Opinion ID: 3038665
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Luis Alberto Lopez

Text: Luis Alberto Lopez was the first of the four witnesses to contact police with incriminating evidence against Reynoso. In 1995, he had been incarcerated in juvenile hall with Reynoso, and he claimed to have heard Reynoso describe the Prajapati murder at that time. According to Lopez, Reynoso said that he and a few friends had gone to the Top Produce Market to do a “beer run” and, during the run, a woman was 10686 REYNOSO v. GIURBINO shot. Even though Reynoso never explicitly confessed to shooting Prajapati, Lopez testified, he physically acted out the shooting as if he were the shooter.1 Even though Lopez purportedly heard Reynoso’s account of the shooting in 1995, he testified at trial that he did not report this information to police until 1997 because it was not in his interest to do so before then. In June of 1997, he said, he experienced a religious conversion and decided to contact police because he believed it “would be the right thing to do.” Also around that time, Lopez said, he saw a television broadcast that discussed the unsolved shooting of Prajapati, showed a composite of the robber, and included a description of the reward. Lopez said that he also saw an advertisement describing the reward and stating that police had not yet found the suspect. Lopez testified at trial that the broadcast had refreshed his memory and had motivated him to come forward. He also conceded that, in addition to his new-found religious convictions, the offer of a reward motivated him to report Reynoso’s incriminating statements. Lopez could not remember whether he initially asked about the reward when he contacted the police, but his testimony suggested he had inquired about it before testifying. At trial, Reynoso’s defense counsel attempted to undermine Lopez’s credibility by pointing out that he remembered few details about Reynoso or Reynoso’s account of the shooting. 1 The State argues that because Lopez’s version of Reynoso’s confession involved Reynoso “pointing a finger like a gun at the center of his forehead, the precise location of Mrs. Prajapati’s gunshot wound,” and because the exact location of the gunshot wound had not been revealed in news reports, he must have been told about the shooting by Reynoso. It was public information, however, that Prajapati had been shot in the head, and published reward notices specifically stated that the victim was “shot in the head.” Given that Prajapati was running the store on the day of the murder, it is not unlikely that she would have been standing behind the counter, facing forward, making her forehead a likely location for the shooting. REYNOSO v. GIURBINO 10687 Lopez acknowledged that he had seen television reports about the murder, and defense counsel suggested that Lopez had learned of the facts to which he testified by watching those reports. Defense counsel also questioned Lopez about the $25,000 reward; he responded that the reward had played a role in his decision to contact police, but that the money had not been his main concern. At the evidentiary hearing held in federal court in 2003, Lopez explained that when he contacted the police, he wanted only to leave an anonymous tip, but that the officers forced him to provide answers to their questions: “[T] hese people pressured me into saying all this.” He testified that the detectives had told him what he had to say regarding what Reynoso had said to him and that they had “pretty much walked [him] through the process of what to say and how to say it.” Even so, he maintained that he had testified truthfully at Reynoso’s trial. At the evidentiary hearing, Lopez stated that he did not remember whether he was told that he was guaranteed reward money if he testified, but he did vaguely remember being told that the reward would be distributed “after everything was over.” Lopez repeatedly denied any interest in the reward, although he did admit that seeing the reward on television prompted him to come forward as a witness. He also testified at the evidentiary hearing that he was ultimately paid $10,000 for providing the information that helped convict Reynoso.