District attorney seeks death penalty in case highlighted in US election

A district attorney in Texas has unveiled plans to seek the death penalty in an alleged murder case that became a prominent talking point in the 2024 United States presidential election.

On Friday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg filed a notice indicating her decision to seek death sentences for Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26.

The crime they are accused of committing became a centrepiece in Republican Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election in November.

The two suspects are Venezuelan nationals, and they crossed the border into the US without the proper documentation to do so. US Border Patrol briefly arrested them after their entry into the US, but they were released and given notices to appear in court at a later date.

A few months later, in June, the two men allegedly kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, leaving her body in a Houston creek.

Trump and his allies repeatedly pointed to the case as evidence that the US needs tighter border security and stiffer penalties for migrants and asylum seekers involved in crimes.

He also campaigned with Nungaray’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, who visited the US-Mexico border with Trump and testified before Congress about her ordeal.

In Friday’s announcement, District Attorney Ogg echoed some of the criticisms of immigration enforcement that Trump made on the campaign trail.

“Jocelyn’s murder was as vile, brutal and senseless as any case in my tenure as district attorney,” Ogg said in a statement.

“And it was made worse by knowing that these two men were here illegally and, had they been held after being captured at the border, they would never have had the opportunity to murder Jocelyn and destroy her family’s future.”

In June, prosecutors filed capital murder charges against the two suspects, who are being held in jail on $10m bonds.

Multiple studies, however, have shown immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes than US-born citizens.

One survey of arrest records in Texas, funded by the National Institute of Justice, found this to be a consistent trend, across all different categories of crimes, from traffic offences to property crime.

It concluded that undocumented immigrants are arrested “at less than half the rate of native-born US citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes”.

Still, President-elect Trump often conflated immigration with criminality on the campaign trail, stirring fears of violence.

He used those fears to blast his rivals in the Democratic Party, accusing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of allowing “open borders”.

Irregular migration across the US-Mexico border did reach a record high under Biden’s presidency, but it has since declined to levels akin to Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021.

Monthly border patrol “encounters” in October, for example, slumped to 106,344. According to a press release that month from US Customers and Border Protection, the number of border patrol apprehensions was “the lowest it has been” since the 2020 fiscal year.

Biden has also imposed strict policies to limit asylum at the border, similar to actions Trump himself had taken. One measure, announced in June, allowed the suspension of asylum applications if irregular border crossings surpassed 2,500 people per day.

Others included penalties like a five-year ban on reentry and possible criminal prosecution.

Nevertheless, Trump lashed Biden and Harris, the Democratic candidate in the 2024 race, as dangerously irresponsible in their border enforcement policies.

Leaning into dark, nativist rhetoric, he warned of a migrant “invasion” besieging the country and pledged to pursue a campaign of “mass deportation” on his first day in office.

To do so, Trump has indicated he plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives the federal government the power to deport foreigners during times of war.

“We will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of the United States,” Trump told supporters at a campaign stop in October. “We will close the border. We will stop the invasion of illegals into our country. We will defend our territory. We will not be conquered.”

Trump has also called for the “death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer”.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), accuse Trump of undertaking an “unparalleled execution spree” during his last term in office: His administration oversaw 13 federal executions in its final six months alone.

The Republican leader frequently played a video of Alexis Nungaray at his rallies, describing in heart-wrenching detail how she discovered her daughter strangled to death.

“She would be alive today if Kamala had done her job,” Trump posted on his social media account earlier this year.

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