Case 2:04-Cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 1 of 232
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Case 2:04-cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 1 of 232 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NORTH DAKOTA United States of America, Criminal No. 2:04-cr-55 Civil No. 2:11-cv-88 Plaintiff/Respondent, MEMORANDUM OPINION AND vs. ORDER GRANTING IN PART & DENYING IN PART MOTION Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., UNDER 28 U.S.C. § 2255; VACATING DEATH SENTENCE; Defendant/Petitioner. AND ORDERING NEW SENTENCING HEARING INTRODUCTION Dru Katrina Sjodin made people feel comfortable. She brought people together and joined them in laughter. At a street dance, Dru accepted the hand of a male in a wheelchair and then danced with him. She played volleyball and basketball. She was a skilled golfer. As a child, Dru was spontaneous and kind—always creating cards and artwork for someone else. She loved photography. She was a talented artist who enjoyed painting and drawing. Her childhood nickname was “Doodles.” One of the many activities Dru did as a volunteer was taking underprivileged children bowling. She raised money for organizations like the American Diabetes Association. She helped kindergartners and first graders learn to read. While in college, Dru participated in events that raised awareness for violence against women and children. Dru was close to her older brother; the siblings had friends in common. On the first day of 9th grade, when the teacher directed that the students chose a partner, Dru immediately selected the girl who recently transferred to the school and knew no one. Dru took the new girl under her wing. They became lifelong friends. 1 Case 2:04-cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 2 of 232 In her senior year of high school, Dru was elected homecoming queen. Dru’s friends describe her as genuine, a down-to-earth person who was fun, confident, and outgoing. Teachers and students liked Dru. She loved to travel and meet people. In 2000, Dru graduated from Pequot Lakes High School (Minnesota). After high school, Dru attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. She joined a sorority. While in school, Dru held a job and continued volunteering. She started dating Chris. Chris was drawn to her smile. Dru made Chris feel wonderful about himself. Chris told Dru he loved her. Dru told her friends that she may have met the guy she wanted to marry. Dru had recently introduced Chris to her parents. The person Dru was in high school was the person she was in college and who she would have been her entire life. On Saturday, November 22, 2003, around 4:00 p.m.,Dru finished her shift at the Victoria’s Secret store located in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After shopping for and purchasing a new purse from Marshall Field’s, Dru left the mall around 5:00 p.m. and began walking to her car. As she was walking, Dru was talking to Chris on her cell phone. Chris heard Dru say, “Okay, okay,” and then the call abruptly ended. Dru had been abducted. Her body was found on April 17, 2004. Dru never had the chance to graduate from college. She missed her class’s upcoming trip to Australia. She never had the chance to develop her relationship with Chris and determine if Chris was the person she was going to marry. She never had the opportunity to have her own children. Although Dru was only 22 years old when she died, the loss to her friends, to her family, and to society is immense—in fact, incalculable. Born in February 1953, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr. (his family nicknamed him “Tito”) was the second of five children. His dad, Alfonso, Sr., attained a third grade education and 2 Case 2:04-cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 3 of 232 spoke Spanish. Alfonso, Sr. never learned to read. Alfonso, Jr.’s mother, Dolores, attended school through the fourth grade. She taught herself how to read and learned English. As a baby, Rodriguez was small, fussy, and sickly. When Rodriguez was unable to tolerate breast milk, the doctor recommended Dolores feed him rice water (leftover water after boiling rice). When he was four months old, Rodriguez was on the verge of starvation and his condition so poor that his doctor diagnosed him with failure to thrive. Rodriguez was slow to achieve developmental milestones. Even as an adult, he never lived independently. Rodriguez’s family history shows a family that was hard-working and industrious but plagued by poverty, mental and neurological impairments, as well as physical and mental illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease, learning disorders, depression, diabetes, alcoholism, cancer, and hand tremors. Rodriguez himself has been diagnosed with depression, diabetes, hand tremors, and chemical dependency. Dolores describes her son as different, a slow learner, quiet, withdrawn, sad, and “out of step with the other children.” When Rodriguez was born, his parents were migrant workers and lived in Texas from November to April and then in Minnesota from April to November. They worked long hours in the field. When Rodriguez was an infant and his older sister, Sylvia, was a toddler, Dolores brought them to the field with her. During her 12-hour day in the field, the children would play in the ditch and Dolores would move them from row to row as she worked the fields. At age four or five, Rodriguez was sent away with Sylvia to stay at a camp for migrant children while his parents worked in the fields. Rodriguez was small for his age and vulnerable. It was here that Rodriguez was sexually abused by a female for the first time. Sylvia witnessed the abuse. Later, during potato harvest in North Dakota around this same 3 Case 2:04-cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 4 of 232 time frame, a male forced Rodriguez and Sylvia into an outhouse and coerced the children to fondle him and perform sex acts on him. Rodriguez was sexually abused another time by a college-age female when he was six years old at a church camp. While in Laredo, when he was seven years old, Rodriguez was molested by a teenage boy. When Rodriguez was nine years old, the family moved to Crookston, Minnesota. Dolores got a job in the kitchen of a restaurant. During the school year, there was little time to develop a parent-child relationship. Dolores’ shift at the restaurant started at 4:00 p.m. The children got out of school at 3:30 p.m. Dolores, on her way to work, and the children on their way home from school would come together down a street and meet on a certain corner where they would all hug and she would say: “The house is clean. I’ve cooked dinner. You must go home, do your homework and eat your dinner and take a bath and go to bed.” Their father got home from work around 8:00 p.m., after the children had gone to bed. He was physically abusive, beating the children—the boys more so—with a belt. He would call Rodriguez “stupid” and “cabezón” (bighead). As the oldest child, Sylvia helped her younger siblings with their schoolwork and aided the family as they adjusted to their new community. Despite her efforts, life was still difficult, as they were impoverished and few Mexican families lived in Crookston. Life was particularly difficult for Rodriguez. His brother “Paco,” although two years younger than Rodriguez, passed Rodriguez in school. Paco was handsome, athletic, and embarrassed of his older brother, Alfonso. Rodriguez was short in stature, had a big head, had darker skin than the other Rodriguez children, walked with a limp because one of his legs was shorter than the other, and his hands shook from tremors. Being slow and different from most children, Rodriguez was an easy and irresistible target for bullies. Rodriguez would often 4 Case 2:04-cr-00055-RRE Document 1149 Filed 09/03/21 Page 5 of 232 sit quietly and watch other children play. He was an outsider. Rodriguez failed in school, both in Texas and in Minnesota. He repeated the 1st and 9th grades and was socially promoted on other occasions. Rodriguez dropped out of school during his second year in the 9th grade. He was 18 years old and unable to successfully complete basic 9th grade coursework. At age 21, Rodriguez committed his first sexual assault. And he committed additional offenses against women. Since age 18, Rodriguez has been incarcerated for all but approximately three and a half years of his life. There is no genuine dispute that Rodriguez kidnapped and killed Dru Sjodin six months after he was released from custody. Prior to his release into the Crookston area community, Rodriguez expressed fears and anxiety during a visit with a psychologist, saying he wanted to be “locked up but not locked up.” His family called the Minnesota Department of Corrections and expressed concerns about Rodriguez’s upcoming release and the likely lack of supervision and guidance. The Minnesota Department of Corrections could have, and should have, sought to have Rodriguez—an untreated level 3 sex offender with a history of harming women who was expressing anxiety and grave fears about living in society—civilly committed. Despite its failures, the Minnesota Department of Corrections did not commit the offense against Dru Sjodin; it did, however, provided Rodriguez with the opportunity to do so. On May 11, 2004, Rodriguez was charged federally with kidnapping and killing Dru Sjodin.