A Mexican national’s murder convictions and life sentences for the 2016 killing of his sister’s boyfriend in Pima County has been upheld by the Arizona Court of Appeals.
On May 25, a three-judge appellate panel unanimously affirmed a jury’s guilty verdicts against Joel Cordova Rodriguez for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder after the sister’s boyfriend, Richard Jensen, was shot multiple times outside a home on the southside of Tucson on Dec. 11, 2016.
The sister, Jessica Dolores Rodriguez-Cordova pleaded guilty in 2018 to manslaughter. So did her coworker and lover, Aaron Heath. Rodriguez, however, went to trial where he unsuccessfully argued Heath was the real shooter.
“We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury’s verdicts and resolve all reasonable inferences against [Rodriguez],” Presiding Judge Karl Eppich wrote in the decision, which also affirmed the two natural life prison sentences imposed on Rodriguez.
Court records show Rodriguez, his sister, and Heath plotted to kill Jensen on the day he flew back to Arizona after working in Alaska. The sister picked up Jensen at the airport and kept her brother and Heath updated as she headed to her house west of South Nogales Highway and south of East Old Vail Road.
“After (Jensen) arrived at the house, Rodriguez got out of his car, a green Honda with a black hood and black right fender,” Eppich’s decision notes. “He subsequently shot (Jensen) seven times before getting back in the car and speeding off.”
The court of appeals rejected Rodriguez’s claim that he was denied a fair trial because the judge did not allow testimony about Jensen’s alleged abusive conduct toward Rodriguez-Cordova to “show motive, knowledge, and intent for the murder.” The appellate decision noted at least one juror asked about a motive for the killing.
Rodriguez also contended the jurors should not have heard about comments Heath purportedly made to a friend about 40 minutes after the shooting. The friend was allowed to testify that Heath told her Rodriguez committed a murder. Heath paid the friend to provide him an alibi for the time of the shooting, and Rodriguez argued that Heath’s alleged comments after the shooting were “nothing more than an exculpatory, self-serving . . . attempt to exonerate himself.”
Another issue Rodriguez challenged on appeal involved an instruction the trial judge gave the jurors about the subject of flight. After Jensen was shot, Rodriguez sped away in his car, then stopped at a dumpster where he disposed of some of the clothes he was wearing. He drove himself home to Phoenix despite plans to remain in Tucson, and the next day changed his car’s license plate.
The court of appeals determined the evidence supported a flight instruction, noting the trial judge could “reasonably infer from the evidence” that Rodriguez left the scene in a manner which “invites suspicion or announces guilt.”
A mandate of the appellate decision will not be issued until late June so that Rodriguez has time to petition the Arizona Supreme Court for review of the case.
Public records show Rodriguez was the subject of a detainer issued to the Arizona Department of Correction in 2007 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while he was serving a prison sentence for auto theft. It is unclear what action, if any, was taken by ICE when Rodriguez was released from prison in October 2010.