USA - California. Miguel Bacigalupo gets off death row

Miguel Bacigalupo gets off death row. Santa Clara County District Attorne's Office today notified a judge that it will not retry the penalty phase of Miguel Bacigalupo's murder case, satisfied he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. on Aug. 27, 2012 (see) the California Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, tossed out the 1985 death penalty of Bacigalupo, who was sent to death row for the Dec. 29, 1983. slayings of 2 brothers in their jewellery store. Bacigalupo admitted killing the brothers but said he was ordered to do so by the Colombian Mafia under threats that he and his family would be killed. The high court said Santa Clara County prosecutors failed to disclose credible information that  Bacigalupo carried out the murders of Orestes and Jose Luis Guerrero under threats from the Colombian mafia. The court also reasoned had prosecutors done so, the jury in Bacigalupo's trial in 1985 may have been more sympathetic and recommended a sentence of life in prison. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen could have retried the penalty phase, but opted for a life sentence instead of pursuing another trial so many years after the crime. "I decided, in the interests of justice, not to retry the penalty phase because ... it is unlikely that a jury would return a death verdict more than 30 years after these murders," Rosen said in a statement. Robert Bryan, Bacigalupo's lawyer, said Tuesday he is pressing forward with an appeal in federal court to overturn the murder convictions based on the same misconduct.