Opinion ID: 2634864
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Murder of Miguel Garcia, January 22, 1989

Text: John Guardado testified that after leaving a nightclub after 2:00 a.m. on January 22, 1989, he ran into a couple of friends [Miguel Garcia, whom Guardado knew only as `Kaliman,' and John Dorame] on the street where we hang out at. Garcia and Dorame asked Guardado whether he wanted to go to the Las Playas restaurant, and Guardado joined his friends in walking there. Having already consumed beer and a lot of mixed drinks at the nightclub, Guardado described his own condition at the restaurant as exhausted and dazed out, drunk. At approximately 4:40 a.m., Guardado observed a medium-buil[t] man wearing a gray Spanish style suit walk by him, pull a gun from his waistband, and cock it. He then heard six or seven shots. Guardado did not see the man's face, nor did he see him actually fire the gun. After the shots were fired, Guardado saw the assailant run out of the restaurant. Guardado ran toward the door, turned around, returned to the victim, felt him, and then departed. He explained: He was dead. I closed his eyes, and I left. Because I was on probation. Guardado believed the weapon had been a chrome gun, and when shown People's exhibit No. 7, a darker firearm recovered from defendant that the prosecution theorized had been the murder weapon, Guardado testified that he did not recognize it. Guardado denied recognizing the shooter in a pretrial photo lineup, nor could he identify the shooter at trial. Angelica Contreras, a waitress at the Las Playas restaurant, testified that in the early morning of January 22, 1989, the victim and a few other individuals came into the restaurant. The victim told her to serve his friends and said he would pay for everything. [2] After Contreras served the men, she returned to their table a few minutes later to find the victim arguing with another patron, a man she knew only as El Gatito. Contreras told the men to stop arguing and to pay her. The victim did so. Contreras thereafter went to a storage room and then heard some gunshots; when she emerged immediately thereafter, she saw the victim lying on the floor. She observed persons running toward the door, including one man (whom she recognized from his previous visits to the restaurant) holding a black gun in front of his chest with his arms almost completely extended. Contreras acknowledged not telling the police everything when they initially interviewed her, because the restaurant manager told her, If I did not want to have any problems not to say anything. Contreras subsequently identified defendant in a pretrial photographic lineup as the person she saw holding the gun, and at the preliminary hearing she again so identified defendant. Contreras also testified that People's exhibit No. 7, a .380-caliber Llama semiautomatic pistol, resembled the gun she had observed in defendant's possession. Laura Lozano, a waitress at the Las Playas restaurant, testified she was in the kitchen when the shooting occurred. She directed the restaurant manager, a man whom she knew only as Santos, to take a look and see what had happened, but Santos said that he wouldn't go. Lozano looked toward the cashier and saw several persons leaving the restaurant, including one man who carried a gun; however, she did not observe the person's face. She acknowledged untruthfully telling police investigators (out of fear) that she had not witnessed the foregoing events, and for a similar reason misled the investigators when they showed her a photographic lineup, informing them that she did not recognize anyone when in fact she had recognized one of the individuals depicted  defendant  as someone she saw at the restaurant shortly before the shooting, exchanging words with the victim and telling him to leave me alone, I have nothing to do with you. Ronald Riordan, a detective employed by the Los Angles County Sheriff's Department, testified that he arrived at the Las Playas restaurant at approximately 6:30 a.m. on January 22. Riordan recalled that the victim's body bore separate gunshot wounds to the right eye, right chin area, right neck area, upper left chest, right lower back, and left groin area. Riordan also testified that he attended the autopsy of the victim, that all of the victim's wounds were consistent with having been inflicted by a .380-caliber firearm, and that there was no evidence indicating a different weapon had been used. Riordan recalled interviewing witness John Guardado on the day of the murder; contrary to Guardado's testimony at trial (in which he recalled seeing a chrome gun), during the interview Guardado described the murder weapon as a blue steel automatic pistol. Dr. Christopher Rogers, a Los Angeles County Deputy Medical Examiner, testified regarding the autopsy performed on Miguel Garcia. Rogers explained that the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds. The victim's blood was determined to have contained alcohol, cocaine, and a substance related to cocaine. Donald Messer, a Long Beach police officer, testified that on March 2, 1989, he responded to a shots fired call at the La Ruleta bar, located in Long Beach. Shortly after he and other officers arrived at the bar, Messer observed one of his colleagues pull a handgun from defendant's waistband, which precipitated a struggle between the officers and defendant. The officers eventually handcuffed defendant and placed him under arrest. At trial, Messer identified People's exhibit No. 7 as the firearm confiscated from defendant, and testified that the weapon was loaded at the time. Officer Messer added that, during the booking process, officers discovered in defendant's jacket pocket a dollar bill folded up into a bindle that we booked ... as appearing to contain cocaine. A similar bindle made from a folded dollar bill was recovered from the Las Playas crime scene; criminalists employed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department examined both bindles and confirmed that each one contained cocaine residue, a fact to which the parties stipulated at trial. Dwight Van Horn, a deputy sheriff and firearms examiner employed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, testified that, based on the ballistics testing he conducted in April 1989, the bullets recovered from the victim's body during the coroner's investigation and the shells recovered from the crime scene were fired from the Llama .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol seized from defendant at the La Ruleta bar. John Laurie, a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff, testified regarding an interview with defendant (conducted with the assistance of a Spanish-speaking detective, Deputy Joe Olmedo, who served as an interpreter), at the Los Angeles County jail on February 24, 1990. At the time of the interview, Laurie informed defendant he had been identified as the suspect in [the Garcia] murder, and ... had been arrested on a warrant based on that incident. After advising defendant of his constitutional rights, Laurie further informed defendant that he was in jail in connection with the murder committed at the Las Playas restaurant, and asked defendant to comment upon that. Laurie testified defendant replied that he had gone to the Las Playas restaurant with a friend named Francisco Manzano, that the victim had tried to pick a fight with defendant, that defendant said he did not want to fight, and that a short time later, as defendant and Manzano were getting up to leave the restaurant, the victim attempted to pick a fight with defendant a second time, at which point Manzano shot the victim with a .380 semiautomatic pistol. Defendant admitted having been armed with a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun that evening and recalled having used that weapon to hold the other patrons at bay while the shooting occurred. Laurie added: Mr. Manriquez told Detective Olmedo that he would have shot this person but he didn't have to because his friend had already shot him. On cross-examination, Laurie testified that he doubted defendant's version of the events, in part based on information Laurie had obtained from other witnesses to the Las Playas shooting and in part because the investigation revealed defendant had used the alias Francisco Manzano on the occasion of at least four other arrests. [3] Laurie, who did not understand the Spanish language, acknowledged lacking personal knowledge as to what defendant said during the interview, instead basing his trial testimony upon the notes he made of his conversation with Detective Olmedo, who acted as the interpreter. Laurie also confirmed that defendant denied shooting the victim at the Las Playas restaurant.