Jury Still Out on Fate of S.D. Officers’ Killer

The jury deliberating the fate of convicted police killer Joselito (Jerry) Cinco heard final arguments Thursday and then met for more than three hours Thursday without arriving at a decision. The jurors will resume their discussions today in Orange County Superior Court in Westminster.

They have two options: Sentencing Cinco to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.

The same jury convicted Cinco, 28, of Spring Valley, on Feb. 18 of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the Sept. 14, 1984, deaths of San Diego Police Officers Kimberly Tonahill, 24, and Timothy Ruopp, 31.

In closing arguments Thursday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Neely held up photos of Tonahill and Ruopp in street clothing and asked the jury how much mercy Cinco showed the two officers.

“He does not deserve mercy,” Neely said.

Cinco’s attorney, John Cotsirilos, told jurors that imposing the death penalty would not bring the officers back.

Cinco reacted glumly to the arguments by resting his head in his hands and looking down at the defense table during the almost two hours of arguments.

His mother, Lolita Cinco Zamora, sat crying in the audience while Cotsirilos talked to the jury.

On Tuesday, during her testimony, she tearfully begged the jury to spare Cinco’s life. His father and brother also asked that Cinco be spared the death penalty.

“The only question that is left is when is he going to die, a timetable you set or what God sets?” said Cotsirilos. While conceding that the shootings in the Grape Street section of Balboa Park were “terrible crimes,” he said they occurred when Cinco was 23. “In fairness to him, think of yourself at that age.”

In contrast, Neely made a forceful argument for the death penalty.

“Murders of this type threaten the community at large,” the prosecutor said. “They strike at the heart of a system of order and liberty. These crimes are particularly outrageous.”

“This defendant had decided long before what he was going to do. It was the law according to Cinco,” said Neely.

In recounting the events of nearly four years ago, Neely said, “That fateful night two San Diego police officers, responding to an innocuous infraction . . . without the slightest thought of what was going to happen to them . . . went to their deaths.” Wounded in the same incident was officer Gary Mitrovich, who was hit in the shoulder as he responded to the scene.

Judge Luis Cardenas instructed the jury not to draw any inferences from the fact that Cinco did not testify in either the guilt phase or the penalty phase of his trial.

The case was moved to Orange County in 1985 after Cotsirilos argued that the publicity and the number of police killings in San Diego made it impossible for Cinco to have a fair trial there.