LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - A federal appellate panel has ordered a new trial and reversed a couple’s drug convictions partly because a prosecutor cited their beliefs in a religious figure regarded as the patron saint of drug dealers and as the angel of the poor.
According to the Courier Journal , an opinion this week by a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel said the attacks regarding beliefs in “Jesús Malverde” were “utterly irrelevant to the question of guilt.”
The opinion says Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger West likely used Luis Morales-Montanez’s beliefs to paint him as someone steeped in drug culture. Morales-Montanez and Jessica Acosta were convicted in Eastern Kentucky federal court of distributing $20,000 worth of methamphetamine.
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West and a U.S. attorney’s office spokesman didn’t respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.
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Information from: Courier Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com
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