The mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray told the Houston Landing Friday that she wanted to seek the “worst punishment” for her daughter’s killers, but ultimately allowed the Harris County District Attorney to make the decision on pursuing the death penalty.
“I want the most justice that is possible. I want both. I want them to live forever miserably in prison and I also want them to be killed,” Alexis Nungaray said.
Harris County’s outgoing district attorney Kim Ogg announced Friday that her office will seek the death penalty in the capital murder case of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old murdered in Houston in June.
Nungaray said she was overwhelmed and torn when prosecutors previously asked her thoughts on the death penalty, so she felt relieved to hand over the decision to the DA’s office.
Two Venezuelan nationals, Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, are accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Nungaray in June. The defendants entered the U.S. illegally near El Paso in March and May respectively, and were released with pending immigration court hearings, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Jocelyn’s murder was as vile, brutal and senseless as any case in my tenure as district attorney,” Ogg said in a statement Friday. “And it was made worse by knowing that these two men were here illegally and, had they been held after being captured at the border, they would never have had the opportunity to murder Jocelyn and destroy her family’s future.”
She cited the strength of the evidence as the reason for seeking the death penalty in a Friday interview with Fox & Friends. Ogg’s office did not immediately reply to a request for further comment Friday.
The announcement comes shortly before Ogg leaves office at the end of the year. Sean Teare, who defeated Ogg in March’s Democratic primary before going on to win November’s general election, said the case “will be reviewed” when he takes office in January.
“It’s premature for me to comment on a case of that severity until I get in there and see the evidence,” Teare said. “Obviously, the facts that have been reported are horrific and certainly, the death penalty is an option in the worst of the worst cases for me and my administration.”
Teare, who was involved in multiple death penalty cases during his career as a Harris County prosecutor, added that Ogg made a decision in the Nungaray case “extraordinarily quickly.”
If convicted and sentenced to death, Martinez Rangel and Peña Ramos would join 64 other Harris County inmates on Texas’ death row.
Political flashpoint
The immigration status of the defendants turned Jocelyn’s murder into a national flashpoint for the immigration debate during the presidential campaign. Her mother Alexis Nungaray advocated for stricter immigrant detention policies promised by president-elect Donald Trump and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
Nungaray says her political activism is driven by the urge to keep her daughter’s memory alive.
“I am always going to try to speak out for her as much as I can and always shed light on the person she was, because she was an incredible person,” Nungaray said Friday.
Lawyers for the defendants have criticized Ogg and her office for politicizing the case. They requested a gag order, which a state district judge rejected in September.
Ogg also made waves earlier this week after the Houston Landing reported that she had offered a blanket plea recommendation of life in prison without the possibility of parole in almost every pending capital murder case in Harris County. The recommendation applied only to cases over a year old and therefore excluded the Nungaray case because the murder occurred less than a year ago.
Immigrant crime
Despite a focus on victims of immigrant crime this election season, numerous studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
Immigrants without a legal status are 26 percent less likely to be convicted of murder in Texas compared to the native-born population, according to research by the conservative Cato Institute. The difference is even greater among legal immigrants, who are 61 percent less likely to be convicted of murder than U.S.-born citizens.
Nationwide, immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens, according to research published in the Stanford University Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Immigration advocates previously told the Landing that they recognize the tragedy of the Nungaray case, but cautioned against generalizations and stereotypes of immigrants as criminals.
“We always try to reach out to folks, to let them know that we don’t like to label entire communities by the actions of a few,” Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the immigrant rights nonprofit FIEL, said in November.
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