Jorge Rodriguez, Jr Sentenced
Written by Post Public Information Representative, Dec 21, 2024, 0 Comments
Courtesy Brigette Garay,
(Laredo, Texas)-On December 5, 2024, the Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed the consecutive twenty-year sentences imposed on Jorge Rodriguez, Jr, by 406th District Court Judge Oscar J. Hale, Jr. Rodriguez had appealed the stacking of his sentences by Judge Hale arguing that stacking them was an act of judicial vindictiveness due to Rodriguez’s initial sentence for murder being reversed.
The Fourth Court of Appeals did not find the stacked sentences to be vindictive. Rodriguez brutally murdered Rolando Ramos, a coach and teacher at United South Middle School, at Ramos’s home on June 19, 2018. Rodriguez was on deferred adjudication probation for burglary of habitation, a second-degree felony, when he committed the murder.
Based on the murder and other violations of his conditions of probation, Judge Hale revoked Rodriguez’s probation and sentenced him to 20 years in prison, the maximum sentence on a deferred adjudication probation revocation for a second-degree felony.
In the subsequent murder trial, the jury sentenced Rodriguez to 50 years in prison which was to run concurrently with the 20-year probation revocation sentence. The 50-year sentence for murder, however was reversed by the Fourth Court of Appeals due to the failure to include a sudden passion jury instruction during the punishment phase of the trial. During the second punishment trial, the jury found sudden passion and sentenced Rodriguez to 20 years in prison, the maximum for sudden passion murder.
Judge Hale then ordered that the 20-year sentence for murder be served consecutively to the 20-year sentence from the probation revocation.
On appeal, the State argued that no presumption of judicial vindictiveness arose because it was not mathematically possible for Judge Hale on remand to sentence Rodriguez to a longer sentence than the one he had originally received for the murder and because concurrent 20-year sentences were not appropriate given the facts of the case and Rodriguez’s criminal history.
Civil Division Chief Albrecht C. Riepen argued the appeal on behalf of the State of Texas at oral argument in front of the Fourth Court of Appeals on October 8, 2024.
