I've finished my civic obligation to Mercer County.
After all the testimony, all the waiting, all the missed work, all the safety concerns -- I was an alternate.
Quote:
Gang member guilty Jury convicts alleged triggerman in about an hour
Thursday, October 11, 2007
BY LINDA STEIN
Latin Kings gang member Angel "Ace" Hernandez shook his head "no, no," and put his head in his hands, as a jury convicted him of murder yesterday in the gang execution of Trenton woman Jeri Lynn Dotson, 23.
Testimony in the lurid, cold- blooded killing stretched for three weeks, as gang members on tape and in person detailed violence perpetrated upon orders from a higher-up. Jury deliberations lasted just over an hour.
Hernandez, 21, was also found guilty of conspiracy and weapons offenses in the Aug. 31, 2004 death of Dotson. And he was convicted of conspiracy to attempted murder in the abduction and attempted murder of Alex Ruiz that precipitated Dotson's death.
Prosecutors said Dotson, herself a queen in the Latin Kings gang, was gunned down to silence her because she witnessed other gang members abduct Ruiz, 24, a member of a rival gang, from her house the evening before her killing.
Dotson's family and friends, who cried softly and prayed as they waited for the five-man, seven- woman jury to enter the courtroom, were pleased with the verdict but they know they have a long way to go until the case is over.
Four other members of the Latin Kings, including the leader, Jose "Boom Bat" Negrete, 25, are also charged with the murder and remain to be tried.
"I'm glad justice is done for Jeri Lynn," said Linda Dotson, the victim's mother, who wears a heart- shaped necklace engraved with her daughter's image. "There will never be closure. No verdict is going to bring her back. There will never, ever be closure."
"Justice is served," said Lisa Dotson, Jeri Lynn's sister. "This is the first step."
As Hernandez, handcuffed and shackled, was led by sheriff's officers from the heavily guarded courtroom after his conviction, he called out an obscenity. He faces 30 years to life in prison when sentenced on Dec. 17.
His family and friends also yelled: "Be strong, Angel," and "You put an innocent kid in jail."
Outside the courthouse, his stepmother Anna Hernandez complained that the jury consisted of no minorities. A Hispanic woman and an Asian woman were alternates.
"How do you decide a kid's life in less than two hours?" she asked. "It doesn't end here. ...There was no justice done. This is no justice."
Miguel Hernandez, the defendant's father, sat on a low step near the courthouse, weeping.
"He was the only kid without a criminal record, nothing," he said of his son. The other gang members who testified against his son in exchange for plea deals had records, he said.
James Sacks-Wilner, Hernandez's defense lawyer, promised to appeal. Just after the verdict, he made a motion for a mistrial that was denied by Superior Court Judge Darlene Pereksta.
Evidence that would have cleared his client was not presented during the trial, Sacks-Wilner said. He noted that prior to the trial, Pereksta ruled that the victim's daughter, who was barely 3 years old when her mother was killed, was not competent to testify, and therefore a taped statement made by the girl just after the killing could not be used as evidence.
On that tape, according to Sacks-Wilner, the girl told detectives that the killer was a black man, whereas Hernandez is a pale-skinned Hispanic. The jury did not hear that tape.
However, the jury did listen to Hernandez's own taped confession. In that tape Hernandez admitted that he shot Dotson and claimed that Negrete ordered him to do so. He told detectives that he would be killed if he did not comply with a direct order from the Latin Kings' leader or Inca. Hernandez also told detectives the children were sleeping when he and Maurice Young lured Dotson to her basement to execute her.
According to testimony from gang member Joey Martinez, Martinez and the gang's enforcer, Jorge "Syns" Gomez, 25, followed Young, Hernandez and Josue "Sway" Maldonaldo to Dotson's house around 3 a.m. on the day of the killing. While Martinez and Gomez waited outside in another vehicle, the three alleged hitmen went inside.
A few minutes later, Maldonaldo ran out and said the gun would not fire, Martinez said. Gomez told him to "mess around with it," Martinez said, and go back in.
Dotson was felled by one shot at close range fired next to her left ear. The jury saw several photos of the bullet wound and also a photo with a tiny footprint in the blood made by Dotson's young daughter, who discovered her mother's body and alerted a neighbor.
Martinez also testified about the attack on Ruiz, who had tried to defect from the Netas to the Latin Kings, sparking a gang war. According to testimony, Negrete ordered Ruiz to be turned over to the Netas, but when that group failed to kill him, he allegedly ordered his own men to finish the job.
Ruiz, who was nearly choked to death in the backseat of a car, then left in a trash bin on Duck Island, survived to testify against Hernandez.
Negrete, who spoke to The Times in a jailhouse interview, denied ordering the killings and claimed not to have the authority to do so under the gang's manifesto.
During the nearly four-week long trial, Pereksta agreed to motions by Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Meidt to bar news photographers from taking pictures of the witnesses who were gang members due to fears for their safety. She also acceded to a defense request to bar photographs of two of Hernandez's family members who testified that he had an alibi.
After the verdict Pereksta revoked Hernandez's bail.
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