Jury Acquits the Officers in Gutierrez Case of Wrongdoing and Liability
ANALYSIS – Throughout the trial that seemed to stretch on far longer than the 13 calendar days it encompassed, the hope was that, win or lose, this trial would provide closure to the grieving family of Luis Gutierrez who was gunned down by plain-clothed sheriff’s deputies on April 30, 2009.
The odds from the start seemed stacked against the plaintiffs. After all, they had only three witnesses who actually saw what happened that day and none of them saw everything. How were they going to prove this case, even at the lower civil trial level of preponderance of the evidence?