The district attorney’s office from the beginning may have
overcharged the case against 20-year-old Gonzalo Munguia
– who drove over 18-year-old Daniel Gallegos and then backed up
over him again in July 2006 – while prosecutors on the other side
of the spectrum have settled for a lighter conviction than the
victim’s family deserves to swallow.
The district attorney’s office from the beginning may have overcharged the case against 20-year-old Gonzalo Munguia – who drove over 18-year-old Daniel Gallegos and then backed up over him again in July 2006 – while prosecutors on the other side of the spectrum have settled for a lighter conviction than the victim’s family deserves to swallow.
Munguia’s attorney agreed to a plea bargain last week with prosecutors reducing the murder charge to manslaughter with a gang enhancement. His maximum sentence goes from the possibility of life in prison to 11 years on the manslaughter conviction and 10 on the gang charge. We encourage the judge, if possible, to strongly consider disallowing concurrent sentences and to order the strictest penalty under the law.
As prosecutors often do, sometimes as a tactic toward a preferred plea arrangement, the DA’s office pursued the most severe possible charge, first-degree murder, which requires proof of premeditation.
While District Attorney Candice Hooper also agreed to a plea agreement with Munguia’s accomplice Emilio Roman, sending him to juvenile court for sentencing on a lighter set of charges, she also said at that time in July that any deal with Munguia would involve a “murder” charge.
It would have made more sense to seek a middle-ground, such as second-degree homicide, whether it be from the case’s beginnings or through the plea-bargain process.
Instead, she bypassed pursuing a more tolerable, just penalty and Hooper clearly did not reach the expectations she publicly stated for herself – and in doing so, she allowed for a potential penalty that just does not appear to fit the crime.
