2 Convicted of Murdering Man in Revenge for Insult to Mother

Two men were convicted Tuesday of killing a Pacoima man while seeking revenge for an insult to one of their mothers.

Judge Edward I. Gorman of San Fernando Superior Court found Carlos Jimenez, 20, of Pacoima, and Donald Maestas, 18, of Arleta, guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 34-year-old Ricardo Sanchez in January, 1983, at Sanchez’s home on Vena Avenue.

According to testimony in the eight-day, non-jury trial, Jimenez shot Sanchez once in the chest as Sanchez’s pregnant wife, Virginia, and three young daughters watched. Maestas’ mother had been slapped by a man attending a party at Sanchez’s home the month before.

Sentencing Set May 6

The men, who used Maestas’ grandmother’s gun in the attack, are scheduled for sentencing on May 6 in Gorman’s court. Jimenez, who fired the shot, faces a maximum prison term of 17 years to life. Maestas could receive a term of 15 years to life.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Andy Diamond said he decided not to seek first-degree murder charges because there was little evidence that they planned to kill Sanchez when they went to the house.

According to Jimenez’s taped confession and Virginia Sanchez’s trial testimony, Jimenez and Maestas entered the Sanchez home through the unlocked front door shortly after 1 a.m. and kicked in a locked bedroom door where Sanchez and his wife were sleeping.

Taped Confession

“They told Sanchez they were looking for a man named Jorge,” Diamond said. “Sanchez said there wasn’t anyone by that name at that house, so Jimenez and Maestas went out to the front walkway, then they turned around, knocked on the front door, and shot the victim when he opened the door.”

In the taped confession, Jimenez told detectives he meant only to wound Sanchez “to teach them a lesson.” He said party-goers at the house often harassed neighbors.

Jimenez’s defense attorney, Lawrence Teeter, said the one-hour confession should not have been admitted as evidence because detectives disregarded his request for an attorney.

“My client’s confession was a product of coercion,” Teeter said in an interview after the trial. “I believe he told the police what he thought they wanted him to say because they promised him he would do Youth Authority time--which I don’t believe he is eligible for--if he talked, and they told him they would put him away for life if he did not.”

Not ‘Hill Street Blues’

In the tape recording, Jimenez can be heard asking if there were any attorneys in the police station as detectives began to question him after reading him his rights.

“This isn’t ‘Hill Street Blues,’ ” a detective tells him. “There aren’t any attorneys hanging around here.”

“That statement by my client should have caused the interrogation process to cease at that moment,” Teeter said. “He wanted to speak to an attorney and the practicality of realizing that wish was belittled in a way that simply strengthened the coercive environs in which the interrogation was taking place.”

After Gorman ruled that Jimenez’s comment was not a request for an attorney and that the confession would be admitted as evidence, Diamond, Teeter, and Maestas’ defense attorney, Steven Flanagan, agreed to conduct the trial without a jury.

“Juries sometimes tend to be very hostile in the face of evidence that someone has confessed, regardless of the circumstances under which that confession was obtained,” Teeter said.