FARGO -- The man sentenced to death for the 2003 kidnapping and murder of Dru Sjodin is claiming juror misconduct during his trial.
Next month, a federal judge is set to hear arguments related to a 2011 motion by attorneys for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. His lawyers filed a habeas corpus motion outlining reasons the former Crookston, Minn., man should not be executed and now appear to claim juror misconduct during his trial.
Rodriguez, 62, remains on death row at a federal maximum security prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
The court docket shows Rodriguez's attorneys are claiming juror misconduct, but documents detailing the allegation, including prosecutors' response to it, are sealed in advance of a Sept. 8 hearing before U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson in Fargo.
A single docket entry from June notes prosecutors responding to "alleged juror misconduct." The paperwork responds to documents filed by defense attorneys in March.
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Attorneys for Rodriguez also are requesting "temporary and partial closure" of the upcoming court hearing, which was set to address the pending habeas corpus motion, considered a last resort appeal to overturn Rodriguez's death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down his earlier appeals.
In the latest arguments, death penalty attorneys claim Rodriguez didn't receive effective counsel at trial, was insane at the time of the crime and that he is mentally diminished, making him ineligible for the death penalty.
Richard Ney, a death penalty expert, was among the defense attorneys appointed to represent Rodriguez before and during the 2006 trial. Ney and West Fargo attorney Robert Hoy, a former Cass County state's attorney, filed a litany of motions prior to the trial, including claims Rodriguez was mentally diminished.
In 2003, Rodriguez stabbed and kidnapped Sjodin, a Pequot Lakes, Minn., native attending the University of North Dakota, while she talked on a cellphone in a Grand Forks mall parking lot. An extensive search ensued, and five months later she was found dead in a rural ravine near Crookston.
A jury of seven women and five men unanimously convicted Rodriguez, a known sex offender with a 32-year history of attacking women, and recommended he should be put to death by lethal injection.
The trial marked the first-ever federal death penalty case in North Dakota, which abolished the state's capital punishment law in 1973. The death sentence also marked the first time in more than 90 years that a defendant had been ordered to death in any case within the state.
The Rodriguez trial featured three phases: guilt, eligibility for the death penalty and the sentence.
In the final phase, it took three votes for jurors to reach a unanimous verdict to recommend the death penalty sentence, which Erickson later ordered to be done in South Dakota.
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Afterward, juror Arlys Carter said the first two votes came back 11-1 for death, with one person being a "question mark." A third vote brought the unanimous decision.
"I think he changed his mind on his own," Carter said at the time. "He wouldn't have gone along with the group."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Reisenauer said Thursday he could not comment about the pending motion and claims.
“Until I know what’s going on, I’m not going to comment,” said Luke Lillehaugen, one of the jurors for the trial. Attempts to reach nine of the other were unsuccessful Thursday.
