Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 13, 2006 22:07:37 GMT -5
By: North County Times wire services -
LOS ANGELES - The California Supreme Court today reversed a gang member's death sentence for the slayings of two men in East Los Angeles nearly a decade ago.
The seven-justice panel unanimously upheld Jose Gonzalez's conviction for the June 17, 1996, shooting deaths of Jose Albert Rodriguez and Hector Ricardo Gonzalez Martinez, but cited an error in overturning his death sentence.
In a 36-page ruling, the state's highest court found the trial judge erred in not requiring the prosecution to provide the defense with rebuttal evidence it intended to present if Gonzalez's lawyers called two Catholic priests to testify on his behalf during the case's penalty phase.
It was "reasonably probable defense counsel would have presented the mitigating evidence" had he received the information he requested, Associate Justice Ming W. Chin wrote, with the other six justices concurring.
"Although the crime here was egregious, a death verdict was not a foregone conclusion," Chin wrote, noting that the first jury deadlocked when it was asked to recommend whether Gonzalez should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The justices, however, rejected Gonzalez's claims that errors were made in the guilt phase of his trial.
Rodriguez and Martinez were shot as they and five other men -- none of them gang members -- worked on a car in the driveway of a home in an area of East Los Angeles that a street gang claimed as its home "turf."
Gonzalez belonged to a rival gang.
Source: www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/state/15_02_546_12_06.txt
LOS ANGELES - The California Supreme Court today reversed a gang member's death sentence for the slayings of two men in East Los Angeles nearly a decade ago.
The seven-justice panel unanimously upheld Jose Gonzalez's conviction for the June 17, 1996, shooting deaths of Jose Albert Rodriguez and Hector Ricardo Gonzalez Martinez, but cited an error in overturning his death sentence.
In a 36-page ruling, the state's highest court found the trial judge erred in not requiring the prosecution to provide the defense with rebuttal evidence it intended to present if Gonzalez's lawyers called two Catholic priests to testify on his behalf during the case's penalty phase.
It was "reasonably probable defense counsel would have presented the mitigating evidence" had he received the information he requested, Associate Justice Ming W. Chin wrote, with the other six justices concurring.
"Although the crime here was egregious, a death verdict was not a foregone conclusion," Chin wrote, noting that the first jury deadlocked when it was asked to recommend whether Gonzalez should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The justices, however, rejected Gonzalez's claims that errors were made in the guilt phase of his trial.
Rodriguez and Martinez were shot as they and five other men -- none of them gang members -- worked on a car in the driveway of a home in an area of East Los Angeles that a street gang claimed as its home "turf."
Gonzalez belonged to a rival gang.
Source: www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/state/15_02_546_12_06.txt