The attorney of one of the illegal migrant suspects charged in the murder of Texas 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray has filed for a protective order to ensure that the negative media attention the case has received will not prevent him from his right to a fair trial.
Two Venezuelan nationals – 21-year-old Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and 26-year-old Franklin Jose Peña Ramos – have been charged with capital murder in Nungaray’s death after the 12-year-old was found strangled to death in a Houston creek on June 17.
The two men reportedly crossed illegally into the US earlier this year.
Peña’s attorneys filed a protective order “preventing the parties to this cause, law enforcement officials, the Houston Forensic Science Center, or court personnel from making extrajudicial statements or otherwise disseminating information concerning this cause by any means of public communications.”
In the protective order filing, reviewed by Fox News Digital, the attorneys argued that media attention was “likely to produce a result of undue prejudice” during Peña’s trial.
“The additional extra-judicial statements to the news media are likely to produce a result of undue prejudice in the community to deprive the Defendant of a fair trial guaranteed by Article I of the Texas Constitution and the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution,” the motion said.
The filing argued that Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg made “made numerous statements about the case that went beyond the statements of the prosecutor during the probable cause hearing.”
The documents cited Ogg saying: “[M]make no mistake, this is a horrific crime” and “the immigration system is broken.” Peña’s attorney argued that these statements would produce prejudice in his trial.
In the filing, Peña’s attorneys concluded their request by asking for all parties involved in the case to “refrain from making any further extrajudicial statements relating to this cause and to refrain from further dissemination of information, regardless of whether the information was previously disclosed to the public, concerning this cause by way of public communication, and for all other relief just and proper in the case.”
Jocelyn Nungaray family speaks out
Nungaray’s murder has prompted calls for stronger border enforcement and accountability.
During Trump’s visit to the southern border on Aug. 22, Alexis Nungaray, the mother of the 12-year-old, spoke out about her daughter’s murder.
“It’s still very, very early. It’s still very, very raw. It’s still very, very surreal,” she said.
Alexis said Peña and Martinez “shouldn’t have been released” after they were first detained.
“There was over 300 detention beds that they should have been at (sic) because they were detained, and they were released when they shouldn’t have been released,” Alexis said. “One had an ankle monitor, but that didn’t stop anything.”
“So now I have to go through the rest of my life with my son always asking for his sister,” she said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and Peña’s attorney for comment.
