Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Michael J. Garcia - Louisiana Death Row

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Michael J. Garcia - Louisiana Death Row


    Matthew Millican





    Summary of Offense:

    Convicted and sentenced to death in June 2008 for the February 8, 2006, first-degree murder of Matthew Millican in a wooded area near Port Allen. Jurors noted the “aggravating circumstances” of armed robbery and aggravated kidnapping on their verdict form to meet the legal requirement for handing down a death penalty in Louisiana. Garcia, of Lansing, Mich., showed almost no emotion as the jury’s death verdict was read. Several members of his immediate family, who had come to Louisiana for the end of the trial, listened quietly. Garcia was arrested along with his brother, Daniel Garcia, and James Nelson II after Millican and Megan Teresi were robbed and kidnapped after they were found asleep behind a motel on La. 415 in Port Allen. Millican and Teresi were transients who described themselves as travelers. They were taken to a wooded area where Millican was killed and Teresi was beaten and repeatedly raped.

  2. #2
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534
    June 7, 2008

    Michael Garcia Sentenced to Death

    PORT ALLEN (AP) -- A West Baton Rouge Parish jury took just 26 minutes in 18th Judicial District Court on Saturday to decide that Michael Garcia should receive the death penalty for the Feb. 8, 2006, first-degree murder of Matthew Millican in a wooded area near Port Allen.

    The same jury had taken just 11 minutes Friday night to find Garcia guilty of first-degree murder of Millican.

    District Judge Robin Free scheduled sentencing for 8:30 a.m. on June 17.

    A crew from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola took Garcia into another room where he quickly changed from the dark blue suit with tie he had been wearing during the trial into an orange prison jump suit. He was taken away in a prison van.

    Jurors noted the “aggravating circumstances” of armed robbery and aggravated kidnapping on their verdict form to meet the legal requirement for handing down a death penalty in Louisiana.

    Garcia, 29, of Lansing, Mich., showed almost no emotion as the jury’s death verdict was read. Several members of his immediate family, who had come to Louisiana for the end of the trial, listened quietly.

    Garcia was arrested along with his brother, Daniel Garcia, and James Nelson II after Millican and Megan Teresi were robbed and kidnapped after they were found asleep behind a motel on La. 415 in Port Allen.

    Millican and Teresi were transients who described themselves as travelers.

    They were taken to a wooded area where Millican was killed and Teresi was beaten and repeatedly raped.

    2:36 p.m.

    PORT ALLEN — The jury hearing the penalty phase of Michael Garcia’s first-degree murder trial retired at 2:36 p.m. Saturday to decide whether Garcia should be sentenced to death by lethal injection or given life in prison for the Feb. 8, 2006, slaying of Matthew Millican.

    Friday night, the same jury deliberated just 11 minutes before finding Garcia guilty of leading an attack by himself and two other men on a transient couple, leaving Millican dead and his companion, Megan Teresi, the victim of beatings and multiple rapes.

    12:05 a.m.

    PORT ALLEN — A West Baton Rouge Parish jury took just 11 minutes Friday night to find Michael Garcia guilty of first-degree murder.

    Garcia, 29, of Lansing, Mich., was convicted in 18th Judicial District Court of the Feb. 8, 2006, fatal stabbing of Matthew Millican in a wooded area just outside Port Allen, not far from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

    Prosecutor Tony Clayton said as the courtroom emptied that he had never seen a verdict returned so quickly in a major felony case, and pronounced himself “flabbergasted.”

    “It’s my birthday,” Clayton declared, “and I can’t think of a better present.”

    Jurors are scheduled to return to court at 10 a.m. today for the penalty phase of the trial.

    Prosecutors will try to persuade the same jury members who convicted Garcia that he should be sentenced to death by lethal injection. Defense attorneys will plead for the alternative sentence, life imprisonment.

    Winning a first-degree murder conviction requires proving that the killing took place while other crimes were being committed, and much of Friday’s testimony consisted of Millican’s woman companion, Megan Teresi, telling the jury of her night of torment and loss.

    The Advocate does not print the names of victims of sex crimes without their consent. Teresi said she was willing to allow her name to be published as she pressed for Garcia’s conviction.

    Teresi told jurors how she and Millican were awakened by Garcia, his brother, Daniel Garcia, and accomplice James “Fat Boy” Nelson as the couple slept outdoors behind a motel.

    She said they were armed with knives and machetes.

    Teresi said Michael Garcia was the leader as the three men put pillow cases over the heads of Millican and Teresi and led them into some dark woods.

    When they stopped, Teresi said the attackers had hog-tied Millican with his own bootlaces.

    She described how she was repeatedly raped and forced to perform humiliating sexual acts, while Millican was instructed to watch.

    She said when Millican asked the men to stop, they hit him with beer bottles and broke a log over his head.

    Teresi said Michael Garcia later led Millican away while holding a knife on him, with Nelson walking just behind.

    “They were gone for a long time,” she said, and then she heard a scream. Garcia and Nelson were laughing when they returned, she told the court.

    Teresi said Michael Garcia then led the group to an abandoned service station where Nelson raped her again, and she was bound, gagged and partially disrobed.

    Teresi said she managed to get partially free of her bonds as morning came, and when she heard the voice of a friend, Robert “Hollywood” Peterson, she hopped to the door and shouted for him to help.

    She said Peterson pushed Michael Garcia aside and led her away. The two of them looked for Millican, but couldn’t find him. Then they called Millican’s brother and 911. Millican’s body was found in the waterway later that day.

    Under cross-examination, Teresi acknowledged leading a transient lifestyle, to having used drugs and to having been a panhandler, but she stuck to her account of the events.

    She said that she did not see when Millican was killed, and could not say for certain who killed him.

    After her testimony ended, the prosecution rested its case.

    Peterson, who testified earlier Friday, backed up Teresi’s account of her rescue.

    He testified wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. When Clayton asked why, Peterson said he is serving a three-year sentence in California for “beating up a child molester.”

    “You got three years for that?” Clayton asked, and Peterson replied, “I beat him up pretty good.”

    Jurors heard Dr. Alfred Suarez, a Baton Rouge pathologist, review a report on Millican’s autopsy.

    Although Garcia told homicide investigators he accidentally stabbed Millican, Suarez said the blade was driven in with powerful force, penetrating Millican’s heart and right lung, killing Millican quickly.

    Suarez said the fatal stab wound in Millican’s body could not have been inflicted accidentally.

    Under cross-examination, Suarez said Millican died of the knife wound and did not drown.

    Defense attorneys called four witnesses to the stand, one of them Nelson.

    Dr. Emil Laga, a New Iberia pathologist, testified for the defense he believes the fatal knife wound was inflicted by a left-handed attacker.

    Defense attorneys had already established that Nelson is left-handed.

    “The evidence against Michael Garcia is so powerful, I’m almost afraid of it,” Assistant District Attorney Clayton said in his closing argument. “It is overwhelming and powerful.”

    Clayton praised “Hollywood,” saying that if he hadn’t rescued Teresi, she would have been killed, too.

    “He (Garcia) wasn’t going to leave any eyewitnesses,” Clayton added.

    Defense attorney Tommy Thompson spoke to the jury about 10 minutes in delivering closing arguments for the defense.

    Thompson said Garcia “isn’t a Boy Scout or a first-class citizen,” but asserted there is a possibility that Nelson is the real killer.

    Thompson asked jurors to consider convicting his client of second-degree murder, which is not punishable by death.

    In his rebuttal, Clayton said second-degree murder is not a proper verdict for what took place that night.

    “Let there be no more argument when that knock comes on the door,” Clayton said, referring to the courthouse signal sounded when a jury reaches a verdict. “Let there be no more rapes, no more knives.”

  3. #3
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534
    July 8, 2008

    PORT ALLEN, LA (WAFB) - It's the first death sentence handed down in West Baton Rouge Parish in decades.

    Tuesday morning, West Baton Rouge Parish District Court Judge Robin Free issued the ruling. Convicted killer Michael Garcia will pay with his life for murdering Michael Millican near a Port Allen gas station in 2006. The courtroom gasped when Robin Free handed down the death penalty for Garcia. The courtroom was packed with dozens of people, many of whom had no idea Garcia was coming up Tuesday morning.

    Garcia arrived at the courthouse under heavy security. Last month, a West Baton Rouge Parish jury convicted Garcia of the first-degree murder of Matthew Millican. Tuesday morning, Millican's mother talked to Garcia during the victim's impact statement. She boldly proclaimed that she wanted him to suffer the nightmares she and her family has. She also told him she wished he would rot in hell.

    "I mean, when that lady wished he would rot in hell, it sent chills down my body. And it brought it home. It made me aware that crimes of this nature, that there're victims, and it has a profound impact on victims and she meant every word she said," says lead prosecutor Tony Clayton.

    Garcia was immediately taken to Angola State Penitentiary. He'll spend 23 hours a day in a small cell, alone. He gets one hour a day exercise. Death penalty cases are automatically appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

    http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=8641230

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    STATE V. GARCIA

    In an opinion dated September 23, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court remanded Garcia's appeal to the trial court to address claims of defense attorney conflict of interest.

  5. #5
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    2,740
    Conviction upheld by state court

    By Bill Lodge
    The Advocate

    With one dissent, the murder conviction and death sentence of Michael J. Garcia in a horrific 2006 West Baton Rouge Parish incident was upheld Friday by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

    Garcia, 33, was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2008 for first-degree murder of another homeless man, Matthew Millican, in a wooded area near the south end of La. 415, according to court records.

    Danil Lee Garcia, Michael Garcia’s 41-year-old brother, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

    A third defendant, 28-year-old James Edward “Fat Boy” Nelson II, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, three counts of forcible rape, second-degree kidnapping and armed robbery. Nelson testified against Michael Garcia and was sentenced to a prison term of 60 years.

    Millican’s companion, Megan Teresi, testified at trial that the three defendants beat and hog-tied Millican before making him watch them rape her, sodomize her and force her to perform oral sex on them.

    Teresi testified that Michael Garcia and Nelson then led Millican into the woods and returned without him.

    Nelson testified that Michael Garcia got behind Millican, pulled a knife, reached over the man’s right shoulder, and plunged the blade into his chest.

    Teresi will never testify again, except by recording or transcript. In April 2009, she was found dead in Portland, Ore. Her cause of death is not known.

    Appeals attorneys for Michael Garcia argued for a new trial on grounds that all three defendants were represented from 2006 through 2008 by lawyers who either were on the staff of the 18th Judicial District Indigent Defender’s Office or who were contracted by that office.

    Garcia’s appeals attorneys said that situation posed a conflict of interest that threatened Garcia’s right to independent counsel.

    Justice Jeannette Theriot Knoll, writing for the Supreme Court majority, said Friday: “We find no legal error in the District Court’s conclusion … the attorneys in this matter were independent contractors.

    “We cannot say the death sentence in this case is disproportionate.” She said “the defendant’s conviction and death sentence are affirmed.”

    Justice John L. Weimer dissented, however.

    “As odious as the crime here was to society, a court must nevertheless be resolute in ensuring the rules of engagement related to conflicted counsel are observed,” Weimer said.

    “Attorneys associated with the same Indigent Defense Board were set to contrary tasks: One group attempted to spare (Michael Garcia’s) life; another group secured a deal with the state for Nelson to testify in aid of the state’s effort to put (Michael Garcia) to death.”

    “Given the irrevocability of the penalty of death, this matter should be remanded for a new trial,” Weimer argued.

    http://theadvocate.com/home/4453495-...by-state-court

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Supreme Court upholds murder conviction, death penalty in Garcia conviction

    District Attorney Richard J. Ward, Jr. reports that on June 24, 2013, the Supreme Court Of The United States upheld the 1st degree murder conviction and death penalty of Michael Garcia from The 18th Judicial District Court, Parish Of West Baton Rouge.

    Garcia's petition claimed that his trial attorneys had a conflict of interest because they and Garcia's co-defendants' lawyers are all public defenders for the 18th Judicial District.

    This issue was previously upheld by The Louisiana Supreme Court On Appeal after it ordered a hearing to determine the employment status of the attorneys that defended Garcia and his do-defendants, Danil Garica and James Nelson.

    The state proved that there was no conflict between the public defenders because they all practiced as independent contractors, separate from one another even though they do work for the same office.

    Garcia was tried and convicted in June 2008 for the murder of Matthew Millican after kidnapping and brutalizing him and his girlfriend at knifepoint in Port Allen.

    Garcia, along with his co-defendants, ended up here on a crime spree that started in Florida where they sexually assaulted and murdered a woman in her home.

    While running from their crimes in Florida, they stole a travel trailer in Slidell that broke down while they were traveling on Interstate 10 in West Baton Rouge Parish.

    Lead appellate counsel for District Attorney Ricky Ward's Office was Antonio M. "Tony" Clayton and Elizabeth A. Engolio authored the brief in opposition for the state.

    William Sothern Of Conner And Sothern, Llc in New Orleans was counsel of record for Garcia.

    (Source: The Plaquemine Post South)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •