JUNE 20, 2023:
MAY 24, 2023:
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The death sentence for a Minnesota man who killed a North Dakota student in 2003 has been changed to life in prison. A federal appeals court judge officially reduced the sentence for 70-year-old Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. last week. Rodriguez had been sentenced to death in 2007 for killing Dru Sjodin. U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider in North Dakota withdrew his effort to seek the death penalty for Rodriguez at the direction of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Rodriguez kidnapped Sjodin from a mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota, sexually assaulted her and then slashed her throat and left her for dead in a ravine near Crookston, Minnesota.
MARCH 15, 2023:
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley is not happy that the federal government has taken the death penalty off the table for a man found guilty of killing 22-year-old Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.
U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider said in a news release that following a directive from Attorney General Merrick Garland, he filed a notice withdrawing his effort to seek the death penalty for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.
Wrigley says, “Alfonso Rodriguez is currently confined to the death row prison cell he earned by targeting, threatening and sexually assaulting women across three decades, before he kidnapped, beat, tied, sexually assaulted, and brutally murdered Dru Sjodin, in November 2003. It will forever remain a humbling privilege to have led the trial team entrusted with going to battle for justice on behalf of Dru Sjodin, her parents, her brother, all their other family and loved ones and our community. It’s been nearly 17 years since a federal jury announced their verdicts after the longest federal criminal trial in state history: Guilty of kidnapping resulting in Dru Sjodin’s death, with several aggravating factors rendering Rodriguez eligible for a sentence of death. The jurors then listened intently to several days of additional testimony and argument, before announcing their unanimous decision on punishment: Death. That verdict and sentence were upheld by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and even reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States, which concluded there was nothing further to evaluate. But the system allowed the legal wrangling to continue, culminating over a decade later in a federal judge concluding that the defense attorneys he handpicked for the trial had, upon further consideration, been legally and constitutionally deficient. He ordered a new sentencing hearing.
The Biden Administration’s withdrawal of the Death Penalty Notice against Alfonso Rodriguez means that this death row inmate will no longer face the sentence handed down by a federal jury in 2006. Rodriguez will remain in prison for life, but the gates of death row will be opened, returning him to general prison population where he will be allowed to construct a social existence and life for himself within the confines he found so comfortable across the decades he was previously imprisoned. This result is a grave affront to justice and to the hearts and souls of all who loved and cared for Dru Sjodin. They have our prayers for God’s Peace as do all who held out the hope there would be justice for that brave woman.”
MARCH 14, 2023:
UNDATED (AP)- U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday (March 14, 20230 that they will no longer seek the death penalty for the man convicted in the kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin in 2003 in a case that led to changes in sex offender registration laws.
U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider said in a news release that following a directive from Attorney General Merrick Garland, he filed a notice withdrawing his effort to seek the death penalty for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.
“My thoughts today are with Dru Sjodin’s family, particularly her parents, Linda Walker and Allan Sjodin,” Schneider said in the release. “They are genuinely good people and loving parents who in the wake of an unimaginable loss have worked closely with our office for nearly 20 years. We continue to wish them the greatest measure of peace possible.”
Messages left with Rodriguez’s attorney and with the attorney general’s office wasn’t immediately returned.
It’s not the first time Rodriguez has avoided the death penalty in the case. In September 2021, then U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson ruled that misleading testimony from the coroner, the failure of lawyers to outline the possibility of an insanity defense, and evidence of severe post-traumatic stress disorder had violated Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.’s constitutional rights. Erickson ordered a new sentencing phase be conducted.
Rodriguez has been on death row at a federal prison for nearly two decades in the death of Sjodin, a Minnesota woman who was abducted from a Grand Forks mall parking lot in November 2003.
MARCH 6, 2022:
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Federal prosecutors plan to appeal a ruling that overturned the death sentence for a Minnesota man convicted of kidnapping and killing a University of North Dakota student. A jury in 2006 convicted Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minnesota, in the killing of 22-year-old Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The same jury sentenced Rodriguez to death in the first and only federal capital punishment case in North Dakota. Prosecutors filed a one-page notice Thursday with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that they were challenging the ruling by Judge Ralph Erickson, who oversaw Rodriguez’s trial and is now a member of the 8th Circuit. Last year Erickson ordered a new sentencing phase for Rodriguez after ruling that Rodriguez’s constitutional rights were violated.
NOVEMBER 1, 2021:
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Prosecutors in North Dakota’s first and only death penalty case say defense attorneys are wrong by claiming the judge didn’t go far enough in explaining why he threw out the sentence for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. Rodriguez was convicted of killing University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin. Judge Ralph Erickson in September ordered a new sentencing phase be conducted, saying his defense team failed to consider key factors. Defense attorneys filed a motion arguing that the judge left out Rodriguez’s intellectual disability as one of those factors. In a response filed Friday (Oct. 29, 2021), prosecutors said Rodriguez’s attorneys “flatly fail to establish the existence of a manifest error or newly discovered evidence” and “cannot satisfy the very stringent standard to warrant alteration or amendment.”
SEPTEMBER 7, 2021:
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out the death sentence for a man convicted in the 2003 slaying of a North Dakota college student. Judge Ralph Erickson ruled Friday (Sept. 3, 2021) that misleading testimony from a medical examiner and limitations on mental health evidence violated Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.’s constitutional rights. He ordered a new sentencing phase be conducted. Rodriguez has been on death row for nearly two decades. He was convicted of killing Dru Sjodin, a Minnesota woman who was abducted from a Grand Forks mall parking lot in November 2003. Rodriguez, a sex offender, was arrested the following month. Sjodin’s body wasn’t found until the following April near Crookston, Minnesota.
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