‘I did kill those cops,’ suspect says to stunned courtroom
By Don Thompson, AP
SACRAMENTO — A man charged with killing two Northern California sheriff’s deputies stunned a courtroom Wednesday by blurting out that he committed the crimes and is ready to be executed.
“I did kill those cops. You can execute me whenever you’re ready,” an agitated Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamontes said at the end of a hearing as he was led from the Sacramento County courtroom in chains.
Earlier, during a break, Bracamontes repeatedly told his lawyers he wanted to plead guilty.
“You don’t have the right to plead guilty without our consent,” Assistant Public Defender Jeffrey Barbour told him quietly while the judge waited. They later blamed his outbursts on anxiety.
Norm Dawson, another of his attorneys, told Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White, “We’re not at this time prepared to enter a plea.”
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the Utah man, who is charged with killing two deputies during an hourslong rampage in October that also left a motorist and another deputy wounded.
His wife, Janelle Marquez Monroy, also is charged but does not face the death penalty. She sat quietly during the 20-minute proceeding, sometimes resting her chin on a fist.
“I think what you were hearing was a great deal of anxiety,” Dawson said outside the courtroom when asked about his client’s outbursts.
But Bracamontes was adamant, turning his head to address spectators as he was being handcuffed to leave the courtroom.
“I killed, I did, I did. I just want to plead guilty and get the execution,” he said as his attorneys stood nearby amid heavy security. “I did it, everything.”
A spokeswoman for the Sacramento County District Attorneys’ Office, Shelly Orio, said she was prohibited from commenting because it would violate legal ethics.
Bracamontes and his wife both are charged with murder, along with numerous other charges, in the slayings of Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Davis Jr.
Bracamontes is a Mexican national with a long criminal history who had been deported several times and was in the country illegally at the time of the slayings.
Most of the court proceeding itself revolved around a request by attorneys for both suspects to exclude reporters from the courtroom to prevent news media accounts from influencing prospective jurors.
White denied the request. But he barred all still and video photographs, and prohibited audio recordings from being aired or published. He did allow a sketch artist to make portraits.
The suspects are next due back in court March 27 for a status conference.
“Utah man”? Really?
Ridiculous…
“You don’t have the right to plead guilty without our consent,” Assistant Public Defender Jeffrey Barbour told him quietly while the judge waited. They later blamed his outbursts on anxiety.
Norm Dawson, another of his attorneys, told Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White, “We’re not at this time prepared to enter a plea.”
Kill the S.O.B. and save the City , State or County a lot of money.
In his country he would have been killed long ago, here he will have decades to watch cable tv thanks to liberals filing appeals to get tax payer funds and by refusing to enforce the law on executions more of these murderers are coming in and by ignoring the border threat for six years it is allowing many thousands of these drug cartel murders into the country through the open border.
“Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland…”
-Paul Simon
Capital punishments doesn’t accomplish any of the things justass thinks it does, never has, never will, yet he still wants it. Blood thirsty freak show conservatives love that kind of stuff.
I have zero problem with the theory or philosophy behind the death penalty. During a 30 year career in law enforcement, I’ve been involved in plenty of horrendous investigations, and met many of the perpetrators in whose death I would be more than willing to participate.
But, because death penalty cases attract so much publicity and political attention, the participants in charge – both prosecutors and defenders, not to mention the judges – almost always become involved in agendas that have little to do with the service of justice, and often have much to do with the preservation of careers.
Meanwhile, the politicians, not courageous enough to perform the service their constituencies deserve over the demands of the most vocal of their constituents, run fearfully from their leadership responsibilities. Which is an observation that can be properly applied to much of their political service, not just to the life or death of one sad, yet probably despicable, inmate.
I can bring up mental pictures of folks with whom I’ve dealt for whom I would gladly jab a needle, drop a pill, or pull a trigger to get them out of our world. Even send them to hell, if I actually believed in such a thing and it were within my power.
But the death penalty has become such an ordeal, such a mockery of justice, such a prolonged torture for guilty and innocent alike, and such a bastardization of the human and even Christian standards that many of us try to follow (regardless of faith or lack thereof) that I’ve long since become completely disenchanted with it.
I don’t agree with the reasoning of many of the death penalty opponents. But I disagree even more with the ethical failings, moral compromises, and career serving standards of so many of the folks who not just support the death penalty, but pursue it. Supposedly on our behalf.