Open question: Death penalty for Jacques?
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Michael Jacques |
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By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: December 24, 2008
BURLINGTON – U.S. Attorney Thomas Anderson said Tuesday that he has not yet decided whether to recommend the death penalty in the federal case against accused killer Michael Jacques.
"I have not made any decision at this point," Anderson said following an afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court in Burlington.
The hearing marked the latest developments the federal prosecution of Jacques, charged earlier this year in the rape and murder of his 12-year-old niece, Brooke Bennett.
Lawyers for Jacques had sought to delay Anderson's recommendation on capital punishment until April. David Ruhnke, part of a New Jersey death penalty team representing Jacques, said the defense needed more time to examine the reams of government evidence against his client.
"All we're seeking is what we think is a reasonable amount of time to do this," Ruhnke said via speaker phone during the hearing. "… We're not sure what the haste is here."
Ruhnke said mitigating evidence uncovered during that examination could inform Anderson's decision one way or the other.
Anderson countered in a written motion that the government opposes any "court intervention in its charging deliberations."
U.S. Judge William Sessions sided with the prosecution, saying Tuesday that the court was not in a position to postpone Anderson's decision.
"The threshold question is whether a judge should get involved in the deliberative process of a co-equal branch of government," Sessions said. "Except in extraordinary cir-cumstances, I think they should be free to schedule that process in a way they deem appropriate."
Jacques' lawyers now have until Jan. 1 to present mitigating evidence against their client.
Lawyers for Jacques spent an entire day last week at the Vermont State Police's Royalton barracks examining documents and physical evidence against Jacques, according to Ruhnke.
He said investigators told him that much of the evidence against Jacques continues to undergo forensic examination crime labs.
Ruhnke said it will take time to analyze the thousands of documents and hundreds of items of physical evidence that comprise the case against Jacques.
"A mitigation specialist has been retained," Ruhnke said in a written motion seeking the extension. "… (W)hile certain information and documents have been collected by the defense, the mitigation investigation is at its beginning stages and much remains to be accomplished."
Ruhnke said in the motion that the mitigation investigation was part of "an effort to convince the U.S. Attorney not to seek the death penalty."
Anderson said, however, that defense lawyers would be free to present mitigating evidence long after he made a recommendation on whether to pursue capital punishment for Jacques.
"Judge Sessions made it pretty clear they can present that mitigating evidence at any time basically between now and when we pick a jury for the case," Anderson said.
Anderson will issue a recommendation on the death penalty to the U.S. Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney General, under the Obama administration, will review the case and decide whether to uphold that recommendation, a process that generally takes about three months. In the vast majority of federal death penalty cases, the attorney general approves the prosecutor's recommendation.
Prosecutors say Jacques' lured his young niece to his Randolph Center home on June 25 under the premise she would be attending a pool party. Instead, police say he drugged, raped and then killed her before concealing her body in a shallow grave about a mile from his home.
Jacques has been jailed since he was arrested shortly after Bennett disappeared.
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