Based on a doctor's expert testimony during a 2009 trial, the physical evidence was clear: a seven-year-old Anaheim boy living near Disneyland had suffered a bite to his penis and his torn rectum had bled after a bathroom encounter with his mother's boyfriend, Miguel Angel Garcia.
In addition, the boy told his mother, who'd been working during the incident, that Garcia had also given him a blow job after raping him.
But Juror #6 refused to hold Garcia responsible or even to deliberate the facts, according to court records.
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Other jurors, who had no problem arriving at guilty verdicts at the
conclusion of the trial, became frustrated by the holdout and told
Superior Court Judge Carla Singer. The foreman wondered out loud if the
lone juror had a mental “competency” problem. Still, the juror refused
to budge. Singer ordered the panel not to quit.
Several hours later–after key testimony had been reviewed, the lone
juror dropped her stance and the jury reached the necessary unanimous
guilty verdicts: In September 2007, 24-year-old Garcia had committed
oral copulation, sexual penetration, two forcible lewd acts and sodomy
on the boy.
Judge Singer responded by sentencing Garcia to 40 years to life in prison.
Seeking a new trial, the molester appealed, arguing that Singer had
violated his right to a fair trial by withholding from him the identity
and contact information for the holdout juror. He said he wanted to know
if the majority of the panel had intimidated her “in fear of being
slandered . . . or humiliated again.”
Last week, a California Court of Appeal based in Santa Ana backed Singer.
That ruling–written by Justice Richard D. Fybel–leaves Garcia stuck. If a future parole board is kind, his
first chance to return to freedom will be in 2050. He will be 66 years
old.
Barring unusual circumstances, juror identities in California are a secret.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.