Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard 2010 Annual Report

Criminal Division (continued)
Todd Lawson, centered, received an award of appreciation from the U.S. Department
of Education Office of Inspector General in recognition of his prosecution of their cases
involving the use of stolen identities to obtain student loans. With Lawson are Jon
Greenblatt and Natalie Forbort, from the Inspector General’s Office.
tion and he was found with an
electrical cord at the front of his
throat. He also had lacerations
about his face and puncture
wounds in his back. Dyer had
telephoned a friend at work two
days earlier to tell him he had
talked someone named Jeff into
coming to his apartment to have
sexual relations. On December
20, 1989, police arrested
Jeffrey Landrigan on unrelated
charges. He was wearing a
shirt that belonged to the victim.
Landrigan’s fingerprints were at
the crime scene and blood on
his shoe matched blood from
the victim’s shirt.
Landrigan’s appellate and
post-conviction arguments were
rejected in state and federal
courts during an 18-year appeal
process. He subsequently challenged
Arizona’s lethal injection
protocol in a petition for postconviction
relief filed after the
U.S. Supreme Court addressed
the constitutionality of Kentucky’s
lethal injection protocol
in Baze v. Rees. The Maricopa
County Superior Court upheld
Arizona’s protocol, and in 2010
the Arizona Supreme Court
denied Landrigan’s petition for
review from that decision. The
State’s request for an execution
warrant will be addressed by
the Arizona Supreme Court in
September.
State v. Cook
Daniel Cook, John Matzke, and
Carlos Cruz-Ramos worked at
a restaurant in Lake Havasu
City and shared an apartment.
On July 19, 1987, Cook stole
money from Cruz-Ramos. When
Cruz-Ramos began searching
the apartment for the money,
Cook and Matzke tied him to a
chair and began beating him finished, he woke Matzke and
with their fists and a metal pipe. the two men strangled Swaney
Cook also cut Cruz-Ramos with a bed sheet. Matzke plead
with a knife, sodomized him guilty to second-degree murder
and burned his genitals with and testified against Cook.
cigarettes. After several hours
Like Landrigan, following the denial
of state and federal appeals,
of torture, Matzke and Cook
crushed Cruz-Ramos’ throat
Cook challenged the constitutionality
of Arizona’s lethal injec-
with the pipe.
When Kevin Swaney, another tion protocol in a post-conviction
co-worker, arrived at the apartment,
Cook forced him upstairs The Mohave County Superior
proceeding in Mohave County.
and showed him Cruz-Ramos’ Court rejected Cook’s claim, and
body. Cook and Matzke then the Arizona Supreme Court will
tied Swaney to a chair. Matzke address his petition for review in
slept while Cook sodomized September 2010.
Swaney. When Cook was
AG Goddard announces the Western Union settlement at a Phoenix press conference.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard • 2010 Annual Report
16