Grijalva-Figueroa's version of events raises many questions, as Lougee acknowledges. It is, for example, hard to square Grijalva-Figueroa's version with Soto-Fong's fingerprints on the plastic bags-if those bags were really the ones found by the register and those prints are really his. "I know it seems impossible that, out of all the cases in the world, I happen to get this woman out of the blue who solves the one case I've been obsessed with for years," Lougee said."I know there will be people who think that I fed it to her, or she didn't say it, or that it's just too pat. I can't help it. But I believe her story is true." Grijalva-Figueroa, who is in protective custody, fears for her safety, and, according to Lougee, has said that she may deny any knowledge of the El Grande case if she feels that testifying will jeopardize her further. "How do you present a case like this to a jury?" Lougee said. "You're better off as a defense attorney if you can just point to a single lie or a couple of them. No one will ever believe you if you say the whole thing is a lie."
Kenneth Peasley isn't the only prosecutor who has got into trouble in Pima County lately. David White, who preceded Peasley as the head of the criminal division, failed to disclose more than eight hundred pages of potentially exculpatory documents to defense lawyers in a first-degree-murder case; the county was compelled to dismiss the charges. (White died in 2003.) In July, the Arizona Supreme Court suspended the law license of a third veteran prosecutor,Thomas Zawada, for six months and a day, because he made false accusations against defense lawyers in yet another first-degree-murder case.
In October, a prominent local doctor, Brad Schwartz, was charged with hiring a hit man to kill a former colleague, who was stabbed to death. Schwartz had been romantically involved with a onetime Pima County prosecutor, and had social ties with her former office; last month, LaWall fired a deputy county attorney and suspended three others who had apparently delayed sharing relevant information about the case with the police. In recent months, at least eight other prosecutors have retired or resigned-extraordinary turmoil in an office of only about sixty prosecutors. Still, in
LaWall's opinion nothing is amiss."I don't think any of the conduct of any of these men reflects on the office," she told me. "This is a good office."
The three men convicted in the El Grande case remain in prison. In 2004, the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, ordered the United States to grant new hearings to several condemned Mexican nationals, including Martin Soto-Fong, but it's not clear how that ruling will be applied. Through his new attorney, Gregory Kuykendall, Soto-Fong is seeking a writ of habeas corpus in federal court in Tucson, a case that would appear to be his final hope of avoiding execution. McCrimmon and Minnitt, incarcerated on Keith Woods's testimony in the Mariano's Pizza case, will not be eligible for release until about 2023. Lougee hopes to challenge McCrimmon's conviction in that case as well, but no appeal is yet pending.
Joe Godoy and Ken Peasley, still close friends, have joined forces in the private sector, working out of the historic downtown house that serves as the law offices of Brick Storts, a prominent Tucson defense attorney. Godoy is now an investigator, and Peasley is a consultant and a paralegal. (They are collaborating on Schwartz's defense.) Godoy is characteristically effervescent about his new role. "I have to work nights sometimes, just to keep up with my work.And I have a couple of guys working for me, and, gosh, I just got too much work," he said. "The people that know me know that I'm not a bad cop and that I'm not a bad person."
The lawyers in Storts's building have spacious offices in the front, but Peasley is wedged into a small room in the back, next to the parking lot. The papers on his desk are still arranged in orderly piles, and his prosecutor-of-the-year plaques hang on the stucco walls.While we were talking, a secretary came in to say that one of the lawyers was heading back from court, and Peasley almost sprinted out to the parking lot, to make sure that my car wasn't blocking the lawyer's way. "He hates when someone gets in his space," Peasley said.
For now, Peasley is collecting his pension and marking time. He had a heart attack and quadruple-bypass surgery in 2003, but he has kept some of his old habits. "Cigars is what I do. And I shouldn't even do that," he said. "I shouldn't have done a lot of things. And, unfortunately, the reason I had the heart attack is I probably did everything that was bad for you for so many years it was inevitable that something was going to happen." He is not ready for the El Grande case to stand as his legacy. "It's disappointing," he said. "And the reason is, I worked real hard and, frankly, every case I handled was prosecuted with integrity. And for twenty-seven years I did it, and one case, basically, is the definition of what I've done. I mean, the best that I can hope to be remembered as is the guy who screwed up the triple-murder case." Peasley plans to apply for readmission to the bar as soon as he is eligible, in about four years.
Jeffrey Toobin, a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993, is the senior legal analyst for CNN. His fifth book, about the Supreme Court, will be published in 2007.
On March l, 2005, during the week after "Killer Instincts" was published in The New Yorker, the Supreme Court ruled, by a vote of five to four, that states could no longer execute defendants who committed their crimes before they turned eighteen. The ruling meant that seventy-two juvenile offenders in twelve states would leave death row. One of them was Martin Soto-Fong, who was seventeen at the time of the murders at the El Grande Market.
After the Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons, Soto-Fong was returned to Tucson for resentencing and for a hearing in his petition for a new trial under Arizona 's habeas corpus law. At those proceedings, his lawyer, Gregory Kuykendall, raised many of the issues discussed in the article-including Kenneth Peasley's misconduct and Carole Grijalva-Figueroa's alternative account of the murders. Judge Clark W. Munger could have given Soto-Fong a new trial, or he could have imposed concurrent sentences that would have made Soto-Fong eligible for parole at the age of sixty-eight. Instead, on February 21, 2006, the judge denied the request for the new trial and sentenced Soto-Fong to consecutive terms in the triple-murder. As a result, Soto-Fong, who is now thirty-one, will be eligible for parole when he is one hundred and forty-three years old. Soto-Fong is again appealing.
The lifting of Soto-Fong's death sentence has improved his life in prison. For his twelve years on death row, he was allowed just three showers and three ninety-minute recreation periods per week. Now that Soto-Fong has returned to the general population, he has greater freedom of movement within the prison, and he is eligible to get a job. At the time of the murders at the El Grande, Soto-Fong was attending Lamaze classes with his future wife, Betty. His daughter, Ashley, was born after his arrest. "Once again I want to be able to hold my family and have a better relationship with my daughter," Soto-Fong said after the Supreme Court's ruling. "Back in 1995, we were allowed contact visits once every six months, but then they stopped those. She's twelve now, and I've only held her twice in my life."
Robert Nelson : Altar Ego
from the Phoenix New Times
It is 1988 in M c A llen, T exas. Irene Garza's portrait hangs in the living room of her aunt's home. The fair-skinned girl is hauntingly beautiful.
Another family member stops by the house for a visit. Noemi Ponce-Sigler happens upon the portrait and looks into the eyes of the girl. She gets the feeling Irene's looking back.
And a question comes into Noemi's mind that has been troubling her since: