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Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

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MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.

Federal appeals court allows capital murder retrial of Justin Wolfe; lower court had ordered him freed

McLEAN, Va. — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Virginia should be allowed to pursue a capital murder case against an alleged drug kingpin from northern Virginia, overruling a lower court that had sought to put an end to the 12-year legal saga by ordering his unconditional release.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a federal judge in Norfolk who had ordered a halt to the prosecution of Justin Wolfe, who faces death penalty charges in Prince William County for the 2001 slaying of a large-scale marijuana supplier, Daniel Petrole.

The district court judge, Raymond Jackson, said misconduct by prosecutors in Prince William County made it impossible for Wolfe to get a fair trial.

But a majority on the appellate court disagreed. Judges Robert Bruce King and Allyson Kay Duncan ruled that a new trial can be done fairly. They wrote that Jackson “fashioned an overbroad remedy and thereby abused (his) discretion by precluding the Commonwealth from retrying Wolfe.”

A dissenting judge, Stephanie Thacker, said the misconduct was so bad that freeing Wolfe was the only proper outcome. She reeled off a long list of examples of misconduct, including failures by Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert to disclose evidence that would have undermined the credibility of the state’s star witness.

Wolfe’s case has now been in front of the appeals court three separate times. He was sentenced to death after his 2002 conviction in Manassas, and spent a nearly a decade on death row. In 2011, Jackson overturned Wolfe’s conviction and the appeals court upheld his action.

Source: AP, May 22, 2013

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