Recent Cases Lead to Questions About When Life Sentences Are Appropriate

They stood last week in front of the Yolo County Courthouse, a few mothers, less than a month after their sons had been convicted of attempted murder as they shot into an inhabited dwelling.  With the enhancements, it is likely that their sons face 35 to life.

German Vizcarra, 19, Juan Reyes, 21, and Rolando Arismendez, 38, had their trial in late October and were found guilty on all counts.

“Their plan was to carry out a murder of a resident of Donnelly Circle in Woodland. After driving by to scout the location, the gang members returned to the location a second time and began firing on the victim, who was standing in front of the residence,” according to a press release last month by the Yolo County District Attorney’s office.

“Although the bullets missed the victim, one of the bullets entered the bedroom of the home and passed through a child’s playpen before lodging in a mattress,” the release continued.

The charges included conspiracy to commit murder, shooting at an inhabited dwelling and gang charges and enhancements.

On Saturday afternoon, Francisca Reyes was in Davis making an emotional plea to leaders and community members at the city’s “Breaking the Silence of Racism” meeting.

“‘Would he be facing the same if he were white?” Ms. Reyes asked.

She, along with Maria Quezada, acknowledged that their sons had made mistakes and that what they had done was horribly wrong.  However, the two boys are very young men with otherwise no criminal records.

They argued that they were only marginally gang members – if at all.  They argued they should not be subjected to life in prison.

Supervising Deputy DA Jonathan Raven responded that he could not comment on the specific case since it is still ongoing.  The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on December 17 after their November 30 sentencing hearing was postponed.

Mr. Raven told the mothers and the audience, “Woodland has a serious gang problem … One of the things we’re trying to do to prevent this is reaching out to the young.”

This is a tough case.  The key witnesses in this case were two-co-defendants, who turned states evidence.

The mothers told the Daily Democrat last week, as they told the Vanguard earlier in November, that they “believed the District Attorney’s Office picked winners and losers by letting some members of the group testify against others.”

In fact, those two individuals, who were full participants, are now being released as the other three co-defendants are scheduled to be sentenced for life.

One of them admitted on the stand to being promised leniency in exchange for testimony against the co-defendants.  At one point, he admitted on the stand he was told what to say in testimony.

But there was enough physical evidence in this case to convict the three men.  The only question is whether the sentencing here is appropriate.

California Tough Sentencing Laws

Some might argue that no one was actually hurt in the shooting.  Others will argue that was a fortunate coincidence.

The mothers claim that the case is not nearly that straightforward, that there was actually a two-way gun battle that night, and fire was returned.

The issue of tough mandatory sentencing comes from a change in state policy in the early to mid-1990s.  Under Penal Code 12034, “discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle” is an enhancement of up to seven years.  There is the 10-20-life provision for use of a gun during the commission of a crime, which imposes a ten-year enhancement for anyone using a firearm, a 20-year enhancement for firing and an automatic, and 25 to life for discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury.

There is also the gang enhancement, which can add another one to three years for each charge.

Quickly these numbers can add up to a lengthy life sentence, in this case, potentially 35 to life.

All of these enhancements followed the hysteria that ensued in the early to mid 1990s after a parolee with a long record was freed and able to kidnap and murder a young girl.

California voters, at that time, reacted by passing a harsh new three strikes law that would send felons to prison for 25 to life for a third felony, following two strikable offenses that were designated as serious or violence.

As the New York Times wrote last week, “As it turned out, three strikes created a cruel, Kafkaesque criminal justice system that lost all sense of proportion, doling out life sentences disproportionately to black defendants. Under the statute, the third offense that could result in a life sentence could be any number of low-level felony convictions, like stealing a jack from the back of a tow truck, shoplifting a pair of work gloves from a department store, pilfering small change from a parked car or passing a bad check. In addition to being unfairly punitive, the law drove up prison costs.”

The result was that California’s prisons were overflowing, often with people who committed relatively minor offenses.  Last month, the voters changed California’s law through the passage of Prop 36.  Now non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders facing a third strike will have their case reverted to a second strike – a provision that still will make a number of people face a lengthy prison sentence, but a huge reform.

The infamous cheese thief that the Vanguard covered, Robert Ferguson, had his third strike stricken, and the result was instead of 25 to life, he received the still unduly harsh eight-year sentence.

Juvenile Justice Reform

The offenders in this case were 18 and 20 when they committed their offenses.  During the 1990s, there was a ramp up of efforts to try young offenders, who used to be in the juvenile system, as adults.  However, reformers have been slowly curtailing the efforts to punish youthful offenders more and more, by pointing out that juveniles’ brains are still forming.

In June, the US Supreme Court limited the use of life sentences for juveniles, arguing that judges must consider the defendant’s youth and the nature of the crime prior to sentencing.

The 5-4 decision only went so far, striking down as cruel and unusual punishment in 28 states that mandate a life term without parole for murderers, even those under 18.

Justice Elena Kagan referred to state laws that “mandated each juvenile (convicted of murder) die in prison even if the judge or jury would have thought that his youth and…the nature of his crime made a lesser sentence (for example, life with the possibility of parole) more appropriate.”

“We therefore hold that mandatory life without parole for those under age of 18 at the time of their crime violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments,” she said.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined her opinion.

California went further in giving youth serving life without parole an opportunity to earn a second chance.

Approximately 300 youth offenders have been sentenced to die in California’s prisons for crimes committed when they were teenagers. SB 9, authored by Senator Leland Yee and signed into law in September by Governor Brown, will give some youth sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) a chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison.

Last spring, a group called the Sentencing Project released a report on juveniles serving life without parole.

Researcher Mark Osler, a law professor and a former federal prosecutor in Detroit, argued that the science that is emerging suggests that we need to continue to look at juveniles differentially from adults.  Science has shown that the brain of teenagers is still unformed.

“[The teenage brain] essentially is different from what adult brains are,” he continued.  “Essentially that means if we’re making a judgment about a 14-year-old… we’re not looking at the same brain that’s going to emerge later.”

“That’s particularly troubling when we see the concentration of the use of this penalty against the least among us, that is, those who are in the most troubling circumstances,” he concluded.

All of this should at least lead us to the inevitable question – how much different is the brain of an 18-year old, or even a 20-year old, than a 17-year old?  And should that impact how we look at life sentences as a whole?

Life Sentences in Non-Murder Cases

The questions surrounding the sentences in the German Vizcarra and Juan Reyes case, who were involved in a driveby shooting that did not result in serious injury, carry over to a case that the Vanguard has already covered.

An attack was captured on video showing five individuals approaching a vehicle at a Woodland gas station.  They rushed to the car, surrounded the vehicle, prosecutor Robin Johnson argues, for the purpose of preventing the victim from exiting the vehicle.  They attacked the victim – punching and kicking him.

Then one individual leaned through the door, made a move, and slashed the victim in the face.  While it is one individual who does this, four others were initially charged with aggravated mayhem, which is maliciously attacking someone with the specific intent to cause disfigurement.

To add insult to injury, as they left, they stole beer from the victim.

One of those defendants was Aaron Valadez.

No one identified Mr. Valadez as being on the scene, however, investigators claim to have matched a partial palm print that was found on the scene to Mr. Valadez, when he was questioned on an unrelated case and ultimately taken into custody.

The print was used to identify Mr. Valadez.  Defense Attorney Rod Beede, in his closing, questioned the veracity of the match, noting that the crime lab was not certified and the person doing the examination of the match should not be aware of the fact that there was a known print.

The video shows that the person who left the palm print match played a limited role.  Prosecutor Deputy DA Robin Johnson argued Mr. Valadez held the driver’s side door shut.  She argued “But for Mr. Valadez holding the door, none of the other crimes could have been committed.  He could have been able to get out, maybe defend himself.”

The video shows that Mr. Valadez was likely the least participant of any of the five.  He was involved in the incident exactly three seconds as shown by the timestamp on the video.

As defense attorney Rod Beede noted, “Mr. Valadez participated in the attack on the car for less than a few seconds and during that time personally struck or assaulted nobody.”

However, Judge Mock sentenced him eventually to 15 to life, arguing that while he played perhaps a lesser role than Mr. Rivas who is most likely the individual who slashed the victim, he argued “but for” Mr. Valadez’ role, the victim might have been able to exit the vehicle.

The video shows Mr. Valadez rushing up to the door and pushing it shut twice before exiting the scene.

Rod Beede, in arguing for vacating the jury verdict, wrote, “Mr. Valadez’ actions in shoving the car door twice while a person beside him was leaning inside the car and striking victim, Mr. Valadez’ actions in no way enabled or, we argue, even aided or assisted in the slashing.”

Mr. Beede argued during his closing statements that while it might have been reasonable to conclude that shoving the car door shut might make Mr. Valadez culpable for the assault, the aggravated mayhem where the victim was slashed from chin to ear was unprecedented in this county and therefore should have been beyond the scope of a foreseeable consequence of Mr. Valadez’s actions.

Mr. Beede argued, “Aggravated mayhem with a gang enhancement appears to warrant a mandatory life sentence, undoubtedly served in a maximum security gang prison for the rest of his life. At the time of these crimes he was barely of majority and is still in his very early 20’s.”

Mr. Valadez stormed up to the car, participated briefly, and left when the Mr. Rivas slipped into the passenger door and slashed the victim’s face.

As Mr. Beede argues, “Such slashing was testified as so extremely rare in the Woodland community that it had never been seen outside prison except: on a single occasion years before by law enforcement. While one can fairly argue that Mr. Valadez may bear responsibility for storming a car with one person in it and to have aided and abetted an assault, the facts as shown in this case do not warrant any anticipation that Mr. Valadez could have known or been reasonably apprised of facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that such a ghastly act of violence was going to occur.”

We understand the severity of this attack, but it seems that a three-second non-assaultive involvement in the case, such as Mr. Valadez performed, does not warrant a life sentence.  Mr. Valadez performed a far smaller role than anyone else and yet has the second harshest sentence, behind only Mr. Rivas.

It is worth noting that Woodland, while facing a serious gang problem, is looking into new ways to approach gang interdiction efforts that concede that imprisonment alone is not the solution.  If that is the case, throwing life sentences to very young defendants is likely not going to have either a deterrent effect or reduce gang crimes.

Woodland’s police chief noted in a recent interview with the Vanguard that gang members get recruited about as fast as they can arrest them.  Therefore the efforts at interdiction through suppression have failed.

Moreover, the variety of sentencing schemes, and differentials in prosecution and juries, produces a mish-mash of results where some people get far harsher sentences than others.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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