GUARDING THE YARD: Terriers return offensive bite to lineup
August 21, 2007August 23
August 23, 2007
(AP) A man who allegedly has said he killed nearly two dozen men over a decade, will be represented by a state public defender rather than the local office.
Richard C. Goorley, director of the Capital Assistance Project of Louisiana, is taking over Ronald Joseph Dominique’s case because the local public defender says his office has a conflict.
Neither Goorley nor Tony Champagne, director of the Terrebonne public defenders office, would say what the conflict is.
The Capital Assistance Project is one of several groups created by the state to represent death penalty defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys. The group’s attorneys step in either when a small parish has no public defenders qualified to take a death-penalty case or the local public defenders have some sort of conflict.
Dominique, 43, is charged in nine murders believed to have been committed in Terrebonne Parish. After he was arrested in December, police said
Dominique confessed to luring 23 men to his home from 1997 through 2005, tying them up and raping them, then strangling them and dumping their bodies in various areas.
Dominique has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of first-degree murder.
With so many cases to investigate, it’s difficult to say how long it will take to begin the trial, Goorley said.
“This is the first we’ve had where there are so many accusations, and obviously, we’ve got to check every one out,” Goorley said. “In essence, we’ve got 23 cases we’ve just been assigned. It’s a totally different sort of case than we’ve ever had before, or, I think, than anybody has had before.”
