Re-trial in 30+ Year Old Murder Case ends with another “Hung” Jury

NEWS RELEASE

J.B. Tucker & Associates

P.O. Box 433 Torrance CA 90508-0433

Tel: 310.618.9596 Cell: 818.720.3719

www.janbtucker.com [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 21, 2010

FOR INFORMATION: J.J. Little 310.622.9527, Jan Tucker 310.618.9596

1976 MURDER CASE DECLARED MISTRIAL ON 2^ND “HUNG JURY”

A retrial of Jose Carmen Murillo Garcia for a September 9, 1976 murder of Roberto Lozano in Baldwin Park, California ended September 20 with a second hung jury in the West Covina courthouse. The initial trial ended with a jury “hung” 9-3 for acquittal while the latter jury vote was 8-4 for conviction—but with a twist: the second jury disbelieved the testimony of the prosecution witnesses who had claimed that the defendant was the person who actually shot the victim.

“The people on the second jury who believed Mr. Murillo Garcia to be guilty were confused by the last minute argument of the prosecutor,” said Defense Attorney J.J. Little. “The prosecutor argued that he could be guilty under two different theories, but the theory that the jurors chose inherently meant that the prosecution’s star witness was rejected because four (4) time convicted felon Pablo Chavez claimed that he drove the get away vehicle and that the defendant was the shooter. In point of fact, no witness and no evidence indicated that the defendant was the driver of the get away car.”

Defense Investigator Jan Tucker said that the prosecution “kept changing it’s theory of the crime, every time we came up with evidence that demonstrated that their theories made no sense.” Tucker, who testified as an expert witness in the case, explained that “The prosecution’s first theory was that the Defendant shot the victim on September 9, 1976, drove his car to San Ysidro and abandoned it, and that he then fled to Mexico not to return to the United States until the late 90’s. The problem arose when I obtained documents from St. Alphonsus Church in Fresno demonstrating that he’d been at his son’s baptism on September 14, 1976; why would anybody flee to Mexico following a murder and then come back for a baptism?”

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