A Santa Clara County prosecutor confirmed today that Roy Lopez
Garcia Sr. will be re-tried for allegedly murdering his neighbor in
Morgan Hill after the state Supreme Court dismissed his conviction
last week.
”
We’re going to prosecute him again, yes,
”
Deputy District Attorney Javier Alcala said.
”
We’re in the process of getting the paperwork to ship him from
prison.
”
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – A Santa Clara County prosecutor confirmed today that Roy Lopez Garcia Sr. will be re-tried for allegedly murdering his neighbor in Morgan Hill after the state Supreme Court dismissed his conviction last week.
“We’re going to prosecute him again, yes,” Deputy District Attorney Javier Alcala said. “We’re in the process of getting the paperwork to ship him from prison.”
In an ugly twist of fate, Garcia will be joining his son in county jail as he awaits trial. Roy Garcia Jr., 25, is charged with murder for the July 3 beating death of his friend Jeff Garner.
The elder Garcia’s September 2000 conviction for the shotgun slaying of Morgan Hill resident Deborah Gregg was overturned because the trial judge allowed the jury to view the crime scene during its deliberations, without counsel present.
Garcia Jr. attacked Garner with a metal pipe while Garner, 25, fought with a 15-year-old girl, according to court records. The three of them had spent the evening drinking and smoking methamphetamine on the grounds of the Garcia family’s rural estate east of Gilroy, according to court records. Garcia Jr. has claimed he acted to protect the girl.
Soon after Garcia Sr. returns to this county, his trial will take place within 60 days, unless he waives that right, Alcala said. It is likely he will waive that time to allow his attorney, who has not been selected yet, to prepare for the case.
“They need to gather paperwork, they need to get transcripts from the old trial, they need to prepare themselves,” Alcala said.
Garcia Sr. will remain in custody because the murder charge against him includes the special circumstance of lying in wait, he said. The jury decided that he plotted to kill Gregg, who lived in a trailer on a small patch of land adjacent to Garcia’s ranch on Armsby Lane in Morgan Hill. The two had been involved in a property dispute. The jury found him guilty of murder with the lying-in-wait enhancement for shooting her as she worked on a fence that split their properties.
According to court records, the trial was dominated by competing theories of where Gregg’s assailant was located when the fatal shots were fired. During the trial, jurors were taken to the crime scene to help them sort out the testimony of competing expert witnesses, including a San Francisco police officer who testified on behalf of the defense. The scene was reconstructed to look as it did the day of Gregg’s murder, complete with props investigators used to track the trajectory of the shots.
Two days into deliberations, the jury asked to see the crime scene again, and was escorted there by Judge Hugh F. Mullin III. Mullin allowed the highly unusual move on the grounds that it was similar to reviewing a piece of evidence in the jury room. He barred counsel and the defendant from attending the viewing. The day after jurors revisited the scene, they reached a verdict.
Garcia’s appeal was rejected by the 1st Appellate District, but his attorneys’ argument that the visit tainted the deliberations gained traction with the Supreme Court. In his opinion overturning the conviction and remanding the case back to the trial court, Presiding Justice Ronald George wrote that the visit “created a much greater risk that the jury potentially will receive new or improper evidence,” and showed that the jury had questions about “whether the prosecution’s version of the events should be accepted.”
Before he was arrested for Gregg’s murder, Garcia was a prosperous businessman with substantial real estate holdings throughout the county. He and Gregg were involved in a series of civil disputes over their shared property boundary. Garcia claimed that she was encroaching on his land. Gregg, in turn, made several complaints to environmental authorities that Garcia was fouling a creek on his land.
In both civil and criminal proceedings, Gregg and other witnesses testified that Garcia had vowed revenge on her for interfering with his plans and threatened to “make her disappear.”
The elder Garcia will be tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose.
His son is expected to enter a plea during his next court appearance, scheduled for Aug. 16.
