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Thread: Antolin Garcia-Torres Sentenced to LWOP in 2012 CA Murder of Sierra LaMar

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    Sierra LaMar: Convicted killer’s home life included father raping young relative

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — Hoping to persuade jurors to opt for life without parole rather than the death penalty, lawyers for the man convicted of killing missing teen Sierra LaMar intend to bring in a psychologist to describe his hellish childhood, including having to live with a father now serving a life sentence for raping a female relative in their home, starting when she was 7 years old.

    Now, prosecutors want to retain a psychologist of their own, essentially to test whether Antolin Garcia-Torres “truly has ineffective coping skills or unresolved grief” and any known mental impairment from childhood neglect, violence, poverty and incest.

    In a motion filed this week, prosecutor David Boyd said that by having Dr. Gretchen White testify about the effects of Garcia-Torres’ childhood, “the defense is putting the defendant’s mental state in issue,” meaning making it fair game under case law.

    The defense, led by lawyer Brian Matthews, is expected to oppose Boyd’s request to have his expert spend a total of eight hours conducting clinical interviews with Garcia-Torres, a mental status exam and associated psychological testing.
    A hearing is set for Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court before Judge Vanessa A. Zecher.

    Garcia-Torres, 26, was convicted earlier this week of kidnapping and killing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who was on her way to her school bus stop in a rural community north of Morgan Hill when she vanished five years ago. Her body has not been found despite a yearslong search by more than 750 volunteers from around the Bay Area. The jury, which reached a verdict in two days after a three-month trial, also convicted him of attempting to kidnap three other women from Safeway parking lots in Morgan Hill in 2009.

    The same Santa Clara County Superior Court jury is set to begin hearing evidence Tuesday during the “penalty phase” of the trial, after which it will decide whether Garcia-Torres should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole.

    In a brief report filed with Boyd’s motion, the doctor retained by the defense listed other factors besides incest that she contends affected Garcia-Torres: parental criminality, child maltreatment, low levels of parental involvement, poor family bonding, family conflict, parental attitudes favorable to substance abuse and violence, and parent-child separation.

    Garcia-Torres’ family background may ultimately be seen as grounds for sympathy or as the pathological root of his criminality. But his father’s sexual molestation trial helps illuminate what life was like in the family home where Garcia-Torres was raised.

    Garcia-Torres’ father, Genaro Garcia Fernandez, was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation in late September of 2012, just six months after Sierra LaMar disappeared on March 16, 2012.

    The jury in that case, which received media coverage at the time, reached a verdict in two days, just as the jurors did in his son’s trial earlier this week.

    During the trial, witnesses testified that the 5-feet-4-inch Fernandez ruled his house with an iron hand.

    “He hit me,” his wife Laura Torres testified, ”a lot.”

    According to one of Garcia-Torres’ sisters, the victim would try to keep Fernandez out of her bedroom by pulling out the drawers of a bureau to block the entryway.

    The prosecutor in the father’s case, Murat Ozgur noted that Fernandez eventually apologized to the young woman he repeatedly molested, but essentially claimed it was her fault.

    “He explained, she wanted it, she liked it,” Ozgur said in court, adding that even though Fernandez began raping her at a young age, “he claimed he didn’t take her virginity.”

    The doctor Boyd wants to hire is well-known forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie. He worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for 14 years counseling officers and advising them during hostage-crisis situations. Despite his background in law enforcement, Mohandie also has been hired by the defense about a third of the time, and he stressed his independence at a local trial in 2013.

    At that trial, Mohandie testified that the Silicon Valley engineer who gunned down three of his bosses after being fired from Siport in Santa Clara was not insane — and the jury agreed.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/1...eating-mother/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Sierra LaMar: Attorneys spar over ground rules for penalty phase

    Emotional imagery, psychological testimony at issue between attorneys heading into the penalty trial phase that will determine whether Antolin Garcia-Torres will be sentenced to death

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — With jurors poised to hear arguments on whether the man convicted of killing missing teen Sierra LaMar should get the death penalty or life without parole, a song by the rock band Aerosmith came up as attorneys and the judge sparred Monday over how much emotional imagery and testimony the panel can hear during the penalty phase.

    The exchange was one of several Monday aimed at laying the ground rules for that phase of Antolin Garcia-Torres’ trial, which is set to begin Tuesday. Also among the other items at issue: whether the prosecution can have its forensic psychologist subject Garcia-Torres to a psychological evaluation.

    The courtroom music critiques were set up by dueling plans, by Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd and defense attorneys Brian Matthews and Al Lopez from the Alternate Defender’s Office, to show jurors videos and slideshows aimed at illustrating the vibrant personality of Sierra, and at humanizing Garcia-Torres.

    Matthews objected to the breadth and length of the prosecution’s AV presentation, including clips of Sierra lip-syncing a ballad.

    “It’s too much,” he said, adding that it could lead to a jury to “rule on the basis of emotion” rather than legal principles.

    Judge Vanessa A. Zecher ordered Boyd to pare down the number of images of Sierra that would be shown. But she also championed the still-missing Sierra in reaffirming the prosecution’s visual show.

    “The victim has a voice here as well,” Zecher said.

    Zecher was also receptive to prosecutors’ insistence that the defense attorneys’ plan to show a video compiled by Garcia-Torres’ family be with muted audio because of the “mood-altering music” of the video’s soundtrack — including an Aerosmith song.

    The defense, Boyd said, has no more of a “right to eliciting jurors’ emotions than we do.”

    Hoping to persuade jurors to opt for life without parole rather than the death penalty, the attorneys for Garcia-Torres also sought to bring in a psychologist to describe his reportedly troubled childhood, including having to live with a father now serving a life sentence for raping a female relative, starting when she was 7 years old.

    In response, prosecutors wanted an order from Zecher to retain a psychologist of their own to test whether Garcia-Torres “truly has ineffective coping skills or unresolved grief.” In a motion filed last week, Boyd contended that by having Dr. Gretchen White testify about the effects of Garcia-Torres’ childhood, “the defense is putting the defendant’s mental state in issue,” meaning making it fair game under case law.

    But Matthews opposed Boyd’s request to have his expert spend a total of eight hours conducting clinical interviews with Garcia-Torres, a mental status exam and associated psychological testing.

    In a brief filed Monday morning, Matthews argued that the defense is not claiming Garcia-Torres has a mental illness, and its expert will be testifying only about his “psychosocial history” and “the impact salient aspects of that history has on a person.”

    “The jury is being asked to make a reasoned decision,” he said in court Monday. “They need to consider this before sentencing a man to die.”

    Matthews also contended that the results of any testing by the prosecution’s expert would be unreliable because Garcia-Torres’ “mental condition is weakened by the fact of his conviction and the reality that he will, at least, spend the rest of his life in prison.”

    The judge delayed her decision on the psychological issues until Wednesday morning.

    Garcia-Torres sat in court during the two-hour hearing, silent except for some whispers to his attorneys.

    Boyd also sought to exclude another defense expert, Dr. Andres Lugo, from testifying that Garcia-Torres suffered long-term exposure to pesticides, perchlorates and possibly mercury, claiming among other arguments that the doctor’s testimony would be speculative. No decision was made Monday on whether that testimony would be allowed.

    Garcia-Torres, 26, was convicted last week of kidnapping and killing the 15-year-old Sierra, who was on her way to her school bus stop in a rural community north of Morgan Hill when she vanished five years ago. Her body has not been found despite a yearslong search by more than 750 volunteers from around the Bay Area. The jury, which reached a verdict in two days after a three-month trial, also convicted him of attempting to kidnap three other women from Safeway parking lots in Morgan Hill in 2009.

    Zecher also questioned whether some of the dozen-plus victim-impact witnesses — family and friends testifying on their loss from Sierra’s presumed death — planned to speak on behalf of the prosecution were redundant. Boyd said diminishing that portion of the proceedings would ostensibly “reward the defendant for his conduct.”

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/15/4570627/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Sierra LaMar: Prosecution urges death sentence while defense calls for mercy

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — A prosecutor Tuesday urged the jury that convicted Antolin Garcia-Torres last week of killing missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar and attacking three other women to recommend the death penalty.

    “This part of the trial is about justice,” Deputy District Attorney David Boyd told the jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court. “What is the one just verdict that answers for the unspeakable things the defendant did to her? … Death is the only fair and just verdict.”

    Garcia-Torres’ attorney Brian Matthews, however, urged jurors to reach a “reasoned, moral” decision.

    “This time you will consider not just the information, but also the man,” Matthews said. “His life is in your hands.”

    Last week, the jury convicted Garcia-Torres, 26, of kidnapping and killing 15-year-old Sierra, who was on her way to her school bus stop in a rural community north of Morgan Hill when she vanished five years ago. Her body has not been found despite searches by more than 750 volunteers from around the Bay Area.

    The jury, which reached a verdict in two days after a three-month trial, also convicted Garcia-Torres of attempting to kidnap three other women from Safeway parking lots in Morgan Hill in 2009.

    Matthews urged jurors to consider that Garcia-Torres’ mother married her father when she was just 13, that he lived his early childhood in a shack on field where his parents picked strawberries. Garcia-Torres’ father, Matthews said, drank all the time, yelled at his mother, beat her and choked her with her own waist-length long dark hair.

    Garcia-Torres’ older brother, a substance abuser whom Garcia-Torres looked up to and tried to help, ended up being deported and dying in Mexico.

    Despite his rough upbringing, Garcia-Torres cared for and was protective of his sisters, and when he got his girlfriend pregnant, stayed with her and was a good parent, Matthews said.

    “The evidence will show you that Antolin’s life has value even after the guilty verdict and should not be extinguished,” Matthews said. “A life sentence can be fair and just, and it can be more appropriate.”

    More than 20 people may testify for the prosecution about the sorrowful impact of Sierra’s death, including Sierra’s family, many friends and a teacher. Boyd also said the three women whom Garcia-Torres tried to kidnap will take the stand to tell the jury about terror Garcia-Torres inspired.

    The first friend testifying for the prosecution was Tatianna Isom-Horry, 19, who was on Sierra’s cheerleading team. She wept as she recalled the day her friend vanished, saying she text-messaged Sierra repeatedly that evening, thinking reports of her disappearance must be a cruel joke.

    “She was just genuinely nice person,” Isom-Horry said. “She was a ray of sunshine.”

    She said that since then, she’s been on edge.

    “You don’t feel safe anywhere you go,” Isom-Horry testified.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/1...lls-for-mercy/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Sierra LaMar: Jurors, mother, weep as missing girl remembered in court

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — Jurors weighing whether to recommend a death sentence for the man they convicted of killing missing teen Sierra LaMar wept in court Thursday as photos and video of the girl played on a screen and her mom sobbed.

    The convicted killer, Antolin Garcia-Torres, 26, stared straight ahead, showing no emotion amid the display of Sierra as a cherubic baby and later as a teenager singing along with a music video, slightly off-key. Her sister, Danielle LaMar, testified this week that she used to tease Sierra about the way she sang, but that never stopped the effervescent girl.

    Volunteers who helped to search for Sierra, whose body has not been found, and who had recently moved to a rural area near Morgan Hill from Fremont, also wept during the presentation. Afterward, they hugged Sierra’s mother, Marlene LaMar, outside the courtroom. Many have come to court every day to support Marlene and Sierra’s father, Steve, since the trial began more than three months ago.

    Prosecutor David Boyd has urged the jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court to recommend the death penalty for Garcia-Torres, calling it the “only just and fair verdict.” Garcia-Torres also was convicted of three attempts to kidnap women outside a supermarket three years before Sierra vanished Mar. 16, 2012 on her way to catch a bus to school in a semi-rural area north of Morgan Hill.

    Garcia-Torres’ lawyer, Brian Matthews, urged mercy, saying the jury should reach a “reasoned, moral” decision and would hear that Garcia-Torres endured a rough upbringing in a poor family with a father who beat his mother and raped a female relative starting when she was 7 years old.

    Also testifying Thursday was one of the women Garcia-Torres was convicted of attacking at a supermarket in Morgan Hill. She told jurors she feared she would be raped and that the stress of the encounter destroyed her marriage.

    “The incident broke us,” Cynthia Lundy testified.

    The prosecution rested its case Thursday morning and the defense will begin presenting its evidence Monday.

    Thursday afternoon, the judge and lawyers outside the presence of the jury discussed several issues having to do with the admissibility of evidence, meaning what the jury will hear.

    The defense wants Judge Vanessa A. Zecher to allow the psychologist it retained to testify about Garcia-Torres’ chaotic childhood, including poverty, neglect and the incest. Earlier this week, the judge indicated she may allow the psychologist to testify about the risk factors present in Garcia-Torres’ childhood, but not that they specifically affected him. The defense is not conceding that Garcia-Torres is guilty, just that the jury should take his “psycho-social history” into consideration when deciding whether to recommend the death penalty or life without parole.

    The judge said Monday that she wants Garcia-Torres’ family to testify first, then she will revisit the issue of whether to allow the psychologist to take the stand.

    The prosecutor wants to retain an expert of its own if the judge allows the defense’s expert to testify. That psychologist would spend a total of eight hours conducting clinical interviews, a mental status exam and psychological testing of Garcia-Torres.

    Normally, that would not be allowed. But Boyd contends that by having Dr. Gretchen White testify about the effects of Garcia-Torres’ childhood, “the defense is putting the defendant’s mental state in issue.”

    The defense also wants Zecher to allow them to tell the jury about the conduct of the lead detective in another murder trial. The judge in the other murder trial, Sharon Chatman, took the extremely rare step of setting aside the verdict against two men in that murder case, and ordering a new trial. She made her ruling after finding that the detective, Sgt. Herman Leon of the county sheriff’s office, gave “false” testimony.

    Garcia-Torres’ attorneys are hoping to use Chatman’s finding to discredit Leon’s testimony in the Sierra LaMar trial in hopes it will create “lingering doubt” and prompt the jury to spare their client from the death penalty. They plan to file a letter brief by Tuesday the latest, with a hearing on the issue set for Wednesday.

    The defense also wants an expert to testify about the possible impact of pesticides and other toxins they believe Garcia-Torres was exposed to. His early years were spent living in a small building in the middle of a strawberry field where his parents worked. The prosecution argued it was speculative. Zecher indicated Monday she was inclined to allow it.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/1...ered-in-court/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Sierra LaMar: Convicted killer’s mother testifies about his childhood

    Defense testimony in the penalty portion of the trial aims to spare Antolin Garcia-Torres from the death penalty

    By Eric Kurhi
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — The mother of Antolin Garcia-Torres, convicted this month of kidnapping and killing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, spoke for the first time in court on Monday, calling him a “loving” and “responsible” son whom she regularly visits in jail, his young daughters in tow.

    Monday marked the start of the defense phase of the penalty portion of the trial; prosecutors wrapped up their witnesses last week. Defense attorneys are trying to shape a sympathetic image for jurors — not conceding guilt, but maintaining that a troubled background should be taken into consideration.

    “I’m not here to share this with you so you will save my son,” said Laura Torres, speaking softly and through an interpreter and often sobbing. “I’m here to tell you what I know.”

    Garcia-Torres’ attorney Brian Matthews presented a dismal family portrait — a mom who married young and came to the United States from Mexico to live in a ramshackle garage on the strawberry field where the couple worked. Parental supervision was minimal, said witnesses, with Torres working two jobs and the family patriarch, Genaro Garcia Fernandez, sometimes in jail and almost always drunk.

    Armando Garcia, a second cousin, testified that Torres would often have bruises on her arms and neck.

    “There’s no way it was the little strawberries that did that to her,” he said.

    Morning testimony centered on the abuse of his mom by his father, Fernandez, going back to before Garcia-Torres was born.

    Torres testified that Fernandez would beat her unexpectedly, once after she’d asked for a massage because her back was sore and other times in the middle of the night. And he would threaten to kill the whole family; the couple had five children, three older than Antolin Garcia-Torres, one younger.

    “He would say, ‘You know you are going to bed, but you don’t know if you will get up,’” Torres said. “At first I thought he was just saying crazy things. … But I was scared that he would carry it through, that he would kill all of us in the night.”

    One time, she said, he strangled her with her long braids, which she had grown to almost her ankles. So she cut her hair short. The abuse got so bad that she left while pregnant with Garcia-Torres, moving in with her in-laws in Napa for a time.

    Last week, prosecutors urged the jury that convicted Garcia-Torres to recommend the death penalty.

    “This part of the trial is about justice,” deputy district attorney David Boyd told the jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court. “What is the one just verdict that answers for the unspeakable things the defendant did to her? … Death is the only fair and just verdict.”

    The defense is expected to bring up Fernandez’s history of sexual abuse in the homes where he grew up. He was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation in late September 2012, just six months after Sierra LaMar disappeared on March 16, 2012.

    The defense did not ask Torres about the sexual assaults, but did make a point to talk about the “thin walls” and lack of insulation in the San Martin homes the family shared.

    They also talked briefly about pesticides used on the strawberry fields where the parents worked and the children played, as well as the family’s use of tap water. San Martin was in the middle of a high-profile pollution case in which hundreds of drinking water wells were contaminated with a chemical used in rocket fuel in 2003.

    While Garcia-Torres showed little emotion in Monday’s session, occasionally looking down, his mother, cried numerous times. She talked about how her son’s daughters also love him and eagerly await talking to him on the phone or visiting him in jail.

    She seemed baffled that attorneys would even question the fate she would want for Garcia-Torres.

    “What mother would be asked if they want their son to be killed or not?” she said.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/2...his-childhood/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Sierra LaMar: Prosecutor says death only “just penalty” for missing girl’s killer

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — The prosecution wrapped up its case for the death penalty Tuesday in the trial of the man convicted of murdering missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar, arguing it is the only punishment that can capture the horror of the 15-year-old’s final moments.

    “Justice is not served by a minimal penalty,” Prosecutor David Boyd told the jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court that convicted Antolin Garcia-Torres of Sierra’s murder earlier this month. “Death is the only just punishment in this case.”
    Boyd argued that Garcia-Torres showed no mercy, sympathy or compassion toward Sierra, who encountered him on her way to catch a bus to school. He also told jurors the death penalty was the one verdict that would send a message to other criminals that they will not be rewarded for silencing their victim.

    But Boyd also acknowledged it is a difficult decision.

    “No one ever said this would be easy,” Boyd told the jury. “It takes courage.”

    The jury convicted Garcia-Torres, 26, on May 9 of murdering Sierra on March 16, 2012, as well as of three separate and unrelated kidnapping attempts from grocery store parking lots, which the prosecution portrayed as a “training ground” for Sierra’s abduction and murder three years later.

    Lawyers for Garcia-Torres are expected to make their own closing arguments after the prosecution, after which the case could go to the jury. They had urged the jury at the beginning of the trial’s “penalty phase” to sentence him to life in prison without possibility of parole, arguing he suffered a rough upbringing, with an abusive alcoholic father later convicted of sexually abusing a relative in September 2012.

    But Boyd noted that Garcia-Torres was unaware of the molestation while he was growing up and was loved by his family.

    Last week, Garcia-Torres’ mother had sobbed on the witness stand as she testified through a Spanish interpreter about his troubled childhood. On Tuesday, she left the courtroom after the prosecutor said Garcia-Torres’ background doesn’t justify his “monstrous acts.”

    “I’m not here to share this with you so you will save my son,” Laura Torres testified. “I’m here to tell you what I know.”

    The disappearance of Sierra, who had recently moved from Fremont to near Morgan Hill, drew widespread interest and touched off every parent’s worst worries. Beyond the visceral fear the case evokes of strangers abducting children, there is also the continuing mystery surrounding what happened to Sierra. Her body has not been found, despite a years-long effort by more than 750 volunteers from around the Bay Area to find her remains.

    The jury reached its verdict after fewer than two days of deliberation, and its decision was announced after a closely watched trial that lasted more than three months.

    Prosecutors relied on physical evidence, including what crime lab analysts said were traces of Sierra’s DNA in Garcia-Torres’ car. Among several spots in the car, her DNA was found on a single strand of her hair on a rope in the trunk, while his DNA was on her pants found abandoned in a field. He told police they never met. Garcia-Torres’ fingerprint also was found on a battery found on a stun gun dropped by the assailant in one of the supermarket attacks.

    Garcia-Torres’ attorneys, Al Lopez, Brian Matthews and Bicka Barlow, had argued Sierra is not dead, and suggested she may have run away without a trace because she was unhappy about her recent move from Fremont with her mother and mother’s boyfriend.

    The defense also said the jury should disregard the DNA and hair evidence because it was mishandled by deputies and the crime lab analysts, raising the chances of cross-contamination from other trace or genetic evidence.

    Lopez said the fingerprint could have gotten there because Garcia-Torres worked at the Morgan Hill Safeway where the battery was purchased and frequently re-shelved torn battery packages.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/3...-girls-killer/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Jury deciding if Sierra LaMar’s killer should be put to death

    By Evan Sernoffsky
    SFGate

    A Santa Clara County jury began the arduous task Tuesday of deciding whether to sentence the killer of 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl Sierra LaMar to death or send him to prison for the rest of his life.

    While attorneys for Sierra’s convicted murderer, Antolin Garcia-Torres, pleaded with the jury to spare their client, the prosecution urged them take the hard step and deliver the ultimate sentence.

    “It takes courage to look at this man — this flesh and blood — and determine the just punishment,” Deputy District Attorney David Boyd said during his closing argument. “But when you think about what the defendant did, and what Sierra must have experienced in those minutes and hours, how is anything but the maximum punishment warranted?”

    Garcia-Torres’ attorney, Brian Matthews, argued the mitigating factors in the case — including the defendant’s tortured childhood — should compel the jury to spare the 26-year-old.

    “I’m going to talk to you about mercy and compassion,” Matthews told the somber jury. “Mercy and compassion is not something that can be taken. It is given. It is something that you can give and it ennobles the giver.”

    The jury began deliberating at the end of the day Tuesday on whether to give Garcia-Torres life in prison without parole or death for the 2012 kidnapping and slaying of the vivacious girl. Garcia-Torres sat expressionless throughout the day, only nodding once to his family sitting close behind him in the gallery.

    The same jury earlier this month found Garcia-Torres guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping, despite investigators never recovering Sierra’s body or finding the scene of her murder. The panel also found Garcia-Torres guilty of three counts of attempted kidnapping from separate incidents at Morgan Hill grocery stores in 2009.

    With executions halted in California, it’s unlikely Garcia-Torres would be put to death anytime soon if he is condemned. But life alone in a cell on San Quentin’s Death Row — stripped of nearly all basic freedoms — is considerably drearier than being incarcerated among the general population.

    During the three-week death penalty mini-trial, prosecutors called to the stand Sierra’s friends and family, whose stories of the 15-year-old victim brought many in the room to tears.

    Boyd connected the powerful images of the once-vibrant Sierra to her likely final moments, driving home his argument that Garcia-Torres deserves the maximum punishment possible.

    “There is not much worse than the murder of a child,” Boyd said. “Even when you think about that, what could be worse than what Sierra went through? She saw the true face of evil, and he was touching her naked body.”

    At one particularly descriptive moment in Boyd’s closing, Garcia-Torres’ mother stood up and rushed out of the courtroom gallery.

    Bringing his remarks to an emotional crescendo, Boyd played a video, showing Sierra singing along to the Colbie Caillat ballad “Realize.”

    “Sierra will never again bring joy and happiness to anyone around her, and this defendant took that away from her,” he said. “He will ask for your sympathy, compassion and mercy — something he never gave to Sierra.”

    While the prosecution has stuck to a message of justice in seeking the death penalty, defense attorneys presented an array of factors they hope will convince the jury otherwise.

    Showing pictures of a young Garcia-Torres, Matthews recounted a painful childhood that the defendant’s sister and mother described in their testimony two weeks ago.

    Growing up in a dilapidated home in a strawberry field in the Santa Clara County town of San Martin, Garcia-Torres’ father — now a convicted child molester — would abuse his mother in front of their children.

    “On top of the poverty, violence, abuse ... Antolin experienced a significant amount of loss.” Matthews said, even suggesting pesticides in the soil around where the children would play may have impacted Garcia-Torres.

    A key focus of Matthews’ defense was to evoke the possibility for lingering doubt. Without a body, or direct evidence that Sierra was murdered, the defense went back to its argument during the guilt phase of the trial that the teen may not be dead.

    “The prosecution talks about what could have happened to Sierra, but they can’t tell you what happened,” Matthews said. “The truth is there was no evidence presented about what happened to Antolin and Sierra.”

    Before the jury moved to deliberate, the defense wrapped up its case, countering the prosecution’s characterization that Garcia-Torres is “evil.” Character witnesses, including friends and former employers, described the defendant as a protector, who loved his siblings and grew up without a male role model.

    “I am here trying to save a life, not through fancy lawyering or sleight of hand,” Matthews said. “I’m asking you to look into your hearts and know that life without parole is a brutal sentence, but it is a just sentence and a compassionate and fair sentence.”

    http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/...d-11183747.php
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #58
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    BREAKING: Jury reaches verdict on penalty in SIERRA LAMAR case

    By Tracey Kaplan
    The Mercury News

    SAN JOSE — Jurors have reached a decision on whether the 26-year-old man they convicted last month of kidnapping and killing missing teen Sierra LaMar deserves life without parole or the death penalty.

    The verdict in the penalty phase of convicted killer Antolin Garcia-Torres’ murder trial is set to be announced at 1:30 p.m..

    Last month, the same jury took fewer than two days to convict Garcia-Torres of abducting and killing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar as she made her way to her school bus stop in a semi-rural area north of Morgan Hill early one morning in 2012.

    The jury also convicted him of the 2009 attempted kidnappings of three other women from grocery store parking lots, which the prosecution portrayed as a “training ground” for Sierra’s abduction and murder three years later.

    This time, jury deliberations began late May 24, but the panel actually deliberated for only a total of two days since then.

    During the two-week penalty phase of the trial, prosecutor David Boyd argued the death penalty is the only punishment that could capture the horror of the 15-year-old’s final moments. Garcia-Torres doesn’t deserve the jury’s sympathy, compassion or mercy, Boyd contended, because he showed none toward Sierra.

    But defense attorney Brian Matthews argued that justice didn’t mean an eye for an eye. Garcia-Torres endured a horrific childhood, he said, yet still managed to be a good father and supportive of his mother, girlfriend and sisters. He also said there is no definitive proof of her death.

    Even if the jury opts for death, Garcia-Torres isn’t likely to be executed for ages, if ever. In the past four decades since 1976, only 13 people have been executed in California, the most recent in 2006.

    The last time a Santa Clara County jury sentenced anyone to die was six years ago, when Melvin Forte was given the death penalty for the 1981 kidnapping, rape and murder of German tourist Ines Sailer in San Jose. Of the 747 killers now on death row in San Quentin prison, just 26 — 3 percent — were sent there by Santa Clara County juries.

    Sierra’s family supported District Attorney Jeff Rosen’s pursuit of the death penalty in the case.

    Sierra’s disappearance in March 2012 drew widespread interest and touched off every parent’s worst worries. Beyond the visceral fear the case evokes of strangers abducting children, there is also the continuing mystery surrounding what happened to Sierra. Her body has not been found, despite a yearslong effort by more than 750 volunteers from around the Bay Area.

    Without her body, prosecutors Boyd and Dana Veazey faced an extra hurdle in getting a murder conviction. They had to prove the circumstantial case without an autopsy, a murder weapon or witness statements.

    Adding to the prosecution’s challenge, Rosen took the rare step in a “no-body” trial of seeking the death penalty, his first since he assumed office in 2011.

    Relatively few “no body” cases go to trial, but prosecutors nationwide have won nearly 90 percent of the 480 that have gone to trial since 1819, according to former federal prosecutor Tad DiBiase, who maintains a database. Only 33, or about 7 percent, have resulted in a death penalty sentence, he said. No figures are available for how often it was sought.

    “Death penalty sentences in no body cases are rare,” DiBiase said. “When you don’t have a body, the jury is still a little reluctant to take that extra step.”

    Garcia-Torres’ attorneys, Al Lopez, Brian Matthews and Bicka Barlow argued Sierra is not dead, and suggested she may have run away without a trace because she was unhappy about her recent move from Fremont with her mother and mother’s boyfriend.

    Prosecutors relied on physical evidence, including what crime lab analysts said was traces of Sierra’s DNA in Garcia-Torres’ car. Among several spots in the car, her DNA was found on a single strand of her hair on a rope in the trunk, while his DNA was on her pants found abandoned in a field. He told police they never met.

    Garcia-Torres’ fingerprint also was found on a battery found on a stun gun dropped by the assailant in one of the supermarket attacks.

    Lopez said the fingerprint could have gotten there because Garcia-Torres worked at the Morgan Hill Safeway where the battery was purchased.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/05/breaking-jury/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  9. #59
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Convicted Sierra LaMar Killer Receives Life Without Parole

    NBC News Staff

    The jury in the Sierra LaMar murder trial on Monday recommended to penalize convicted killer Antolin Garcia Torres with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Immediately after the decision was read, Steve LaMar, Sierra's father, hid his face in his hands and shook his head.

    "I would be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed in the verdict," Steve LaMar said. "(Garcia Torres will) be able to live. Sierra won't. He'll able to breathe. Sierra doesn't. He'll be able to eat everyday, see his family and we don't have that. His family doesn't grieve. We'll grieve for the rest of our lives."

    Marlene LaMar, Sierra's mother, expressed mixed feelings.

    "I feel at peace that (Garcia Torres) will not be on the streets and harm another a child, but the angst will be in our lives forever," she said. "Nothing will ever take that away."

    The jurors declined to comment on the penalty decision.

    Last month, the jury unanimously found Garcia Torres guilty of kidnapping and killing the teenager.

    In response to the jury's sentencing decision, Garcia Torres' defense team filed a motion for a new trial.

    LaMar disappeared March 16, 2012 on her way to a bus stop near her mother's Morgan Hill home. Her body has never been found.

    During the penalty phase, prosecutors argued that Garcia Torres deserved the death penalty for not showing any mercy to LaMar and her family.

    Garcia Torres' defense team countered by highlighting the defendant's tumultous childhood filled with instances of violence, poverty and abuse in hopes of generating compassion.

    http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local...owTwt_BAYBrand
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #60
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Attorneys seek new trial for man convicted in Sierra LaMar killing

    A man convicted of kidnapping and killing South Bay teenager Sierra LaMar could receive a new trial if defense attorneys are granted a motion arguing that the judge who presided over the trial should have recused herself because she previously represented the lead investigator for the prosecution.

    Defense attorneys for 26-year-old Antolin Garcia-Torres filed a motion for disqualification during a sentencing hearing Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court. The move brought the sentencing hearing to an abrupt halt until the motion is resolved.

    A jury convicted Garcia-Torres in the high-profile capital murder case, but voted in June to give him life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty.

    The defense motion seeks to get Garcia-Torres’ conviction tossed, arguing that Judge Vanessa Zecher should have never presided over the trial.

    Before becoming a judge, Zecher represented the lead investigator, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Herman Leon, in a wrongful death lawsuit involving a mentally ill inmate in 1990 while she was a deputy county counsel in Santa Clara County, according to Garcia-Torres’ attorneys and court officials.

    While researching allegations of misconduct in previous investigations involving Leon, defense attorneys learned Wednesday, the day before the sentencing hearing, that Zecher had represented Leon in the civil case.

    In the wrongful death case, the family of inmate Jeffrey Leonti charged that he died in 1989 while in custody at the Santa Clara County Main Jail when guards used stun guns to subdue him. The lawsuit named Leon as one of the guards involved in Leonti’s death. The county ended up paying Leonti’s family $650,000 to settle the case, attorneys said.

    Defense attorneys argued Zecher’s involvement was “substantial,” stating “within the course of her representation of Sergeant Leon as his attorney she was required to develop a duty of loyalty to him and his interest, including protecting him from allegations in the killing of Jeffrey Leonti ... had such a disclosure been made, defense counsel would have insisted on Judge Zecher disqualifying herself from the case.”

    Leon, who later became a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office sergeant, had been involved in the LaMar case since she disappeared near her Morgan Hill home on March 16, 2012, while walking to catch a bus to school.

    In May 2012, after Garcia-Torres had been charged in the case, court records show Leon outlined why the suspect was arrested on suspicion of LaMar’s murder despite no body being recovered.

    “Sierra LaMar has no independent means of support,” he wrote in a statement on the grounds for Garcia-Torres’ arrest. “All of her known personal belongings, including her asthma inhaler, her money, her house keys and the clothing she was wearing the morning of her disappearance, have been located.”

    The strongest piece of evidence uncovered in the investigation and highlighted by prosecutors throughout the trial was Sierra’s hair found on a rope in Garcia-Torres’ car.

    But the defense sought to cast doubt on the evidence when shortly after Garcia-Torres’ conviction, a Santa Clara County court found Leon falsely testified in another murder trial. The defense began probing into past misconduct by Leon, which led them to discover that Zecher represented him decades ago.

    Defense attorneys now say Leon’s earlier misconduct is grounds for making the argument that he tampered with evidence in the LaMar case and possibly planted the hair evidence.

    But before a motion is heard on Leon’s integrity as a witness, a judge must decide whether Zecher should be disqualified from the case. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas, the presiding Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, is expected to send the disqualification motion to the Judicial Council of California. The organization will probably assign a retired judge to hear arguments to reach a decision.

    The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office declined to comment on the motion.

    http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/...n-12201893.php

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