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Saturday, April 17, 2004 |
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Mark Pascual Yesterday was, in some respects, a day of reckoning for my client Mark Pascual. Mark was arrested several years ago for the role he was alleged to have played in the murder of a man in West Hartford, Connecticut. The State claimed that Mark hired two men to shoot and kill the boyfriend of a woman with whom he was infatuated. Mark never got involved in the shooting of the man, but took steps with the others that led to the victim's ultimate fate. The men wanted $5,000.00 to do the job. Mark didn't have that kind of money, but he did have a snowmobile. So the job was done in exchange for the snowmobile. Yesterday, in the Hartford Superior Court, Mark pled guilty to five of the offenses with which he was charged, not including the charge of capital felony. Capital felony is the offense under Connecticut law that carries the death penalty. By pleading as he did, Mark avoids the death penalty and avoids a sentence of life in prison without the possibility for release. It opens the door for Mark to receive at the conclusion of his case a sentence of a term of years. It gives Mark hope. In exchange (there is always a quid to some other quo), Mark has agreed to cooperate with the State of Connecticut in its prosecution of an imediate co-defendant and a defendant in another, unconnected prosecution. Hearing the pleas of guilty yesterday was a bit unnerving: murder, conspiracy to commit murder, etc. Hearing the potential penalty -- a sentence between 25 and 110 years in prison -- was equally upsetting. But at 39 years of age, the alternative of death or the rest of his life in prison clearly was less palatable. At the moment, the sentencing hearing in Mark's case has been scheduled for December. Jury selection in the trial of Mark's immediate co-defendant begins April 26th. 11:55:39 AM  comment []
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Despite my promises to be more regular in my blogging this time around, I have been unable to publish this week. It hasn't been my fault entirely. It seems that each time I had the time and ability to sit down and write, my internet service was down. That was the story for the first three days of the week. The balance of the week just got too busy. It was an eventful week, particularly for two of my death penalty cases or what were previously death penalty cases. As I mentioned in Sunday's blog entry, Angel Cabrera was sentenced by the Court on Wednesday of this week. In the end, Angel got the full 5 years to which he was exposed. I had asked the Court to take some time off of the 5 for his plea of guilty, something he would have been entitled to if his sentencing guidelines had not exceeded the statutory maximum sentence the Court could impose. I argued that he was entitled to the benefit of his bargain and some reward for not forcing the government to prove its case at trial. Of course, Angel did obtain some benefit from the plea agreement as it was written. The government agreed that his plea would resolve all of his criminal liability in the federal court and that they could never come back at him for involvement in the murder for which he was originally indicted. In addition, the Court directed that Angel receive credit against for his sentence for the past 27 months he has been held by the Feds and the 15 months he was held by the State of Connecticut. If given full credit for this time, Angel should be out of prison before the end of this year. The final result: Instead of losing his life to lethal injection, Angel will do 5 years less credits for time served. I know that it seems like an amazing result on its face, but it is a long time for someone who hasn't committed a crime. Even the one for which he has now been sentenced. A prosecution-oriented news article on the sentencing appeared in Bridgeport's Connecticut Post newspaper the day after the hearing. It is factually inaccurate and decidedly one-sided, but it spells out some aspects of the case or cases that might be of interest. Accused Shooter Sentenced for Perjury
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