Sounds like a heckuva deal for the defendant.
Sometimes you've gotta plead low if you there are evidentiary problems in your proof, which is what the article seems to imply here.
Watch, he'll file a 11.07 writ and complain that his attorney was ineffective.
Murder defendant takes 20 year deal
A 23-year-old San Antonio man pleaded no contest Monday to murder, right before he was to stand trial for fatally shooting a teenager in the back of the head last year.
In exchange for Jesse Gonzales' plea, prosecutors agreed to ask visiting State District Judge Pat Priest to sentence Gonzales to 20 years in prison for the slaying of 18-year-old Paul Anthony Gonzalez. The judge accepted the agreement.
Gonzalez was pronounced dead several hours after emergency responders found him in the passenger seat of a friend's vehicle on Jan. 9, 2008. The friends drove to the Churchill Park Apartments on the North Side to pick up another friend when someone shot at their car, witnesses told police.
Police initially believed the shooting was part of a gang-related turf war that had spilled over into Winston Churchill High School, according to court documents. But the first suspect, a 16-year-old who attended the school, was later cleared after his mother told police she watched him run from the scene and hide behind a nearby trash bin as the shooting occurred.
The teen later led authorities to Gonzales. “I'll never forgive you for what you did to my son, because my son was innocent,” Gloria Gonzalez told the defendant during a brief victim-impact statement.
While prosecutors would have preferred a lengthier sentence, the resolution was good considering the evidence available, said First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg. He said there were conflicting witness accounts on who fired the fatal shot.
But despite the discrepancies, Herberg said, prosecutors were confident the defendant took part in the shooting and, under the state's law of parties, it was enough to sentence him for murder.
“If you get in a fight and start shooting, you're going to suffer the consequences,” Herberg said.
Defense attorney Scott McCrum could not be reached for comment.
