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Man Convicted Of Killing 9-Year-Old Asks For New Trial

January 9, 2007
NBC6.net

MIAMI -- The man convicted of murdering 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce 11 years ago is making what could be a final appeal for his life.

Juan Carlos Chavez confessed to killing the boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint and raped after getting off a school bus near his family's home in September 1995.

Chavez was sentenced to death eight years ago but is now asking for a new trial, claiming that he didn't have adequate representation.

Attorneys who prepared Chavez's case testified Tuesday the defense could not agree on a strategy and was hampered by a public defender worried about being re-elected.

His current attorney, Bob Norgard, has also argued that Chavez did not understand the U.S. legal system when he confessed and, therefore, the confession should be thrown out, along with any evidence police obtained because of information Chavez told them.

Among his claims Tuesday: Public Defender Bennett Brummer would not allow his assistants to fully investigate or argue the case because he did not want to be perceived as helping Chavez.

"Bennett was concerned that someone would complain about the public defender's office trying to represent that horrible, perverted defendant," former Assistant Public Defender Art Koch, Chavez's chief trial attorney, testified before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marc Schumacher, who presided at Chavez's first trial.

Brummer has denied Koch's allegations. He was scheduled to testify Wednesday, along with two additional assistant public defenders who worked on Chavez's case.

On the stand Tuesday morning, public defender Stephen Harper said he was one of first lawyers to talk with Chavez. He said Chavez told him he was supposed to be aborted but survived an abortion attempt of him and his twin brother.

Harper said that Chavez told him that he was prostituted as young boy and he was forced to engage in fights with other children that people would bet on.

Harper also testified on disharmony in the public defender's office over how to handle Chavez's case.

Harper, who left Chavez's defense before the 1998 trial in Orlando, said in his testimony Tuesday that Brummer never interfered. Instead, he said Koch and other public defenders working the case could not agree on a strategy for the penalty phase of the trial.

In turn, Koch accused Harper of lying and claimed he and another public defender were willing to let Chavez commit perjury to try to save him from the death penalty.

"There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing among all the attorneys," Norgard said during a break in the hearing.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's mother was in the courtroom on Tuesday and said it was difficult to be in close proximity to Chavez.

"This is harder than I thought it would be," Claudine Ryce said during a break. "It's almost unbearable being this close to him. I see him, and he's such a big man, and Jimmy was so little."

"I'm here today because Jimmy had rights, too," she said. "He had a right to live, the right to grow up unmolested. I don't want people to forget that this is about Jimmy."

She also commented on Chavez's claims of inadequate representation.

"I can't think of anything more they could have done," Ryce said. "I was very impressed with their defense."

Jimmy Ryce's parents led a massive search for their missing son for three months. The boy's dismembered body was eventually found in containers filled with cement.

After Jimmy's death, the Ryces founded the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction.

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Jimmy Ryce's father says son has become 'a pawn' in political fight

Jan. 11, 2007
SUSANNAH A. NESMITH
MiamiHerald.com

Don Ryce left court Thursday feeling victimized again by a court system he felt had been hijacked by bickering attorneys who had lost sight of his murdered son.

''What really upsets me is to have our son, Jimmy, become a pawn in some ego contest between Art Koch on the one hand and the public defender on the other,'' Ryce said.

Ryce attended the third day of hearings in Juan Carlos Chavez's bid to get his conviction overturned, or at least get off Death Row, for the murder of 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce.

Chavez is claiming that his attorneys were ineffective during his 1998 trial. His claim has been bolstered by his primary lawyer, former Assistant Public Defender Art Koch.

Koch testified this week that Public Defender Bennett Brummer told him not to do his best in defending Chavez because Brummer was worried about the political fallout from the high-profile case during an election year. Brummer called the claim ''ludicrous'' when he testified Wednesday.

For Ryce, and his wife, Claudine, the recent hearings have dragged up old memories and forced them to relive images of their son dying. And they don't see the point anymore.

''Sure, we need to make sure someone is guilty, but you don't do it by dragging everything out and game playing,'' Don Ryce said Thursday.

''As lawyers, we understand and, as Americans, we understand that in capital cases you go out of your way to make sure you've done the right thing, but it's been 11 years. It's way too long,'' he added.

Ryce said he found insulting the claims that Chavez's defense attorneys didn't work hard enough on the case.

''To us, it's a farce to claim that anyone was pulling any punches,'' he said. ``We even agreed to exhume the body before they backed off.''

The hearing, which began Tuesday, is scheduled to continue Jan. 23, with a doctor expected to testify about Chavez's mental and emotional state as a result of a difficult childhood. Chavez is arguing that his attorneys should have called the doctor to testify on his behalf during trial.

Chavez confessed to detectives that he raped and killed the boy and led them to crucial evidence in the case, the boy's dismembered body in concreted over planters near his home. Later he recanted his confession and testified at his trial, blaming another man for the child's murder.[/b]

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JIMMY RYCE'S BODY DISCOVERED POLICE CHARGE FARMHAND WITH MURDER

Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 10, 1995
Author: MANNY GARCIA And GAIL EPSTEIN Herald Staff Writers

After almost three days of questioning, a South Dade farmhand led police to the body of Jimmy Ryce, the 9-year-old Redland boy who disappeared Sept. 11 after stepping off his school bus, police said Saturday.

Detectives found Jimmy's body during the night, buried in a field near the trailer where police had discovered Jimmy's backpack and school papers atop a table.

The man, whose name was unavailable early Saturday, is charged with first-degree murder and being held without bond. The man led police to the body.

The Ryce family was in seclusion Saturday morning and not available for comment.

Police scheduled news conference later Saturday where they would reveal more details of the investigation, along with the defendant's name.

Police found the man Wednesday when a woman who hired the
suspect for work on her property at 19960 SW 190th St. called police to say she had made a chilling discovery: She had entered his trailer to look for items missing from her home and had also found a backpack with Jimmy's papers in it.

As late as Friday the Ryce family had held out hope the boy would be found alive.

Metro police divers spent Friday searching a muddy canal behind the ranch where Jimmy's back pack had been found -- at one point pulling up debris that fueled speculation that the boy's body had been found. There was no corpse, just more agony for Don and Claudine Ryce.

Friday night mother Claudine Ryce was still hopeful: "I'm still waiting for him to come home . . . still waiting to hear
from him what he wants for Christmas."

Friday evening, homicide detectives were continuing to question the farmhand who lives in the trailer and who said that he found Jimmy's backpack in a field.

On Thursday, police also used a search warrant to seize the trailer that served as the farmhand's home. Crime-scene technicians were inspecting it and a Ford pickup truck belonging to the Scheinhaus family that the farmhand drove.

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SUSPECT HUNTED CHILD TO ASSAULT, SOURCE SAYS

Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 12, 1995
Author: MANNY GARCIA and JOHN LANTIGUA Herald Staff Writers

Juan Carlos Chavez was driving in the Redland looking for a child to assault when he spotted Jimmy Ryce walking alone from his school bus stop, a law enforcement source said Monday.

Sexually aroused, Chavez stopped next to the 9-year-old boy on Southwest 162nd Avenue near 232nd Street, pulled out a gun and forced him to get into his vehicle, said the source, who is familiar with Chavez' confession to raping and murdering Jimmy on Sept. 11.

"That is how he targeted Jimmy," the source said.

Chavez, 28, also had a "missing" poster of Jimmy in the boy's backpack, which police recovered from a camper Chavez lived in, another law enforcement source said. "It was a trophy. It is not uncommon for sexual predators to keep in their possession mementos of the victims."

Metro-Dade homicide detectives charged him Saturday with killing and dismembering Jimmy in an avocado grove about one mile from the bus stop.

Monday night, Chavez remained jailed without bond in a suicide-proof cell on the ninth floor of the Dade County Jail.

"He indicated to police that he wanted to kill himself," jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said Monday.

Chavez, who arrived here by raft from Cuba four years ago, met for the first time with Dade Assistant Public Defender Art Koch, a veteran trial attorney. Koch refused to discuss their conversation, but questioned the legality of Chavez' confession, which detectives obtained after more than 50 hours at police headquarters.

"If one were cynical," Koch said, "a police station is an investigative location, not a hotel. He was there not because he wanted to, but because they didn't have the confession that they wanted."

Metro police and state prosecutors maintain that Chavez stayed of his own free will, even though police immediately knew he was their man.

"He had Jimmy Ryce's school bag inside his trailer," the law enforcement source said.

Police found the bag thanks to Susan Sheinhaus, who hired Chavez to work on her ranch at 19960 SW 190th St. Sheinhaus went into the trailer last Wednesday while searching for missing jewelry and gun. She found the missing items, along with the backpack with Jimmy's school books and papers.

Sheinhaus called the FBI, setting off a four-day, round- the-clock investigation that started with detectives scouring Redland ranches -- at times even getting lost in the fog. It culminated with Saturday's arrest of Chavez and the presentation of the arrest report:

"The defendant forced (Jimmy) into his vehicle at gunpoint. The defendant then drove the victim to a trailer located on the property at the 22000 block of SW 149th Avenue. The defendant then forced the victim inside the trailer and made him undress . . . the victim was then dressed and placed back in the defendant's vehicle. The defendant drove around the area of the abduction and subsequently returned to the trailer . . . then shot the victim with a firearm, causing the death of Samuel James Ryce," wrote lead case detective Pat Diaz.

Monday afternoon, four bouquets of fresh flowers, a yellow and red rose, a red Christmas stocking stuffed with a smiling puppy and a Buzz Lightyear doll from the children's movie Toy Story were hung on the fence around the grove that separated the trailer from the dirt road.

Ernie Scott, 41, lives with his wife and his three children about a block away from where Jimmy was killed.

"My wife said to me, 'I was probably driving down that road when that man was with Jimmy in that trailer,' " said Scott, sitting with his 5-year-old son inside their white pickup truck. "She had just picked up my 11-year old daughter at school and was taking her home. It was a terrifying thought."

Mark Dunagan, 17, who lives near the trailer, said that he and his girlfriend, Wendi Ward, 20, had helped search for Jimmy following his Sept. 11 disappearance.

"We went all over searching for him and then they find him and he is right behind our house," Dunagan said. "It freaks you out."

Both Dunagan and Scott said the fields just west of the avocado grove are often planted with beans and okra, and it is common to see migrant workers and their trucks in that area.

Dunagan also said not even the sound of gunfire wold have tipped him off that something was wrong. "It is not uncommon to hear shots around here," he said.

Chavez, charged with first-degree murder, sexual battery with a firearm and kidnapping with a firearm, will enter a plea Dec. 29 before Dade Circuit Judge Maxine Cohen Lando.

At that time, both sides will start trading discovery material -- a legal term for the exchange of pro-prosecution and pro-defense evidence. The public defender's office will then pick through the evidence for anything they can use to challenge the admission of Chavez' statement.

"Obviously, if we file a motion, it will be directed to his statement and other physical evidence directed to his case," Koch said.

One legal expert said Koch should expect little sympathy
from the court.

"Trial judges who run for elections will rarely, if ever,
throw out evidence in the really big case," said Howard Finkelstein, a chief assistant public defender in Broward County and legal analyst for WSVN-Channel 7. "Rather, they will leave it to appellate judges who do not run for election to toss it out. In short, the chance that a Miami judge will throw it out is between slim and none."

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GUILTY: JIMMY RYCE'S KILLER NOW FACES LIFE OR DEATH

Miami Herald, The (FL)
September 19, 1998
Author: AMY DRISCOLL Herald Staff Writer

After 6-1/2 hours of deliberation, jurors in the Jimmy Ryce murder trial tearfully pronounced Juan Carlos Chavez guilty Friday of kidnapping, raping and murdering the 9-year-old South Dade boy.

To a silent courtroom -- the boy's parents tautly expectant as jurors filed in, eyes downcast -- the clerk read the verdicts: guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of sexual battery of a child, guilty of kidnapping with a firearm.

The words echoed through the cavernous Orlando courthouse, carrying with them a small measure of peace to South Florida, where the tragedy of Jimmy's abduction and murder has haunted parents since he was snatched on his way home from school Sept. 11, 1995.

Don and Claudine Ryce, three years of agony on their faces, sat holding hands in the second row of the courtroom, where they have remained through three weeks of unimaginably terrible testimony. As the final ``guilty'' was read, Don Ryce bowed his head and slowly began to cry.

``We're never going to let Jimmy's spirit die,'' he said later. ``We're going to do whatever it takes to make sure that no other child in this country has to go through the hell that he did.''

The Ryces have turned their grief into a national crusade to protect children from predators. Thanks to their efforts, the boy's legacy now includes the Jimmy Ryce Child Safety Act, the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction and the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center.

`I hope you die in hell'

As the Ryces embraced prosecutors in a group hug after the verdict, a voice rang out above them. Chavez's former employer Susan Scheinhaus leaned over the balcony that overlooks the large courtroom. Her son, Edward, had been named by defense attorney Art Koch as the ``real'' killer of Jimmy Ryce.

``Mr. Koch,'' she yelled out, paralyzing all action below her, ``I hope you die in hell with the defendant!''

Koch's back stiffened, but he didn't look up, continuing to gather his files. Police immediately cleared the courtroom.

Chavez, 31, who faces a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, seemed unaffected by the emotion displayed around him in the courtroom. He listened matter-of-factly, then sat down with his attorneys. His mother, Mireya Garcia, had attended the trial Thursday but felt unable to watch the verdicts.

Two jurors were openly crying, tissues in hand, as they were polled to be certain the verdicts had been unanimous. A man in the back row and a woman in the front affirmed their votes through tears.

A third juror began to break down moments later as he was leaving the courtroom. He turned an anguished face toward the Ryces .

The same jury will return the week of Oct. 26 to recommend life or death for Chavez, who fled to the United States from Cuba on a raft in 1991. The final decision rests with Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marc Schumacher.

`I feel great'

Outside the courthouse, Edward Scheinhaus, 27, spoke briefly. ``I feel great right now,'' he said.

He remained stoic about his ordeal, which began three weeks ago when Koch unexpectedly branded him a child killer in opening statements.

``It really wasn't anything,'' he said, gesturing to the Ryces, ``compared to what they went through.''

The Ryces, who earlier in the day blasted the defense team's strategy as unethical and offensive, were tearful and shaky after the verdicts, anger subsiding into pain.

``It's been a long time getting here,'' said Claudine Ryce. ``I believe they got the man who killed my son.''

But, she continued, the verdicts can't fill the emptiness left by her son's death. ``As a mother, I have to tell you, justice in this world is imperfect,'' she said, struggling to get the words out. ``The real justice would be for Jimmy to come home now.''

She half-smiled. ``I miss him. I miss him growing up. He'd be so much taller now. I wouldn't even recognize him.''

The confession

The prosecution's case rested heavily on Chavez's confession, obtained by Miami-Dade Police after a controversial interrogation that stretched for 54 hours. In the confession, Chavez told police he had picked up Jimmy at gunpoint, asking the boy: ``Do you want to die?''

He said he forced the frightened boy to crouch down on the seat of his truck so no one would see him, then took him to a remote horse farm with a trailer. There, he raped the boy, then killed him.

He kept the boy's decomposing body in a broken van until the smell forced him to dispose of it. He chopped up the body, he said, placed the pieces in three 25-gallon planters and sealed them with cement. He kept the planters behind his home, a trailer on a five-acre compound in South Dade owned by his employer.

Chavez's confession, three months after the abduction, led police to the boy's entombed body. In his chest they found a bullet that matched a gun found in Chavez's trailer. The gun had Chavez's thumbprint on it.

The daylong deliberations were marked by a series of questions from jurors about evidence and testimony. Early in the afternoon, the panel asked the court reporter to read aloud sections of testimony from Miami-Dade Police Detective Luis Estopinan in which he recounted part of Chavez's interrogation.

The portion they wanted to hear: when Chavez allegedly confided in Estopinan that he had been sexually abused up to the age of 12 by his brother in Cuba. They also wanted to hear another description of the tube of lubricant found in the trailer.

Defense argument

Defense attorneys Koch, Manuel Alvarez and Andrew Stanton argued during the trial that Chavez is an innocent man, a poor immigrant browbeaten and intimidated into confessing.

``He's a nothing! He's a nobody; he's trash!'' Koch declared in closing arguments Thursday. ``That's why police can do things like this -- because they figure no one will care.''

Attempting to pin the crime on Edward Scheinhaus, Koch described a scenario in which Chavez stumbled upon the murder just as Scheinhaus stood over the boy's bleeding body.

But Scheinhaus took the witness stand this week to testify that he was under house arrest, wearing an electronic anklet for drunk driving, on the day the boy was slain.

Prosecutors Catherine Vogel, Michael Band and Penny Brill presented a pile of physical evidence to make their case, including a section of flooring with Jimmy's blood on it and the three plastic pots that had held Jimmy's body. One juror -- an alternate -- began to cry when a detective displayed the pots and described the body parts found in them.

The Ryces sat through it all. ``We had to sit there and be his presence in the courtroom,'' Don Ryce said. ``We had no choice.''

As they walked away, hand in hand, lead Detective Pat Diaz watched them go and nodded. ``Justice was served,'' he said. ``Just say that: Justice was served.''

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JIMMY'S KILLER GETS CHAIR
CHAVEZ `FORFEITED HIS RIGHT TO LIVE AMONG US,' JUDGE SAYS

Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 24, 1998
Author: AMY DRISCOLL, Herald Staff Writer

A Miami-Dade County circuit judge sentenced Juan Carlos Chavez to death Monday, more than three years after the former ranch hand kidnapped, raped, killed and dismembered 9-year-old Samuel James ``Jimmy'' Ryce.

As the boy's parents grimly looked on, Circuit Judge Marc Schumacher imposed the death penalty on an unflinching Chavez. A jury in Orlando, where the case was moved because of extensive pretrial publicity, last month unanimously recommended that Chavez, 31, be sent to the electric chair.

``The defendant, Juan Carlos Chavez, by his actions has forfeited his right to live among us,'' Schumacher said, reading from a prepared sentencing order. ``There can be no doubt that Samuel James Ryce lived every minute of the last few hours of his life with the fear of death.''

In the audience, tears trickled down the face of Claudine Ryce, Jimmy's mother.

Chavez gazed expressionlessly at the judge as he continued: ``It is therefore ordered and adjudged that for the first-degree murder of Samuel James Ryce that you, Juan Carlos Chavez, are hereby sentenced to death.''

He also sentenced Chavez to two terms of life imprisonment for armed kidnapping and armed sexual battery.

In the quiet that followed, Claudine Ryce stood and watched as corrections officers led Chavez away. Her eyes dogged him every step of the way as he crossed the courtroom.

Only then did she turn away, hugging State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and the prosecutors who tried the case.

``There's no doubt, absolutely no doubt, that our son's killer was convicted and the sentence was absolutely appropriate,'' Don Ryce told reporters a few moments later. The Ryces, who founded a child-abduction prevention center in their son's name, had never before said publicly whether they believed Chavez should be sentenced to death.

Claudine Ryce echoed her husband. ``I think it's appropriate in this case,'' she said to the bank of TV cameras and lights that greeted the Ryces as they walked from the courtroom.

Then her voice quavered. ``I just wish, though, that it hadn't happened,'' she said.

Monday's sentencing brought a close to a terrible episode in South Florida's history. Jimmy's abduction Sept. 11, 1995, moments after a school bus dropped him off near his South Dade home, galvanized the community.

Hundreds searched for the boy, then mourned three months later, when his dismembered remains were found sealed in cement-filled pots behind Chavez's home.

Initial confession
Police arrested Chavez after his employer found Jimmy's book bag in a trailer where Chavez was living. He confessed to kidnapping the boy at gunpoint, driving him to a remote trailer on a horse farm, raping him, then shooting him when the boy tried to escape.

Schumacher's sentencing order described what the boy went through in the last hours of his life: ``During this period of time, the victim on at least two occasions asked the defendant if he was going to be killed. The defendant, Juan Carlos Chavez, never told the victim, Samuel James Ryce, that he was not going to die, nor did he take any action to alleviate the victim's fear of death,'' the order read.

``In fact, the evidence revealed that the defendant played `mind games' with the victim by asking him what he thought the defendant could do with him. . . . Throughout this period of time, the victim was constantly sobbing.''

The case dragged through the courts for more than three years. The biggest issue was Chavez's confession, obtained by police after 54 hours of interrogation. He later retracted the confession, testifying during the trial that his employer's son was the real killer. He also said he had been afraid to report the crime because he was a counterrevolutionary in his native Cuba and feared for his life if he were deported.

Assertions rejected
Jurors rejected his claims, convicting him after 61/2 hours of deliberations of murder, kidnapping and rape.

Though Chavez now will reside on Death Row, the Ryces, prosecutors and police know the judicial process isn't over. Chavez's appeals are automatically filed before the state Supreme Court.

``My only comment is that this litigation is not over,'' defense attorney Art Koch said.

That means it's not over for the Ryces, either. ``The word closure doesn't apply when you have a child being murdered like this. It's not a substitute for getting him back,'' Don Ryce said.

Ryce said he and his wife planned to become very involved in Chavez's appeals.

``Our son went down swinging,'' Don Ryce said. ``We intend to do no less.''

Lead prosecutor Michael Band noted Florida has a history of lengthy appeals, some as long as 10 or 15 years in death penalty cases.

``Even 20 years is not out of the question in regard to death cases,'' he said.

The lead Miami-Dade detective on the case, Pat Diaz, took the long view on the sentence and the inevitable appeals. ``For the Ryce family, I'm happy this finally came to a conclusion,'' he said. ``Many, many years from now, other people will decide whether what we did was right.''