The probation report details circumstances in the case – including an allegation from the suspected attacker that he walked in on the stabbing victim raping his partner.
A judge has sentenced Juan M. Lopez to six years in state prison as part of a plea deal in the Christmas 2011 stabbing death of German Oliverio Hernandez Santos.
The penalty issued last week was the mid-year term for a voluntary manslaughter conviction. Prosecutors had charged Lopez, 29, with second-degree homicide but pleaded it down to the manslaughter charge. Lopez, who has already served nearly two years of the sentence in jail, was represented by Public Defender Greg LaForge.
The probation report recommended that six-year sentence due to circumstances in the case. The report, filed in court records, details how Lopez alleged to have walked in on Santos raping his wife while she had been passed out on a bed – after all three of them heavily consumed alcohol that Christmas Day – and that it led to a fight between the two men.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Palacios after the sentencing noted how the prosecution weighed the “heavy, heavy alcohol consumption by everybody involved that night” in making a decision on a plea deal.
“The plea that he was allowed to enter was reflective of his state of mind at the time,” Palacios said.
Palacios said a crucial consideration was Lopez’s perception of the events from that day. The prosecutor said it was clear there was no premeditation involved.
“He thought he was acting to protect himself, or a third party,” Palacios said.
The coroner’s report listed the cause of death as a screwdriver stab wound to the head. There was a second stab wound to the right lower jaw and upper neck area, according to the court records.
That probation report is the first detailed account of what occurred that Dec. 25 nearly two years ago – since the district attorney’s office does not release police reports with criminal court files.
The document also details that Lopez, a laborer who worked local onion fields and almond orchards, rented his home from Santos, his boss.
Lopez co-habited with a woman whom he called his wife, according to records, while he has one biological child and two stepchildren.
One witness told police that Lopez, his partner and Santos that day consumed three 12-packs of beer and an entire bottle of whiskey. Authorities tested Lopez’s blood-alcohol concentration and noted it had been 0.19 percent.
The woman in the group was so intoxicated she had to be transported to the hospital, according to records. There were no typical signs of sexual assault. But due to her intoxication, “her body was possibly in a relaxed state” and there may not have been visible signs of an assault, according to court records.
Palacios explained that because the allegations were made against the deceased victim in the stabbing case, there was no additional investigation on the rape claim beyond the prosecution’s probe in the stabbing.
Based on the evidence before the prosecution regarding the rape allegation, Palacios said he did not believe “there would have been sufficient information to go forward” with a case.
Probation officials in the report said Lopez had no prior criminal record. While probation was denied, authorities have an immigration hold placed on Lopez. He is a Mexican citizen and will face deportation once he serves the penalty.
