LUIS V. SAENZ: SOME COURT, SOMEWHERE WILL SET THINGS RIGHT IN GONZALEZ DEBACLE

By Juan Montoya

In an extraordinary bit of reporting direct from the court trial transcript, the Brownsville Herald is now saying that the comments made by Cameron County District Attorney
Luis V. Saenz that "miscommunication" by the court and jury resulted in a paltry five year sentence for Marco Antonio Gonzalez were expressly false.

In its reporting, the daily states that "The court record indicates that the prosecution had a chance to let the Cameron County jury know Marco Antonio Gonzalez’s sentencing would be 'concurrent' but did not fight for it."

The court (404th District Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez) expressly asked Asst. D.A. Peter Gilman if the state was to willing go along with the language of the defense charge (Ernesto Gamez). That carried a single sentence that the state said it could live with and did not object.

“All the punishment you assess will run concurrent since all of these allegations were tried at the same time.”

“Hold on. You’re willing Mr. Gilman — the state is willing to remove that sentence and go with the defense charge?” Cornejo-Lopez asked of Gilman.

Gilman said he would have “no objection to the defense charge.”

Gonzalez was found guilty of nine counts of aggravated assault against a public servant and one count of aggravated assault in retaliation, was sentenced to prison for five years.

Because of the time he spent in prison (840 days), Gonzalez will be a free man in less than three years.

He previously was acquitted of capital murder in the shooting death of Ivan Reyes.
The reason, Gilman later explained via email to the daily, is because in cases such as that of Gonzalez, it would be improper for the court to instruct the jury on the consecutive sentencing law or to inform them of the effect the law would have on the punishment.

 “… Once Mr. (Ernesto) Gamez objected to our language in the jury charge, the defense would have had a lower burden of merely showing some harm, on appeal, as a result of this improper instruction.”

Now, even after his initial comments on the so-called "miscommunication" between the court and the jury have been proven not to be true, Saenz said he is hoping that "a court somewhere" will hear the case because of its 'extraordinary situation." 

Guess what Mr. D.A.? The case is over. It's water under the bridge that will see this defendant pull a mere three years for shooting a man, holding a woman at gunpoint for six hours, and shooting it out with law enforcement officers.

"Still doing a good job?"