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A routine felon launched in 1993 after serving 11 years of a 30 12 months sentence for homicide, has been charged with killing two extra victims whereas on parole. The Related Press reports that in 1982, Raul Meza Jr., was sentenced to jail for the rape and homicide of 8-year-old Kendra Web page, whose physique was present in a dumpster close to her faculty in Austin. The sentence was the results of a plea cut price which dropped the rape cost, however the decide added 16 years to Meza’s sentence for a previous armed theft conviction. Regardless of going through 46 years in jail, Meza was launched early below then-Governor Ann Richards’ jail reforms, which granted him beneficiant “good time” credit for taking part in jail packages.
NBC’s KXAN reports {that a} 12 months after his launch Mesa was despatched again to jail for violating the circumstances of his parole. He was launched and sentence to jail or midway homes for continued violations a number of occasions. In 2019 Austin police investigated the homicide of Gloria Lofton, a girl who lived subsequent door to Mesa. The following 12 months a DNA match linked Mesa to the homicide. In 2023, now dwelling with 80-year-old Jesse Fraga, police discovered Fraga’s physique throughout a welfare test and recovered video of Mesa on safety digital camera footage on the crime scene on the time of the homicide.
Mesa ought to by no means have acquired a plea cut price for Kendra Web page’s rape and homicide. It was a demise penalty offense and he deserved it. However in 1982 the nation was nonetheless experimenting with options to powerful regulation enforcement and Texas, regardless of its repute, was included. For a kid rapist/assassin to be launched after serving lower than a 3rd of his sentence on “good time” credit was deplorable, and protesters to his early launch drove Mesa out of six cities. His a number of parole violations supplied one other sign that this assassin was not rehabilitated, but he continued to get launched. If convicted of both or each latest murders Mesa will, as soon as once more, be eligible for a demise sentence. He’s asking for a plea cut price by which he would serve 50 years in jail, if the state will take the demise penalty off the desk. Hopefully, this time he has run out of luck.
We might welcome an anti-death penalty advocate to make the case that displaying compassion for Raul Mesa was the proper factor to do.
The publish When “Good Time” Goes Bad appeared first on Crime & Consequences.
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