U.S. Supreme Court to Rule on Arizona Temple Murders

[Humbert]

http://bangkokpost.com/news/crimes/198663/us-supreme-court-to-rule-on-thai-born-man-fate

US Supreme Court to rule on Thai-born man's fate
Published: 29/09/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The fate of Jonathan Doody, a Thai-American who had his conviction over the massacre of nine people at a temple in Arizona overturned in 2008, rests with a US Supreme Court ruling on Monday.
Doody: 17 years old at time of killings
If the court chooses not to hear Arizona's appeal of the decision to overturn Mr Doody's conviction, the now 36-year-old will be set free.
Mr Doody, whose Thai name is Veerapol Kamkaew, was convicted of gunning down nine people, including six monks, at a Thai temple west of Phoenix in 1991. He was sentenced to 281 years in prison for the murders. Mr Doody was 17 years old at the time.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 overturned his conviction. The court found that Maricopa County Sheriff's Office detectives had coerced Mr Doody's confession.
The state of Arizona then sent the case to the US Supreme Court, which will hand down a ruling on Monday on whether Mr Doody is to be retried or set free.
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor representing Mr Doody, held a news conference in front of parliament in Bangkok yesterday to give an update on the case.
Mr Dershowitz's list of past clients includes high-profile figures such as OJ Simpson, Mike Tyson and Claus von Bulow. He said his main priority was to secure Mr Doody's freedom.
Mr Doody was born in Thailand and moved to the US after his mother married an American.
Nine people _ six Buddhist monks, a nun and two helpers _ were shot dead on Aug 10, 1991, all with bullet wounds to the head. Their bodies were found arranged in a circle at Wat Promkunaram in Phoenix.
Thongbai Thongpao, a human rights lawyer and Bangkok Post columnist who has campaigned on Mr Doody's behalf, said the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office first arrested and detained a group of four Tucson men.
They were later released and three filed charges of false arrest against authorities and demanded financial restitution.
Authorities then arrested Mr Doody, saying they could link him to the murder weapon.
After hours of non-stop questioning without the presence of a parent as was his right, the 17-year-old high school student admitted involvement in the case.
Mr Dershowitz said the confession obtained by authorities was forced.
"Mr Doody was separated from his parents during the many hours of interrogation, isolated so he would confess to a crime he had no connection to. And I hope the court will understand this," he said.
"He has been detained for almost 20 years, so the first step is to get him freed and then decide about compensation."


This is a very strange story. Doody’s confession may well have been coerced. Hopefully the Supreme Court will be able to sort out all the weird inconsistencies.

[Davis Knowlton]

I remember this case well. It was a gruesome set of murders, and the evidence was sketchy at best. I have no idea if he is guilty or not, but it should be interesting to see the decision, and what they base it on.

[Humbert]

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor representing Mr Doody, held a news conference in front of parliament in Bangkok yesterday to give an update on the case.

I wonder why he would do this? How could holding a news conference in Thailand benefit his client?

[Davis Knowlton]

^Probably not for the benefit of his client, but for his HUGE ego.

[Mid]

Temple massacre ruling will test rights of held suspects
3/10/2010

The US Supreme Court will rule tomorrow on the fate of a Thai-American convicted of a 1991 temple massacre in a ruling that will test the rights of suspects in custody.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to hear Arizona state's appeal of the decision to overturn Jonathan Doody's conviction for murders that shocked Thailand.

At the centre of the legal argument will be Miranda rights, which comprise a suspect's right to legal counsel, the right to remain silent and the right to know that anything they say under interrogation can be used in court against them.


Doody today, and in a photograph from the Phoenix New Times (with his attorney) on his arrest in 1991.

In 2008, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of Doody, now 36, after the court found that police officers had coerced a confession out of him.

Doody had been convicted of executing nine people _ including six monks and a nun _at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix on Aug 9, 1991, in a robbery gone wrong.

Only 17 at the time of the killings, he was sentenced to 281 years in prison.

Doody was found guilty after tapes of him confessing to the crime were ruled admissible at his trial. He and co-accused Alex Garcia tried to have the tapes suppressed.

In the appeal, Doody's legal team argued successfully that the confession was obtained under coercion after he was interrogated for more than 13 hours. They also said that Doody was not made fully aware of his Miranda rights.

''The Arizona Court of Appeals unreasonably concluded that the Miranda warnings were clear and understandable, despite the detectives' erroneous warnings regarding Doody's right to counsel and the use of qualifying language to downplay the warning's significance,'' Doody's legal team argued.

They also said the state court ''may well have been wrong'' to find Doody's confession voluntary. ''Doody, a teenager, was isolated from his friends and family and interrogated for over 12 hours. Working in shifts, police kept Doody awake overnight.''

In its submission to the US Supreme Court, Arizona argues that detective Patrick Riley read Doody his rights employing the standard-issue juvenile Miranda form. At the time he was not under arrest and was not a suspect.

The detective said Doody appeared to understand the warnings and did not show any doubt or confusion. Mr Riley helped Doody to understand his rights.

In 1991, Doody lived at the Luke Air Force Base west of Phoenix.

Four Tucson men were originally arrested over the murders but were later released. Three filed charges of false arrest against authorities.

In its submission, Arizona said Doody and Garcia had planned to rob the temple but later decided on the executions so that there would be no witnesses.

Doody was linked to the murders by a .22-calibre rifle, which he allegedly had borrowed from friend Rolando Caratachea.

bangkokpost.com

[Humbert]

The arrest and conviction of Doody has so many conflicting and strange elements to it that it is hard to come to a conclusion if he is guilty or not. I have read all kinds of reporting on the case and I am more confused now then I was before. The reason he became a suspect at all was that his brother was in the police station for a totally unrelated issue at the time that 4 other men were being interogated for the temple shootings. Since his brother was Thai, the police started questioning him about the temple and eventually that led to suspicions about Doody.

[Mid]

9th Circuit rules, for third time, that Thai teen's confession in slayings was invalid
Carol J. Williams
May 5, 2011

The Supreme Court had asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to review its previous decisions in the case of a Thai teenager who confessed to killing nine worshipers at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix in 1991.

For the third time, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a Thai teenager's confession to the 1991 slayings of nine worshipers at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix was coerced and invalid.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held its ground in overturning the conviction of then-17-year-old Johnathan Doody despite a directive from the U.S. Supreme Court to reevaluate its decisions last year and in 2008.

The appeals court ruled that Maricopa County sheriff's deputies distorted their reading of Doody's Miranda rights, telling him he was entitled to an attorney only if he had committed a crime.

The 8-3 ruling by a full panel of the western appeals court was identical to one the judges issued last year, deeming Doody's confession to the killings after 13 hours of interrogation involuntary and inadmissible in any subsequent trial of the now-36-year-old defendant.

Arizona authorities had appealed the 9th Circuit's ruling last year to the Supreme Court, which sent the case back with an order to reconsider whether the confession should be judged as voluntary in light of a similar case from Florida in which the high court ruled that a suspect's confession was valid.

Wednesday's ruling said the 9th Circuit judges reviewed the high court's position in Florida vs. Powell, about a criminal defendant's right to have an attorney present during interrogation, but still concluded that Doody's rights were violated. The appeals court ordered Arizona authorities to free him or try him again for the killings without the confession.

"We will appeal the case again," said Amy Rezzonico, spokeswoman for Arizona Atty. Gen. Tom Horne said.

Judge Richard C. Tallman, an appointee of President Clinton writing in dissent for himself and the only two Republican appointees on the 11-judge en banc panel, accused his 9th Circuit colleagues of repeatedly ignoring the Supreme Court's orders to respect the judgments of state courts in habeas cases, in this case the trial court's determination that the confession was voluntary.

latimes.com

[StrontiumDog]

Bangkok Post : Prosecutors vow retrial of accused priest killer

Prosecutors vow retrial of accused priest killer

• Published: 13/10/2011 at 01:03 AM
• Online news: Local News

Thai-born Jonathan Doody, convicted of killing nine Buddhist worshippers in 1991 in Phoenix, Arizona, should be released following the latest opinion by the United States Supreme Court, says a former abbot.


Doody: New charges to be laid

Mano Laohavanich, who has fought for Doody, said the court has rejected an appeal by the state of Arizona asking it to revoke the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' May 4 decision to overturn Doody's conviction after he allegedly confessed to the crime.

Doody, who was 17 at the time of the killings and is now in his 30s, was sentenced to 281 years in prison after he was convicted of shooting nine people at Wat Promkunaram in west Phoenix. He denied the charges.

"Doody should be free without any condition and the procedure should not take longer than a few months," said Mr Mano, a former abbot of Wat Dhammakaya in California.

"It is a victory," he said from Manila in a phone interview with the Bangkok Post.

But, Jerry Cobb, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, said prosecutors would file new charges in coming days against Doody.

Mr Cobb said it would take some time to prepare the charges. "This is a 20-year-old case," Mr Cobb said. "We have to get our arms around it."

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal by Arizona officials who asked for a re-examination of a lower court's decision to throw out Doody's confession.

Doody was convicted of slaying six priests, a nun and two helpers during a robbery at the temple.

The bodies were found arranged in a circle, and all had been shot in the head.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals found Doody's Miranda warnings were inadequate and threw out the conviction, ruling the confession was involuntary, partly because he wasn't properly read his rights by the officers interrogating him.

Lawyers for the state contended that Doody's confession was reliable and admissible and cited an Arizona court's decision that upheld the confession.

Arizona attorney-general Tom Horne, whose office defended the conviction in appeals courtsl, said there was other evidence of Doody's guilt even without the confession.

Mr Horne said he expects Doody will remain behind bars while he awaits a retrial.

Victoria Eiger, a lawyer who handled Doody's appeals, said there was no substance left to the case without Doody's confession.

"It was the cornerstone of the state's case," Ms Eiger said.

Doody and another teen were arrested after investigators linked them to the murder weapon.

[Mid]

Judge declares mistrial in Arizona 'temple murders' case
David Schwartz
October 24, 2013

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona judge declared a mistrial on Thursday after jurors deadlocked on the fate of a Phoenix man standing trial for a second time in the murder of six monks and three others at a Thai Buddhist temple near Phoenix in 1991.

The 12-member jury told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict after seven days of deliberations in the retrial of Johnathan Doody, 39, convicted of the execution-style killings in 1994 in what remains the biggest mass murder in Arizona history.

Thai-born Doody was granted a new trial after a U.S. appeals court tossed out his conviction in May 2011, saying it was based on a coerced confession.

Prosecutors have said they would retry Doody if the jury deadlocked. He is not eligible for the death penalty if convicted because he was a juvenile at the time the crimes were committed.

The month-long retrial revisited the shootings at the Wat Promkunaram temple in Waddell, Arizona, which became known as the "temple murders." The crime brought international media attention to the state and focused a glaring spotlight on police tactics used to solicit confessions.

The bodies of six monks, one novice, one nun and a temple boy were found on August 10, 1991, face down in a circle, each killed by a gunshot to the head, according to court records. Their living areas had been ransacked and personal property stolen.

Doody, who was 17 at the time, and co-defendant Alessandro "Alex" Garcia, then 16 years old, came under suspicion when a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle owned by a friend was found during an unrelated vehicle search and identified as the murder weapon.

Doody was questioned by investigators for 12 hours in October 1991 and admitted to his involvement. Garcia said Doody was the "mastermind of the plan" to rob the temple and fired the fatal shots.

Doody was convicted and sentenced to 281 years in prison in 1994, and Garcia, who testified against Doody in the original trial, received 271 years for the murders and an unrelated homicide.

The appeals court overturned Doody's conviction, ruling that investigators did not properly give him his Miranda warnings outlining his legal rights and that his confession was coerced and could not be used in court.

At the retrial, Garcia once again blamed Doody for masterminding the robbery, which he testified turned deadly when Doody declared that no witnesses were to remain alive.

Defense attorneys attempted to cast doubt on Garcia's account, maintaining that there was no other evidence that put Doody at the crime scene that August day. The defense presented no witnesses.

The eight-man, four-woman jury began deliberations on September 24, but were forced to start over when one of the jurors was excused.

The judge said a retrial could be held as soon as November. A status hearing is scheduled for October 31.

orlandosentinel.com

[S Landreth]

Arizona man sentenced to nine life terms in prison for Buddhist temple murders

PHOENIX (Reuters) – An Arizona man convicted of the execution-style killings of six Buddhist monks and three others at a temple near Phoenix more than two decades ago was sentenced on Friday to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Johnathan Doody, 39, was sentenced to nine consecutive life terms after being convicted by a jury in January of nine counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery for a crime that drew international attention and remains the most deadly mass murder in the southwest U.S. state’s history.

[War Elephant]

So he did it all along?

[leemo]

A coerced confession may not be admissible, but it's also not proof or even an indication of innocence.