District Attorney John Sarsfield should flatly reject the second
plea bargain being offered in the Ralph Santos murder case. Santos
is the 73-year-old Hollister man who was found dead in a mustard
seed field in 2003.
District Attorney John Sarsfield should flatly reject the second plea bargain being offered in the Ralph Santos murder case. Santos is the 73-year-old Hollister man who was found dead in a mustard seed field in 2003.
Sarsfield already struck a deal to plea bargain one of the accused killers, Eliseo Rojas. In exchange for agreeing to testify against the other defendant, Eusebio Ramos, Rojas pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter, waived his right to an appeal and faces nearly 12 years in prison. Sarsfield said he accepted the plea because he thought the confessions the two men made might not hold up under legal scrutiny.
The men’s Miranda rights were not explained properly when they gave their original confession. There was a second confession, but Sarsfield reasoned it might not be admissible in court because it only came because the first one had been tainted.
So he accepted the plea bargain and promised to use Rojas’ testimony against Ramos, who prosecutors think is the actual killer.
The fact that Sarsfield hasn’t rejected the new deal – Ramos would plead guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter with a hate crime and weapons enhancement, waive his rights to an appeal and face 16 years in prison – is disturbing after the promise he made in accepting the first deal.
The decision to accept the first plea outraged the Santos family, which wants to see both men accused of the crime aggressively prosecuted. While 16 years in jail is no joke, we can only imagine how cheated they will feel if neither Rojas nor Ramos is taken to trial to face the maximum penalty for the murder of their relative.
The District Attorney was very tough when it came to dealing with Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, who is charged with four felony counts for signing a piece of paper that said he collected three signatures that he did not. In that case, Sarsfield laid down a strict ultimatum. De La Cruz had a choice: leave political office or face full prosecution, jail time and a lifetime ban from politics.
We would expect the District Attorney to consistently apply his standards. If not, that brings his judgment and fairness directly into question. Should an accused murderer be treated with less zeal than a man who admittedly made errors while campaigning? We think not.
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