McDaniel to be sentenced today

[smupony94]

Paroled murderer and drug dealer McDaniel to be sentenced today in death of SMU student Bosch

12:21 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 28, 2009

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

The paroled murderer and drug dealer who was found responsible this past summer for the 2007 overdose death of Southern Methodist University student Meaghan Bosch will be sentenced by a federal judge this morning.

U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay could sentence James McDaniel, 49, of Dallas, to life in prison for Bosch’s death. The hearing is set for 9 a.m. in downtown Dallas.

On June 5, a federal jury convicted McDaniel of causing the death of Bosch. Construction workers found her body May 14, 2007, in a portable toilet in Hewitt, just south of Waco. Witnesses testified seeing Bosch in McDaniel's poker room near the SMU campus four days earlier, snorting cocaine and smoking methamphetamine.

Evidence showed that as her family, friends and police frantically searched for her, Bosch lay in McDaniel's duplex, barely breathing and nearly comatose. At one point, McDaniel, gun in hand, kept two men from taking her to the emergency room. He demanded they come up with a "story" first, testimony showed.

After Bosch's body was identified, McDaniel, on the run from police, phoned one of his former SMU cocaine customers. "'She OD'd on her own,'" the young woman testified that McDaniel told her. "'She bought drugs from me. They're just trying to frame me.'"

When police caught up with McDaniel on May 23, 2007, he was passed out from an apparent suicide attempt in the apartment of an SMU student who said he had drugged her in the past.

Prosecutor Brandon McCarthy on Monday filed a motion seeking permission from the judge to let several people testify at sentencing. Most are family members of Bosch. One, however, is Ralph Horan, brother of James Burt Horan, a 33-year-old former Dallas police officer that McDaniel was convicted of killing in 1978.

McDaniel served more than 20 years in prison for Horan’s death before he was paroled in 2001. Several former Texas prison officials also are expected to attend the sentencing. They say McDaniel had a reputation as a manipulative, violent inmate.

Jurors in the June trial of McDaniel over Bosch’s death were not told about his prior murder conviction. Nor were they made aware that authorities believe McDaniel drugged and raped up to a dozen young women, many former SMU students. Authorities say he befriended many of his victims in his underground poker rooms located near campus, and several are expected to attend his sentencing.

[PonyKai]

If you wanna lose faith in people, read the comments. Hard to think of something worse then reading people's anonymous opinions.

[Otto]

Per DMN: life in prison

[MrMustang1965]

Per DMN: life in prison

In other words, 15 years.

[Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex]

Per DMN: life in prison

In other words, 15 years.

Nope, it's life. Only way it's 15 years is if somehow manages to die while in custody.

[mrydel]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

[smupony94]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

Not that I am aware of.

[Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

I don't know about the State of Texas but because this was tried in a Federal Court and not a State Court, it's a different ballgame. So a life sentence is just that...a life sentence. So there is virtually no chance for him to be a free man again. I had this explained to me by someone who understands the Federal sentencing guidelines very well.

[smupony94]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

I don't know about the State of Texas but because this was tried in a Federal Court and not a State Court, it's a different ballgame. So a life sentence is just that...a life sentence. So there is virtually no chance for him to be a free man again. I had this explained to me by someone who understands the Federal sentencing guidelines very well.[/quote]


Your court appointed attorney?

[mrydel]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

I don't know about the State of Texas but because this was tried in a Federal Court and not a State Court, it's a different ballgame. So a life sentence is just that...a life sentence. So there is virtually no chance for him to be a free man again. I had this explained to me by someone who understands the Federal sentencing guidelines very well.

Then that is a good thing.

[Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex]

When I was a PI in Texas, there was no life without parole. Normal life sentence was about 17 years before release. Has Texas adopted a life without parole sentence?

I don't know about the State of Texas but because this was tried in a Federal Court and not a State Court, it's a different ballgame. So a life sentence is just that...a life sentence. So there is virtually no chance for him to be a free man again. I had this explained to me by someone who understands the Federal sentencing guidelines very well.[/quote]


Your court appointed attorney?

No, Oscar.