Jurors in Camarena Case Ask Judge for Materials

During their third day of deliberations, jurors in the Enrique Camarena murder trial in Los Angeles federal court asked U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie to provide them with additional material.

The judge agreed to give the jurors a tape recorder so that they could listen to a tape played during the trial dealing with whether defendant Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez was at the Guadalajara house where Camarena was tortured in February, 1985. He also agreed to give them a looseleaf notebook containing photographs of the four defendants in the case. The jurors said the photocopies of photographs they had been using were unsatisfactory.

Rafeedie denied jurors’ request that he re-create the scene in the courtroom on the day when a key prosecution witness was unable to identify defendant Javier Vasquez Velasco.