He’s not a Duggar and he most certainly would not fit in with that family, but I thought you might be interested to learn a little bit about the man at the center of a new case that I’m covering.
Mauricio Torres is being tried for the third time, after already being convicted of capital murder twice. For the same crime. Allow me to explain.
Torres was convicted of rape and capital murder for sexually assaulting his six-year-old son with a stick on a camping trip. He was found guilty and sentenced to the death penalty. On appeal, this was overturned because of some minor rule of law that I don’t fully comprehend yet that said the death penalty couldn’t be the sentence in Arkansas because the rape occurred in Missouri.
So Torres got himself a second trial. Guilty. Again. Prosecution sought the death penalty…again.
During the sentencing phase, Torres’ stepson, Quinton Martin, was called as a witness. When asked if Torres had ever sexually abused him, Martin leapt out of the witness box and attacked Torres.
Yeah.
The judge ruled that the same jury that convicted Torres must be the one involved in the sentencing phase, and thus ordered a mistrial.
Another appeal to the State Supreme Court resulted in Torres being granted a third trial. He’s now asking for a continuance to delay said trial, due to the timing of receiving some court transcripts.
Torres’ wife was also charged, and agreed to a plea deal that sent her away to prison for life.
Torres has a pretrial hearing set for January 14, 2022. I think I’ll be there to cover it.
Oh wow, that sounds like a hot mess. If the prosecutors have already been told death penalty is a no go due to crossing state lines, I wonder why they tried that route again. Hopefully though all of this there’s no technicality that lets this guy go free, he sounds like the scum of the earth.
It's strange that they can't pursue the death penalty, because Arkansas, Missouri and the feds all have the death penalty on the books. I'll not pontificate on my opinion regarding the death penalty, but I'm curious what this minor law you mention is