Carlos Martinelly Sentenced to 20 Years in Car Crash That Killed Nun: MyFoxDC.com

Carlos Martinelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his drunk driving accident (August 1, 2010)  that injured 2 nuns and killed a third.  Martinelly was also charged with felony murder. 

Wikipedia defines ‘felony murder’ as follows:

The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the course of an applicable felony, what might have been manslaughter is escalated to murder. Second, it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony. While there is some debate about the original scope of the rule, modern interpretations typically require that the felony be an inherently dangerous one, or one committed in an obviously dangerous manner. For this reason, the felony murder rule is often justified by its supporters as a means of deterring dangerous felonies.

I keep thinking about this case being Corey Stewart’s launch pad into state politics.  For over a year we have heard about this case, day after day.  This case has been all over Fox News time after time, as some sort of landmark illegal immigrant case rather than a drunk driving case.  Martinelly was brought here illegally  as a child.  He had a green card.  He just didn’t have legal status.  He became the ‘nun killer.’ 

Meanwhile, another drunk driving case  was barely mentioned.  William John Mallory was sentenced to 20 years for the deaths of a grandmother and her toddler grandson.  17 years of that sentence  were suspended.  Mallory serves 3 years.

There is some inequity here.  I excuse no one nor am I attempting to excuse drunk driving. However, why is Martinelly serving all 20 years and why was he charged with murder?  I feel certain he didn’t get in his car that morning and decide to go mow down a car load of nuns in cold blood.  I feel certain William Mallory didn’t plan on killing a grandmother and her little grandson. 

Why is there so much disparity between these two cases?  Could it be that the Commonwealth Attorney’s office caved in because Martinelly was an illegal immigrant?  Could it be that killing nuns is worse than killing grandmothers? Judge Farris sentenced Martinelly to 20 years. 

 On the other hand,  Judge Johnston also ordered that  Mallory, who hit the family in 2009,   also has to serve 5 years probation and put a wreath on the graves of the deceased to remind him of what he did.  The family feels short-changed.  On the other hand, the Benedictine nuns said from the beginning that they wanted no retribution and they didn’t want the case to become political. 

Mallory did not receive national attention.  Martinelly did.  Stewart won’t catapult into a state election on the back of Mallory like he is trying to do over Martinelly.  I would just like to see similar cases treated equally. 

Under the twisted immigration law the husband or wife of a US citizen is barred from applying for a green card in the US if they originally entered without proper inspection by an immigration officer. To obtain lawful status the immigrant must leave the US and apply for a visa at a US embassy in their home country. But once they leave the US they are barred from returning for up to 10 years unless they can prove their US citizen or legal resident spouse will suffer extreme hardship in their absence. But the process–known as an “unlawful presence waiver”–can take months, even years. In the meantime the family is separated, the foreign spouse may be stuck in a dangerous place–like Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where many immigrants have lost their lives–and there is no way of predicting if or when the family will ever be reunited.

The proposed rule change is huge because it will allow undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens to apply for a provisional waiver while in the U.S.–something not permitted under the current rule. If the waiver is granted, the foreign national will then leave the U.S., apply for his or her immigrant visa abroad, and return to his or her loved ones. The change will give countless American families a chance to stay together safely and legally.

The move is also smart enforcement because it will reduce the illegal immigrant population and allow the Department of Homeland Security to better focus its resources on keeping America secure and safe.

This is very welcome news for our friends who have loved ones out of status.  It’s all too easy to brush off these kinds of problems with platitudes and sound bites.  However, if it is your husband, wife, child, sibling, it becomes much more than a sound bite.  I have had two situations with people I know in the past few years that turn this issue into much more than an ‘illegal is illegal’ question. 

Case #1 –you are aware of.  The wife has posted on the blog many times.  She has been married to an illegal immigrant for a decade.  They have a child.  She has a decent job so she cannot apply for hardship.  The hardship is not having a husband and father, not the financial loss.  The hardship would be not having a dad there to take her child to and from school, athletic events and activities,  not having a husband as a life partner for years, a father missing his child’s graduation and other important life-time landmarks.   So they take their chances.

Case #2–a woman I worked with has a son who married a foreign born college  student.  She overstayed her student visa and left with the son to her home country to introduce her new husband.  When it came time to come home, she was denied a visa to reenter the United States, for 10 years.  My friend’s son would not leave his wife.  After months and congressional help, my friend’s son and wife were able to come home. 

These are absurd situations.  We are not talking about hardened criminals out drinking, drugging, and killing others.  We are talking husbands, fathers and daughters in law who just happened to to have not been born American citizens.  I am delighted to see the change in the law.  It is just common sense.  Americans should not have to live in fear for their loved ones.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Authorities said Wednesday they dropped a charge against a German Mercedes-Benz executive who was arrested under Alabama’s new crackdown on illegal immigration after a police officer caught him driving without identification required by the law.

While Tuscaloosa police arrested the man last week for not having proper citizenship documents while driving a rental car in the city, city attorney Tim Nunnally said in an email the charge was dismissed after the man later provided the documents in municipal court.

Police identified the man as Detlev Hager, 46. The company said he was in Alabama on business at the time but declined further comment.

The arrest drew widespread attention because the German automaker is one of the state’s leading employers, and its decision to build its first U.S. assembly plant in Alabama in 1993 provided the spark that helped lead to the state’s large automotive industry, which includes foreign manufacturers Honda, Hyundai and Toyota.

Republicans who support the immigration law say it will help create jobs for legal Alabama residents by driving away illegal immigrants, but some business leaders and critics of the law contend similar arrests could hurt economic development in the state by making it a less-attractive location for foreign companies.

This certainly sounds like dumb and dumber.  In the heart of Dixie, a state with a horrible track record on race relations should be doing everything in its power to attract new business and to improve its image.  The area is ripe for attracting new business because it is a right to work state, as a fairly low tax base, and already has an automotive industry base.  So what clod decided to arrest one of the Mercedes Benz executives?  Did they think they had discovered some well- preserved old Nazi on the run from I.C.E.?  

Newt somehow found a way to articulate that middle ground that describes how most moderates feel about the immigration issue.  He effectively managed to push across an idea that Rick Perry tried to accomplish but didn’t quite manage to do. 

Pundits this morning are discussing how badly Newt damaged his lead with the base who doesn’t care if grandmas and grandpas are lined up and marched back across the border. 

 The strategist implication probably wasn’t thought out as well as it should have been.  

Do you agree with Newt or Mitt?  Is that really amnesty?  Notice Newt was careful to exclude citizenship for those who stayed under this category.  That, in effect, excluded the notion of any party trying to get new voters. 

What are the pros and cons for Newt in his bid for presidential election?

I will always be uncomfortable with a murder verdict.  Murder is intentionally killing someone.  Are prosecutors in Virginia ready to charge all drunk drivers who kill someone with murder or was this special charge reserved for Carlos only?  Manslaughter yes, murder no. 

This case is about drunk driving and about being an habitual offender.  It isn’t about illegal immigration.  It was political theater being played out on a stage contrary to the explicit wishes of the Benedictine nuns.  It took tragedy and turned it into political carnage as Corey Stewart appeared again and again on both national and local TV, trumpeting the evils of illegal immigration.  He even had a Rule of Law campaign soliciting money.  The entire affair was unseemly. 

I hope  Stewart is smug and  pleased with himself.  He is who continually waved the bloody shirt and demanded Martinelly’s head on a platter, again, in defiance of the wishes of the Bristow order of nuns whose sisters were victims of this terrible accident. 

Where does this leave us when the next drunk driver isn’t an immigrant? 

Where will this verdict lead us next time?  Beware of unintended consequences.  I expect we have not heard the last of this unusually charged case.

According to the Washington Times:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano says her department has the resources to deport about 400,000 aliens each year, and the new guidance her department issued will only change the makeup of who gets deported.

“There are 10 million or so illegal immigrants probably in the country and the Congress gives us the resources to remove approximately 400,000 per year,” she said, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The question is, who are we going to prioritize. And we’re very clear. We want to prioritize those who are convicted criminals. We want to prioritize those who are egregious immigration and repeat violators. We want to prioritize those who are security threats, those who have existing warrants.”

Her appearance came a day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency within her department that handles interior enforcement, announced it had deported a record 396,906 aliens in fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30.

Of those deportations, nearly 55 percent were convicted criminals, and many of the others were repeat immigration violators or had just recently crossed the border.

Ms. Napolitano said fewer than 10 percent were rank-and-file immigrants working, studying or living in the U.S. illegally, and said that’s by design — ICE has rewritten its priorities to try to maximize the number of criminals who are deported within the resources available.

Criminals work for me and its easier to catch people at the border than other places. That sounds like a good use of limited resources.  Isn’t that what part of the battle cry has been?  I thought the ideal was to stop illegal immigrants at the border, not when they get to Manassas, Virginia.   What are all those border guards for anyway?

However, Ms. Napoitano’s day was not over.  Several Senators deemed it necessary to attempt to intimidate and bully the DHS Secretary.  In particular, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) attempted to push his weight around and treat Ms. Napolitano like an errant middle school student.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, said ICE agents are becoming demoralized by the new guidance, and cited conversations he’s had and a recent vote in which the union for ICE agents expressed it had lost confidence in ICE Director John Morton.

Mr. Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, took exception to Ms. Napolitano’s facial expressions as he was raising the issues with her Wednesday.

“As a person who’s worked with federal agents for years, when you hear this kind of comment and votes of no confidence — I’ve never heard of that — you should be paying real attention to them, not rolling your eyes at them,” he said.

“I’m not rolling my eyes,” Ms. Napolitano replied. “What I’m suggesting is that results matter here and priorities really matter, and that the results reflect the priorities we have set. And these are priorities that are consistent with prior administrations.”

Ms. Napolitano said it costs her department about $30,000 to remove each person it deports, and said that doesn’t include the costs to the Justice Department.

Mr. Sessions owes Ms. Napolitano an apology.  She is an adult and a cabinet level sescretary.  That is clearly bullying.  That just isn’t how you treat adults, especially peers.   Would he have accused a male cabinet level secretary of eye rolling?  Furthermore, if he were truly concerned with the confidence level of John Morton’s underlings, wouldn’t he have contacted Ms. Napolitano by phone or letter to discuss his concerns with her?     That union vote of no confidence was not a recent action.  In fact, it dates back to August of 2010 and was discussed on this blog.   Mr. Sessions must not have found the problem to be a high priority or of any urgency.  I might roll my eyes also at his

Instead, he preferred to grand-stand and put on a stage performance meant to belittle and ridicule the DHS Secretary.

When I was a child, some of the most violent film footage of the Civil Rights battles came out of Alabama.  I remember looking on in horror as demonstrating blacks were knocked down with fire houses and dogs were sicced on them.  These actions  were ordered by the Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor.  Men, women and children were the object of the hoses and the dogs.  These were horrifying scenes, especially for children.  I will never hear the word Alabama that I don’t think of the images branded in my mind. 

These kinds of enforcement behaviors do not exist in a vacuum.  Alabama will always wear the shame of those firehoses and police dogs.  They will always have  the tragedy of Birmingham Sunday in someone’s memory, as long as any of us alive during that  time are still on this earth.  Alabama needs to move away from its history of divisiveness.

Unfortunately, that is not happening.  Recently enacted laws targeting illegal immigrants have some baggage attached to them that I am not sure Alabama is ready to handle.  The new Alabama law seeks to collect data on all school children as to their status in the United States.  

HB 56 was signed into law by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in June. One of the provisions of the law  requires public school educators to collect data to determine whether students are in the U.S. legally and report that information to the state. The law says the information would be used to prepare reports on how much educating the children of illegal immigrants costs the state.  Methods of gathering the information have not yet been announced.

According to  Janet Murgia in the Huffington Post:

This decision will endanger the civil rights and public safety of every Alabamian and the education of every child in the state. It helps no one for teachers to take precious time away from education in order to act as immigration agents. Fearful parents may take their children out of school. Birmingham Chief of Police A.C. Roper is against shifting scarce law enforcement resources away from municipal priorities to immigration. Teachers and police oppose these kinds of laws because they know that politically motivated stunts like HB 56 jeopardize their ability to do their jobs–educate children and protect the public’s safety.

Schools in Alabama have enough to do without becoming mini-ICE agents. Their job is to educate children, not round up the kids of illegal immigrants.   I can’t think of a single school document where it is legal to ask the status of parents.  Many kids already have a United States birth certificate.  So just what identifier will be used to earmark these kids as ‘children of illegals?’  

How will the information really be used?  It must be the libertarian in me but I am opposed to government gathering information that they really don’t need on individuals.  In this case, the school acts as the government.  They cannot deny services to kids so, why do they need to know status?  Expect parents to just keep their kids from going to school.  The question then becomes, will the state go after the kids just to get to the parents?  If they get them, what will the state do with the parents since they do not have the powers to deport?

Too bad Alabama has such a bad reputation.  The state is doing nothing to help its own image as it enacts laws that ask for” papers please” to enroll children in school.  It goes right along with fire hoses and dogs if you ask me.  Alabama needs to clean up its act, once again.  Shades of Bull Connor. 

According to Yahoo.com:

U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn sided with the state of Alabama on Wednesday on two key sections of the state’s wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigrants. Blackburn refused to enjoin a law that will compel elementary and secondary school administrators to demand students provide birth certificates to prove they were born in the United States, and then compile lists of illegal immigrant children in their schools. In theory, schools could begin to ask parents about their children’s immigration status today, though it’s unclear if they will do so, since school has already started.

In the first place, schools require birth certificates having nothing to do with this ruling.  Students entering school for the first time present  a birth certificate.  A birth certificate does not necessarily determine status if not issued in the United States.   Students without US birth certificates will be on the ones in the line of fire and who will have to provide status information. 

Students who are not in the United States legally must be educated, according to Plyler v. Doe.  that is established law.  So, that begs the question, why do the schools need this information?  When we label students as ‘illegal,’ how soon before we start labeling them with other things or start denying services that aren’t directly school related?  Could Alabama schools not allow those students to play after school sports?  How about free and reduced lunch?  How about free tutoring services?  The abuses are out there and technically might not violate the provisions of Plyler.  Maybe they could even refuse them to participate in graduation ceremonies like denying them the right to walk across the stage to receive a diploma.  The abuse list is endless.   

Don’t say it can’t happen.  Of course it can happen.  All it would take is for some local politician to want to play tough guy by ‘showing them illegals who’s boss.’  There is nothing that any jurisdiction can do legally with such information.  As this case marches on towards the Supreme Court, hopefully this provision that allows the tracking of students to be shot down.  This case appears to be a new low in immigration laws. 

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Last week the immigration issue kept creeping back into the conversations on here. Well let’s have at it.

Church leaders in Alabama are suing the state over their new bundle of anti-immigration laws.  Why?  The churches say that the laws prevent them from doing what churches do–minister to the poor.  Some religions leaders say, as the law stands, that they could be arrested for feeding an immigrant or helping in times of sickness.  In other words, they feel that the Alabama government in interfering with the separation of church and state.

Alabama has legislated new laws based on the F.A.I.R. model, similar to those first passed in the July 2007 Resolution here in PWC.  These might even be more draconian.

Meanwhile, in Hoover Alabama, tea party forces support the new law:

HOOVER — Tea party members rallied in support of Alabama’s new law against illegal immigration Tuesday, bidding to send a message to a federal judge who is considering legal challenges by opponents who contend the measure is unconstitutional.

Tea partyleaderZan Green said she and other organizers timed the rally to coincide the Blackburn’s review of the law. The judge has said she would rule by Sept. 28 on the constitutionality of the law, which the Obama administration opposes as an overreach by the state into an area of federal authority.

“We were trying to do this while the judge is deliberating to let her know there are Alabamians who support this law,” said Green, president of the Rainy Day Patriots.

Rally participant Marcelo Munoz said Alabama needs the law because the federal government is doing a poor job of enforcing immigration laws. Describing himself as a legal immigrant from Chile, Munoz said backers of the law aren’t simply against Hispanics, whose numbers in Alabama more than doubled to about 185,000 in the last decade, according to Census figures.

“We’re coming out here to show we’re not racist. It’s not about targeting a particular group. It’s about enforcing the law,” said Munoz. “There’s a lot of common sense stuff in the law.”

Besides clamping down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants, the law requires schools to find out if students are in the country legally. Police also could arrest anyone during traffic stops on suspicion of immigration violations.

The Déjà vu is powerful.  Make it go away.   That school stuff is pretty tough legislation.  So is the probable cause  part of the new law.  And just out of curiosity does Tito the Builder have an evil twin living in Alabama?  That name seems vaguely familiar.  I am not sure how one’s presence at a protest shows that a group is or is not racist, but ok.  Whatever. 

The tea party sure seems to be adding a lot of extras on to that ‘fiscal responsibility’ objective we all heard in the beginning.  Should we assume that immigration  issues are now part of that group’s political agenda?  I know that many tea party groups have added social issues.  I didn’t know about immigration.

More can be seen on the Alabama immigration laws at PBS or on the Religion and Ethic show this week on TV.

According to insidenova.com, the county has filed suit against the federal government. 

Prince William County filed a lawsuit today against the Department of Homeland Security, according to a county press release.

In 2007 the Prince William Board of County Supervisors passed an ordinance that requires county police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest.

If police find that they have arrested someone who is in the country illegally, they turn that person over to the department for deportation.

To date the county has turned over more that  [sic] 4,000 people over to DHS, the release stated.

At issue is the fact that an illegal immigrant who was an habitual offender hit a car carrying 3 elderly nuns.  One nun was killed and the other 2 were seriously injured.  The sisters belong to the Benedictine order and requested at the time of the tragedy that people not use the death of the sister to advance their political viewpoint.  The politicians and anti-immigration crowd of Prince William County have ignored the sisters’ request and have done quite the opposite.

Carlos Martinelly Montanowas charged in Aug. 2010 for the death of the Benedictine nun.  Corey Stewart, Prince William County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, has appeared on national TV over and over again emphasising that Montano is an illegal alien who should have been deported.  Stewart’s efforts to find out information why he wasn’t deported have gone unanswered which has given rise to this lawsuit.

Police records show that Montano was previously convicted of drunken driving, identified as an illegal immigrant, handed over to DHS for deportation, subsequently released and was then given an employment authorization card, according to the release.

When county officials discovered Montano’s record and learned that the department had failed to deport him, they became concerned that other criminal illegal immigrants may also have been released.

Stewart has failed to accept that once a prisoner is turned over to I.C.E., the matter is no longer a Prince William County issue.  He apparently doesn’t understand that DHS is under no obligation to deport an offender.  Everyone in this area who is deported has to have a deportation hearing before a federal judge. (Cases at the border are treated differently.)   Many I.C.E detainees are not deported. 

Prince William County is but one locality out of thousands in the United States.  I.C.E. has limited personnel to go around.  They cannot respond to every inquiry at the local level nor should they be expected to do so.  The question becomes, what is PWC going to do with the information?  The matter is out of their hands.   What does the lawsuit request?  How much will the good people of Prince William have to pay for this venture?  Why do I think Corey is simply using this lawsuit as an election ploy at our expense?