Bowers, who in 2018 murdered 11 faithful to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
No federal execution is currently planned, but last month, Bondi ordered the prosecutors to request the death penalty for the first time during Trump’s second term. The order was directed to Luigi Mangione, suspected of having killed the CEO of Unitedhealthcare, Brian Thompson, in December.
The Bondi memo raising the moratorium of the Biden era on executions also ordered a committee to examine all the still open cases in which the Ministry of Justice during the Biden administration chose not to ask for the death penalty against eligible defendants. In San Diego, this would probably understand the decision not to ask for the death penalty against Matthew Taylor Coleman, an alleged theorist of the conspiracy accused of having killed his two young children in Mexico.
Although the longest sentence for a death of smuggling in San Diego is the 18 years granted to the captain in the Loma boat accident, most of the cases of local smuggling have resulted in shorter sentences, even when more people die or are permanently injured. One of the men who coordinated a smuggling attempt that left 13 migrants who died when their vehicle was involved in a collision near Calexico was sentenced to 15 years in prison. A woman who crashed by carrying five migrants, killing two, a dead brain and a paralyzed size, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Earlier this year, a federal jury in Texas condemned two men as part of the death of 53 migrants who had been wrapped in semi-trailer in 2022. Five others had previously pleaded guilty to accusations linked to the worst catastrophe of the human counterpart in the history of the modern United States. The seven facing life prison when they are convicted.
“There are improvements in the sentence determination directives when death or serious bodily injuries occurs,” said Defense lawyer and partner of the lawyer for stitt seen, differences in conviction. “The sentence determination guidelines explain aggravating factors … But ultimately, it’s a swing of a few years, not a swing of life or death.”
If the prosecutors were to ask for the death penalty against Rodriguez and Zuniga, they must do it before the trial. There is not yet a deadline for this decision, but a judge could establish a deadline for the future.
California Daily Newspapers
