Man Found Guilty In Deaf Man's Slaying

[Miss-Delectable]

Man Found Guilty In Deaf Man's Slaying - Local News

A 23-year-old man was found guilty Friday in the fatal shooting of a deaf man.

Jurors deliberated for 30 minutes before finding Jesus Trevino guilty of murder.

During closing arguments, the defendant's lawyers told jurors that Trevino did not mean to kill Joe Rodriguez on July 10, 2005.

Trevino was angry that day because he thought a man who lived in the Alazan-Apache Courts was "messing" with his ex-girlfriend, defense lawyers said.

In a jealous rage, Trevino shot at a crowd of people, fatally wounding Rodriguez.

Prosecutors argued that jurors needed to remember trial testimony from the victim's brother.

"He looked at the face of that man as he pointed a gun at him and his brother and pulled the trigger and shot and killed his brother," said Julie Wright, a prosecutor.

Trevino could face a maximum of life in prison. The punishment phase of the trial began Friday afternoon.

 

[ITPjohn]

Killer gets 65-year sentence

Online at: MySA.com: Public Safety

Convicted killer given a 65-year sentence

Web Posted: 01/12/2007 08:17 PM CST
Elizabeth Allen
Express-News

After jurors quickly found Jesus Treviño guilty of murdering a 21-year-old man who had the misfortune to be at Alazan-Apache Courts housing complex when Treviño started shooting, prosecutor Julie Wright told them to think about a fair sentence.

"Aren't you mad that there are parts of this city that are like a war zone, and aren't you sad for the people who have to live there?" Wright asked the jury Friday. Residents in those areas still suffer at the hands of people like Treviño, she said. "Your verdict won't stop them. But it will stop him."

The eight men and four women deliberated for an hour and a half before deciding to stop Treviño for 65 years. He'll be eligible for parole in 30 years.

And the victim's mother said she'll be waiting.

"I hate you," Sandra Mendez snarled at the 23-year-old Treviño in a victim impact statement after the sentencing. "And 30 years later I'm going to be there, all right? I'm going to make sure you never ... come out."

Treviño's lawyer, Pat Montgomery, had argued that while Treviño did show up at Alazan-Apache Courts firing a gun at a crowd in the early morning hours of July 10, 2005, there was a reasonable doubt that his bullet wasn't the one that killed Joe Albert Rodriguez. Witnesses had testified that others in the area commonly carry guns, he said, and someone might have been shooting back at Treviño and hit Rodriguez.

Barring that, he said, one witness testified that Treviño had been looking away when he fired the shot toward the fleeing men, and had not intended to kill Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, deaf from birth and known by his friends and family as "Silent Joe," had arrived shortly before the melee to tell his brother Angel Rodriguez that he'd made him some pancakes, Angel Rodriguez testified in the trial before 186th District Court Judge Maria Teresa Herr.

Treviño, incensed by the notion that there were men hanging out at his ex-girlfriend's apartment, got a ride to the housing project and stormed into the apartment, witnesses testified. Finding only the woman's younger sister, another teen, and the four children they were baby-sitting, he went back outside.

The men scattered at the sight of the .22-caliber pistol Treviño was carrying, and Treviño started shooting, they said. After Rodriguez fell, shot in the neck, Treviño fled in an SUV, witnesses said. He was found two weeks later hiding in an apartment under a pile of dirty clothes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
eallen@express-news.net