Given that suggestion, Cantu claims that Beck entitled the jury to consider his conviction for crimes less serious than capital murder. The prosecution filed a motion in limine asking the trial court to preclude "any direct or indirect reference whatsoever" to Texas parole law. Vol. When the police followed this suggestion, they found the badly decaying bodies of Jenny and Elizabeth. Medelln gave both written and taped confessions. Tr. Respondent claims that, although the trial court would not instruct the jury on the operation of Texas parole law, "the jury knew that a life sentence meant he would be eligible for parole after serving thirty-five years." Gang rapists/murderers are a special kind of sub species of vermin. Tr. Cantu claims that Texas' method of placing mitigating evidence before the jury insufficiently allowed the jury to consider him worthy of a life sentence (claim eight). Does it justify it? Vol. As compelling a case as the facts present, the application of the law to these facts necessarily causes misgivings even to the most ardent proponents of the death penalty. 24 at 944. CODE CRIM. When Perez went to shower and clean the blood off him, Jose Medellin began to describe the events of that evening. After Ws wimping out on this issue, I have lost all respect for the man as a leader. the Supreme Court [has] implicitly endorsed it" in Penry II. Peter Cantu probably would've. 21 at 328. The next morning, the girls parents began to frantically look for them, paging them on their pagers, calling their friends to see if they knew where they were, to no avail. PROC. Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U.S. 202, 206 (2003) (quotation and citation omitted). The state habeas court indeed concluded that Cantu had procedurally defaulted any due process objection to the material. Because the Fifth Circuit, however, has avoided ruling on this argument, see Foster v. Dretke, 2006 WL 616980 (5th Cir. Clark v. Johnson, 202 F.3d 760, 764 (5th Cir. He said he was told repeatedly by Peter Cantu to "get some". Clear, binding precedent forecloses relief on Cantu's claims. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. (Doc. Fourteen-year-old Venancio Medellin was present at the crime, participated in raping the girls, and testified at trial about each gang member's involvement in the sexual assault and killing. East v. Scott, 55 F.3d 996, 1005 (5th Cir. Venancio Medellin has been denied parole five times, most recently in November 2020. Vol. 21 at 212. Cantu now bases a significant portion of his habeas petition on the argument that the jury should not have seen photographs of the girls' corpses. . Raul was an acquaintance of Efrain and was not known to the other gang members. See Franklin, 487 U.S. at 179. art. They were friends who attended the same high school in Houston, Texas, Waltrip High School. (Doc. Without the slightest provocation, gang members assaulted, repeatedly raped, and brutally murdered two young girls. R. EVID. Cantu's second statement fully harmonized with trial testimony. The AEDPA forbids habeas relief on issues "adjudicated on the merits" in state court unless the state decision "was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law" or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." The murder of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pea, two teenage girls from Houston, Texas, occurred on June 24, 1993.The murder of the two girls made headlines in Texas newspapers due to the nature of the crime and the new law resulting from the murder that allows families of the victims to view the execution of the murderers.. Nothing in Penry I signaled a wholesale rejection of Texas' special issues, yet the Supreme Court failed to articulate how to determine what evidence evaded Texas' sentencing review. 21 at 299-300. 1996) (quotation omitted). Accordingly, Cantu has not shown that the state court's rejection of this claim was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, federal law. Texas has already executed O'Brien and Medellin. Elizabeth was also strangled with her shoelaces, after crying and begging the gang members not to kill them; bargaining, offering to give them her phone number so they could get together again. WebExecutions and More Executions: Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena Murder. One of the gang members later said during the brag session that by the time he got to one of the girls, "she was loose and sloppy." Bush only uses the term Christian to gather votes, all while he claims that Allah is the same as Jesus. Clerk's Record at 268-69. 22 at 579, 596-98, 603-06. When the pair realized that they were going to be late returning home, they decided to leave the party to commit the curfew both had promised to their parents. State Habeas Record at 261. It is not likely that, having denied Cantu's objection under the Texas more-probative-than-prejudicial standard, the trial court would find that the challenged material rendered the trial fundamentally unfair under the Due Process Clause. As Cantu accurately argues, the question is not whether "[t]he evidence was clearly sufficient to establish that [the defendant] participated in the murder," but "whether the evidence would permit a reasonable jury to make a contrary finding[.]" (Doc. Cantu did not testify or call any witnesses. WebThe Ertmans and Penas gathered friends and neighbors to help them pass out a huge stack of fliers with the girls' pictures all over the Houston area, even giving them to newspaper Tr. Vol. Villareal and O'Brien began choking the Ms. Ertman, first with their hands and then with a belt. 21 at 210, 257. . While the jury may have been able to infer that Cantu could not have been paroled before the end of that period, Texas law hindered him from fully explaining parole ineligibility to the jury. Cantu read and signed the second statement, again in the presence of two other officers. Respondent has moved for summary judgment. Under those standards, the Court will evaluate Cantu's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. WebMost of the soft tissue on Jennifer Ertmans head and the external portion of her vagina was eaten by maggots, indicating that there was trauma, hemorrhaging and bleeding. Really. In July, the World Court ordered a stay of Medelln's execution. 1992) (applying Beck when "a trial judge refuses to give an instruction which is available under state law"). As Ertman was murdered, Pea was forced to watch her friend's death as other gang members held a ligature around her own neck. My first knowledge of the death of Jennifer was seeing Randy, on the news that evening, screaming at the police officers who were struggling to hold him back, "Does she have blond hair?? Our leaders keep telling us to go back to sleep, its an isolated incident, we get more in benefits than they could ever take from us. Tr. Tennard, 542 U.S. at 284-85. Vi i ng nhn vin gm cc nh nghin cu c bng tin s trong ngnh dc phm, dinh dng cng cc lnh vc lin quan, Umeken dn u trong vic nghin cu li ch sc khe ca m, cc loi tho mc, vitamin v khong cht da trn nn tng ca y hc phng ng truyn thng. The state habeas court could reasonably find that trial and appellate counsel's representation did not violate Cantu's constitutional rights. 28 at 786-87. In other words, there is a vast asymmetry in the punishments to be imposed, all because of nothing more substantive than a few weeks variation in birth dates. 1995); Montoya v. Collins, 955 F.2d 279, 286 (5th Cir. The Supreme Court itself has broadly used the term "moral blameworthiness" to describe that which a jury considers in effectuating the mitigation inquiry. Additionally, because no federal law required Texas to inform its juries of a capital defendant's parole eligibility, establishing such a rule on federal habeas review would require the creation of new constitutional law. Vol. Vol. Cantu argues that trial counsel's performance violated the Constitution when counsel did not object during closing argument as the prosecution emphasized the crime scene photographs. "Failure to make the required showing of either deficient performance or sufficient prejudice defeats the ineffectiveness claim." The Simmons Court "expressly held that its ruling did not apply to Texas, because it does not have a life-without-parole alternative to capital punishment." Ertman died Sunday August 17th at home with his wife Sandy by his side. I hope he spends the entire 40 years in prison. When the police informed him that O'Brien confessed, Cantu provided the following statement relating his role in the murders: Tr. Memorials to Ertman and Pea in TC Jester Park: In the background is the railroad bridge where the two were initially attacked. A jury convicted Cantu of capital murder. This Court will not certify any issue for review by the Fifth Circuit. The police, previously unable to find the young girls, used that information to find their bodies. The gang members then stomped on both girls' throats to ensure their deaths. 24 at 854. I cant even imagine those poor girls. 2001); Miller v. Johnson, 200 F.3d 274, 290-91 (5th Cir. I think it's the first really sickening and gut-wrenching crime I read about when I was young. Clerk's Record at 286 ("During your deliberations, you are not to consider or discuss any possible action of the Board of Pardons and Paroles division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or of the Governor, or how long the defendant would be required to serve to satisfy a sentence of life imprisonment."). In Penry II, when striking down Texas' former sentencing scheme, the Supreme Court called the new statute "[a] clearly drafted catchall instruction on mitigating evidence" and a model of "brevity and clarity." Rather, there must be some evidence directly germane to a lesser-included offense for the factfinder to consider before an instruction on a lesser-included offense is warranted." Cantu, like his co-defendant, offers no persuasive showing that constitutional error crept into the jury instructions or somehow prevented consideration of his mitigation evidence. Entry No. From one perspective, this case reflects all the reasons that the death penalty should be imposed. Vol. WebJune 25, 1994: Family and friends of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena gather at T.C. 2253(c)(2); see also Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). The gang members ran and grabbed Elizabeth and pulled her down the incline, off of the tracks. Cantu read the statement and, in the presence of two other police officers, signed it. Part of the belt was left at the murder scene, the rest was found in O'Brien's home. Jennifer Ertman's dad, Randy Ertman, was about to give an interview regarding the missing girls to a local television reporter when the call came over a cameraman's police scanner that two bodies had been found. While the disturbing photographs probably unsettled the jurors, the state courts would not be unreasonable in finding that the complex and textured case against Cantu was not unconstitutionally tainted by the material. 403 because "the photographs are inflammatory, they're highly prejudicial, they're unnecessary for the State to prove its case, and their prejudice far outweighs any probative value." Id. Tr. The State called police officers whose testimony did not reveal any constitutional or statutory violation in the taking of Cantu's statements. Before trial, Cantu wanted to discuss Texas parole law with potential jurors. Nothing in the trial testimony seriously questioned the integrity of Cantu's statements, particularly his second one in which he provided a full account of his actions. While Cantu, Jose Medellin, O'Brien, Perez, and Villareal all received death sentences, Perez and Villareal had their sentenced commuted to life imprisonment pursuant to Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), because they were minors when they participated in the killings. The Fifth Circuit's interpretation of the Beck standard does not look at the evidence in a selective manner; "[t]he issue here is whether a rational juror, given all the facts, could have acquitted [a petitioner] of capital murder and convicted him of a lesser included offense." "The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides an independent check on a prosecutor's comments that `so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction [or sentence] a denial of due process.'" It's satisfying to read that the death penalty was actually carried out on this pack of vermin. Rule 403 of the Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence governs the admissibility of allegedly inflammatory photographs. Trial counsel Robert Morrow also closed by encouraging the jury not to "follow death with more death[.]" Vol. Her case is full of police misconduct and possible suspects. 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