Rape/Murderer Sentenced to Death: A Las Vegas jury has sentenced a repeat sex offender to death for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. David Ferrara of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that after finding 24-year-old Javier Righetti guilty of the 2011 rape and murder of high school freshman Alyssa Otremba, the jury deliberated just three hours before unanimously agreeing on the sentence. Righetti attacked the girl in a tunnel, 100 yards from her home, as she was walking to a friend's house to borrow a schoolbook. After he raped Otremba, he tortured her, inflicting at least 80 stab wounds on her face and body before he she died. He later returned to burn the body. Righetti admitted to raping two other women inside the same tunnel and to raping his cousin in Mexico three months before he killed Otremba.
Maryland Governor to Veto Sanctuary Bill: Less than a week after a 14-year-old high school student was brutally raped by two young men aged 17 and 18 who, the Baltimore Sun reports, were both illegal immigrants assigned to her high school, the Maryland Legislature passed a bill which bars police from determining the immigration status of suspects. ABC2 in Baltimore reports that in a statement released after the bill passed the Maryland House Governor Larry Hogan called it "dangerously misguided legislation" and promised to veto it the moment it reached his desk.
Ohio High Court Stays Sentence to Allow Appeal: In a 5-2 ruling announced last week, the Associated Press reports that the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to stay its earlier holding overturning the 112-year sentence of a convicted juvenile rapist to allow prosecutors to seek a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. The Court's 4-3 December 22, 2016 ruling announced that the lengthy sentence given to Brandon Moore, who was 15 at the time of the crime, constituted a "functional life sentence," which the Court concluded was prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Graham v. Florida, which held that sentencing a juvenile offender to life in prison without parole for crimes other than homicide is unconstitutional. Brandon Moore was convicted for a crime spree which occurred on August 21, 2001, including the robbery at gunpoint of a Youngstown couple, and the kidnap, robbery and gang rape of a 21-year-old Youngstown University coed. After the victim had been anally and vaginally gang raped and forced to preform oral sex on Moore and an accomplice, Moore put a gun in her mouth and said "since you were so good, I won't kill you." He then threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone what happened. Following Moore's conviction on overwhelming evidence the trial judge told him, "I'm going to make sure that you never get out of the penitentiary," before giving him the maximum sentence allowable under state law.
Maryland Governor to Veto Sanctuary Bill: Less than a week after a 14-year-old high school student was brutally raped by two young men aged 17 and 18 who, the Baltimore Sun reports, were both illegal immigrants assigned to her high school, the Maryland Legislature passed a bill which bars police from determining the immigration status of suspects. ABC2 in Baltimore reports that in a statement released after the bill passed the Maryland House Governor Larry Hogan called it "dangerously misguided legislation" and promised to veto it the moment it reached his desk.
Ohio High Court Stays Sentence to Allow Appeal: In a 5-2 ruling announced last week, the Associated Press reports that the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to stay its earlier holding overturning the 112-year sentence of a convicted juvenile rapist to allow prosecutors to seek a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. The Court's 4-3 December 22, 2016 ruling announced that the lengthy sentence given to Brandon Moore, who was 15 at the time of the crime, constituted a "functional life sentence," which the Court concluded was prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Graham v. Florida, which held that sentencing a juvenile offender to life in prison without parole for crimes other than homicide is unconstitutional. Brandon Moore was convicted for a crime spree which occurred on August 21, 2001, including the robbery at gunpoint of a Youngstown couple, and the kidnap, robbery and gang rape of a 21-year-old Youngstown University coed. After the victim had been anally and vaginally gang raped and forced to preform oral sex on Moore and an accomplice, Moore put a gun in her mouth and said "since you were so good, I won't kill you." He then threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone what happened. Following Moore's conviction on overwhelming evidence the trial judge told him, "I'm going to make sure that you never get out of the penitentiary," before giving him the maximum sentence allowable under state law.
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