Thursday, March 4, 2010

Life in prison without possibility of parole

All right.  I was wrong the jury gave him life without parole instead of the death penalty.

Chalk it up to two very savvy defense attorneys who knew what heartstrings to pluck for the jury.  Congratulations to Therese Huntzinger (pictured) and Pat Hancock.

It was a brutal murder by someone who seemed to have no understanding of the consequences of any action he ever took.  Parents who blamed themselves rather than allowing their grown son to take any responsibility for his actions.

Oh well, life in prison won't be a life of ease and luxury for this young man.


Jury sentences Estrada to life in prison
By Craig Kapitan - Express-News

VICTORIA — Jurors declined to sentence Joe Estrada Jr. to death on Wednesday, bringing to a close one of the most tragic and closely watched murder cases to have come out of San Antonio in recent years.

Instead, the jury chose the only other option for the capital murder convict: Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The group took four hours to decide that Estrada would not be a future threat to society if sent to prison. Had jurors decided otherwise, they would have been required to determine if there was enough mitigating evidence for him to avoid execution.

The rest of the story: