Judges reject appeal in double murder, dismemberment case

FREEHOLD, N.J. » An appellate court has rejected the appeal of a New Jersey man who said God told him to kill and dismember his grandmother and his ex-girlfriend more than 15 years ago.

Superior Court judges ruled Friday that 48-yearold Rosario Miraglia missed a deadline to seek reversal of his murder conviction, The Asbury Park Press reported. The judges also ruled there was no merit in his appeal, which argued that his attorney had improperly argued he was insane.

Miraglia is serving two consecutive life terms in the June 2004 slayings of 88-year-old Julia Miraglia and 31-year-old Leigh Martinez. Both women were decapitated and had their hands and feet severed. During his trial, he said he was driving from Newark to Asbury Park, listening to religious tapes, when “a revelation came to me.”

The appeal argued that Miraglia had a right to rule out the insanity defense his attorney unsuccessfully argued at his 2008 trial in Monmouth County. Although state and federal decisions following the trial guarantee such a right, the appeals court said they aren’t retroactive. And, the judges said, they don’t apply in Miraglia’s case because he didn’t object to the defense during trial and in fact insisted on testifying against the advice of his attorney.

“At trial, defendant asserted that he should be found not guilty because he was Jesus Christ and was on a mission from God when he killed the victims,” Judges Clarkson Fisher Jr. and Robert J. Gilson wrote. “Alternatively, defendant relied on an insanity defense. The jury rejected defendant’s claim of innocence and his affirmative defense of insanity.”

Asked during the trial why God would have wanted him to kill the women, Miraglia responded that God didn’t owe him an explanation. He also testified that he believed the jurors were the Twelve Apostles who would acquit him.

The state public defender argued that Miraglia was a paranoid schizophrenic who was suffering from delusions. Prosecutors, however, argued that he was faking insanity and made up the religious motive, and that he really killed the women because they had excluded him from their lives.

The judges noted it was the second time Miraglia sought reversal of his convictions and the second time he missed the oneyear deadline to file the petitions. Appellate judges previously upheld Miraglia’s convictions on direct appeal and the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case.