Nearly five years ago, a fifteen year old California high school cheerleader, Sierra LaMar goes missing as she was walking from her home in Santa Clara County to her school bus stop. She was last seen around 6am on March 16th, 2012 at the bus stop. One day later, police found her cell phone and her purse a few blocks from the bus stop, with some clothes folded neatly inside and along the side of the road near her house. The condition of the phone indicates that it might have been thrown from a vehicle. On March 28th, investigators start their investigation on Antolin Garcia-Torres after the evidence from LaMar’s bag is linked to him. Officials locate and seize Torres’s red Volkswagen Jetta on April 7th and they find a black hood. On May 7th, …show more content…
Prosecutors stated that they had strong physical evidence to connect him to the LaMar case, including traces of her DNA found in the trunk of his car. When officials arrested Torres, he pled not guilty to all the charges against him. District Attorney Jeff Rosen is seeking the death penalty for Torres, even without LaMar’s body being recovered, and prosecutors must argue their case without an autopsy or a murder weapon. Meanwhile, defense attorneys believe LaMar might still be alive (as reported from FOX). According to the San Jose Mercury News, “if prosecutors fail to get a conviction, Torres cannot be tried again even if new evidence is recovered from the …show more content…
On the first day of the trial, the jury heard the emotional 911 call that was made by LaMar’s mother Marlene on the day her daughter went missing. The jurors, which were made up of six men and six women, were also shown a photo of the last time LaMar was seen alive. On day two of the trial, around 9:30am, the jury was informed of the previous attacks on other women by Torres. These incidents include where he allegedly “used a stun gun to attack women in the lot of a Morgan Hill Safeway.” Then at 10am, they were shown a video which showed Torres being interviewed by police about the discovery of LaMar’s DNA in his red Volkswagen Jetta. On the tape, Torres tells officers that he “masturbates in his car.” This case is still being reviewed in court; more information will be available to the public in the next couple
In the case of People v. Vasquez, a horrible crime was committed by the defendant, Jesus Vasquez, because he was upset with his girlfriend, Abigail Ramirez, for leaving him and allegedly seeing her ex-boyfriend. Instead of choosing to talk to his ex-girlfriend, Abigail Ramirez, he decided to forcefully break into her home, push her mother down on to the ground, then chase Abigail to the restroom where he violently and horrendously murdered her. There were many primary and secondary victims in this case and left people in pain from his terrible criminal act. Although the defense tries to prove that it was Heat of Passion and that the defendant did not know what he was doing, the evidence proves otherwise. The video shows evidence of shared
Rough draft segregation was a terribly unfair law that lasted about a hundred years in the United States. A group of high school students who struggled for better educational conditions were a big factor in ending segregation in the United States. Even though going on strike for better conditions may have negative impacts, African Americans were not treated equally in education because of segregation and the Jim Crow laws were so unfair and the black schools were in terrible condition compared to the whites’. In 1896 the Plessy v. Ferguson case made the segregation of blacks and whites legal; and the Supreme Court made the Jim Crow laws legal, saying that blacks are “separate but equal.” African Americans knew that was unfair and could especially see it in the schools.
Jumping handcuffed from a third-story window at the Fulton County Pretrial Services in Atlanta, the man who leaped from the window fell head first and died. The 22-year-old man, Tyquan Devoun Richard was going to enter a drug intervention program at the Fulton County Superior Court at 10am when criminal law arrest him for a weapons charge.
McAlister had evidence proving guilty, due to law enforcement conducting scientific evidence methods to prove the evidence gathered from the car and the apartment are related to Jose. Police used the keys to open and search the car where they discovered unlawful items. Thus they discovered $1,000 in $20 bills, a box of Ziploc baggie and a half-kilo of crack cocaine powder in the love box. Additionally, police detected the file on the laptop had data on drug trafficking. The money, baggies, laptop, and cocaine will be evidence for McAlister to be charged with possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute with up to 30 thirty years of incarceration. In contrast law enforcement also discovered an artsy picture of a underage seductively posing naked girl under the bottom cushion of the driver’s seat that holds a small paper reading “Happy Birthday, Mick” in Spanish. As a result the child pornography that was discovered gives Jose McAlister up to two years incarceration for possession. Additionally, Law enforcement discovered a map with a circle over a portion of Interstate 74, a firearm, and a knife with reside on the blade under the passenger’s seat. The map leads law enforcement to the naked body of Venzie Viktum who was wrapped in plastic in a ditch with overgrown weeds four feet high. Pathologist revealed the blood on the knife discovered in Jose’s car and the latent prints on Venzie Viktum were from Jose McAlister. In
On June 9th, 2008, Travis Alexander roommate called 911 reporting he found his roommate dead. During police questioning he and his coworkers mentioned that his ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias was stalking his and the relationship was not good. Strangely, 3 calls from coming in from California, Jodi Arias was persistent to contact with the police to find out information and aid if needed as they were processing the crime scene. The lead investigator recorded the returned calls, in which she denies she was there at the time of the murder,
In 1992, Houston police officers found two homicide victims in a house at an unspecified time. The investigation of this homicide led them to defendant, Genovevo Salinas, where the police asked and the defendant agreed to accompany the police officers to the station where the defendant was questioned for about one hour. Police collected shotgun shells from the murder scene, which is the home of the two brothers that have been shot and killed. The defendant, without being detained and read his Miranda rights, voluntarily answered most of the police officer’s questions about the murder stated earlier. This interview lasted about one hour and both the officer and the defendant agreed it was a consensual encounter. He became very quite once the officer’s asked if under ballistics testing the casing, found at the crime scene, would match the shotgun the defendant owned. After this question the officer asked other questions and the defendant did answer the rest of the questions asked. Police also found a witness who said Salinas admitted to killing the victims. In 1993, Salinas was charged with the murders, but could not be located. 15 years later, Salinas was finally captured. The first trial ended in a mistrial. During the second trial the prosecutors used the silence the defendant had at this time, even over the objection of the defendant, as evidence of guilt in Texas state court. He was convicted, in both State Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals.
There were no DNA evidence that can prove that he was or is guilty, there are no cross statements by him nor his co-defendant, there were contradicting statements by each victim. There were little to no evidence.
The rulings made by the John Marshall and the Supreme court regarding the Cherokee and their inhabited land benefited the Cherokee. After decades of losing their land and withstanding the genocide of their people, the younger generations chose to go to court instead of turning to more bloodshed. The Supreme Court came to two conclusions on two different occasions regarding the Cherokee and their lands. The prior ruling stated, in short, that the Cherokee were subject to being protected by the constitution and could not be tried due to their non citizenship. The second ruling further protects the Cherokee from unconstitutional acts conducted by Georgia. These rulings were not only beneficial, but were impartial and withheld constitutionality.
While both black and white people fought over segregation versus desegregation, black people defended their freedom and civil rights while white people focused on isolating black people and treating them as under classed.
The problem with unrecorded interrogations is that videotaped confessions are often entered into court as evidence without allowing the judge or jury to observe the circumstances under which the confession was given. In a recent case, 52-year-old Conrado Juarez confessed to the 1991 rape and murder of his cousin, Anjelica Castillo, known in the media as Baby Hope (McKinley & Goldstein, 2013). The four-year-old girl’s body had been found in a cooler on the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway and gone unidentified until October 2013 when Juarez confessed to helping his now deceased sister move her body there. After 12 hours of interrogation, however, Juarez confessed much more. The confession was videotaped, but the 12-hour long interrogation was not. Juarez retracted his confession soon afterwards, claiming that he was exhausted from the prolonged questioning and...
After the Civil War ended between the North and South there were many questions left to be answered. Likely one of the biggest questions looming over people was what would happen to the Southern states that had rebelled against the North? People had many different opinions on how reconstruction should go and how harshly the South should be punished, if even punished at all. Some people like William Grosvenor felt that consequences for the South should be severe (Dudley 7). Mr. Grosvenor was an abolitionist pre-Civil War and went on to be a commander of one of the original African American units of soldiers during the war (Dudley 7). Plenty of grudge holding Northerners had the same opinion as William Grosvenor, but some felt that the South
This book is telling a story about two African American boys (Wes A and Wes P) who have the same name and grew up at same community, but they have a very different life. The author, Wes A, begins his life in a tough Baltimore neighborhood and end up as a Rhodes Scholar, Wall Streeter, and a white house fellow; The other Wes Moore begins at the same place in Baltimore , but ends up in prison for the rest of his life. Then why do they have the same experience, but still have a totally different life? I will agree here that environment (family environment, school education environment and society environment) is one of the biggest reasons for their different.
During the investigation all the evidence led police to suspect that the killer was Orenthal Simpson, he was then ordered to surrender on June 17early in the morning Orenthal disappeared but was eventually apprehend later because he made a phone call from his cell phone while on the Santa Ana Freeway. “Although prosecutors had an overwhelming amount of DNA evidence against Simpson, including blood traces of the victims in his car and Nicole’s blood on a pair of his socks, the defense used technical mistakes by the forensics team to suggest contamination of the crime scene and cast doubt on the DNA evidence” (People
In this year of 2015, many people think racism is non existent. The President Barack Obama is black. There are black musicians such as, Beyonce and Jay Z dominating the charts. Some may even say there is no reason for The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Times have changed in many ways however, the presumption that racism ended is completely wrong. The presumption that America is an equal and accepting country is false. In American history, there have been triumphs against inequality. With these triumphs the country has gone into a slumber. The thought of change is the thought of ignorance.
In May of 2006, Gallup Poll found that sixty-nine percent of Americans answered yes to the question "When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?”. Assisted suicide is suicide committed by someone with assistance from another, usually a physician. Supporters of the Death With Dignity law believe that anyone should be able to take the lethal pill if he or she has a terminal illness and only has six months or less to live. This is legal in the three states of Oregon, Washington, and Montana. Assisted suicide should be legal in California.