thedrifter
08-11-06, 04:19 PM
August 11, 2006
Death-row inmate returns to Pendleton for new sentencing
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A Marine convicted and sentenced to die for the 1996 shooting death of his executive officer is back at Camp Pendleton for a new sentencing hearing.
Former Sgt. Jessie A. Quintanilla — who has been confined in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since his conviction — was recently placed in the Camp Pendleton brig after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled in March that a new sentencing hearing should be held.
On March 5, 1996, Quintanilla shot and killed his executive officer, Lt. Col. Daniel Kidd, and wounded his commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Heffner, with a .45-caliber pistol after he barged through the offices of his helicopter squadron at the Camp Pendleton air station. He shot at and missed another Marine, a gunnery sergeant who tackled him and took his weapon.
A 12-member jury convicted Quintanilla of murder, sentencing him to death and reduction to private and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
A unanimous decision by the military’s appellate court agreed with Quintanilla’s attorneys that errors by the military judge during the general court-martial and misconduct by prosecutors in the case required a new sentencing. The court overturned a decision last year by the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals that would have ordered a new trial.
No date for the sentencing hearing has been scheduled.
Quintanilla could be re-sentenced to death or to life in prison with the possibility of parole, said Maj. Jason Johnston, a 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing spokesman at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.
Quintanilla is being held in a solitary cell — what officials call “special quarters” — and is shackled at the wrist and legs whenever he is outside his cell.
“When the Marine leaves his cell, he is under escort and restrained as a safety and security precaution,” said 1st Lt. Amanda Freeman, a Camp Pendleton spokeswoman.
Ellie
Death-row inmate returns to Pendleton for new sentencing
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A Marine convicted and sentenced to die for the 1996 shooting death of his executive officer is back at Camp Pendleton for a new sentencing hearing.
Former Sgt. Jessie A. Quintanilla — who has been confined in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since his conviction — was recently placed in the Camp Pendleton brig after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled in March that a new sentencing hearing should be held.
On March 5, 1996, Quintanilla shot and killed his executive officer, Lt. Col. Daniel Kidd, and wounded his commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Heffner, with a .45-caliber pistol after he barged through the offices of his helicopter squadron at the Camp Pendleton air station. He shot at and missed another Marine, a gunnery sergeant who tackled him and took his weapon.
A 12-member jury convicted Quintanilla of murder, sentencing him to death and reduction to private and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
A unanimous decision by the military’s appellate court agreed with Quintanilla’s attorneys that errors by the military judge during the general court-martial and misconduct by prosecutors in the case required a new sentencing. The court overturned a decision last year by the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals that would have ordered a new trial.
No date for the sentencing hearing has been scheduled.
Quintanilla could be re-sentenced to death or to life in prison with the possibility of parole, said Maj. Jason Johnston, a 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing spokesman at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.
Quintanilla is being held in a solitary cell — what officials call “special quarters” — and is shackled at the wrist and legs whenever he is outside his cell.
“When the Marine leaves his cell, he is under escort and restrained as a safety and security precaution,” said 1st Lt. Amanda Freeman, a Camp Pendleton spokeswoman.
Ellie