Slayer of 2 Teen-Agers Has Life Spared by Jury

An Orange County jury Thursday decided against a death verdict for gang member Mario Tirado, convicted of murdering two teen-agers on bicycles, and voted instead that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Tirado reacted to the verdict with a slight smile and got a pat on the shoulder from his attorneys. But members of his family--many of whom traveled almost 2,000 miles from their home in Vista Hermosa, Mexico--sobbed openly in relief. Tirado’s grandmother, Guadalupe Cortez, had to be helped from the courtroom.

“We are thankful to God that Mario does not have to die,” said Anna Leal, one of his sisters.

The jurors, who had convicted Tirado last month, took a day and a half to decide his penalty.

If jurors had chosen death, Tirado, at age 21, would have been the youngest person ever sent to Death Row from Orange County since the state restored capital punishment 12 years ago. Tirado was convicted of first-degree murder after a four-month trial for the Oct. 30, 1987, shooting deaths of Enrique Arceo, 13, and Jesus Perez, 17. They were returning from a church carnival on bicycles with several others, witnesses said, when Tirado opened fire in a drive-by shooting. Tirado was also convicted of six attempted murders, including other victims in that incident and several from a shooting incident earlier that day.

A witness who had been in the car with Tirado testified that he, Tirado and Patrick McCauley, 24, the driver--all from different branches of the F-Troop gang--were out searching for Lopers, members of a rival gang, because of friction between the gangs a few weeks earlier. The two teen-age victims were known to be associated with the Lopers.

The jurors were hung 11 to 1 in favor of a first-degree murder conviction on McCauley, who will be retried. Prosecutors had not asked for the death penalty in his case. The same jurors found Tirado guilty, plus special circumstances of double murder, which allowed prosecutors to seek a death verdict against him.

The jurors were limited to two choices. Thursday, after they decided on the lesser sentence of life without parole, most of them declined to discuss their decision.

But one juror, Loyd Kilby of Mission Viejo, said the majority of them thought that “this just wasn’t the right case for the death penalty.”

“I believe very firmly in the death penalty,” Kilby said, “but this kid had no prior record; he just isn’t one of the monsters I think should go to the gas chamber.”

Some of the jurors indicated to the lawyers involved that Tirado’s youth--he was just 18 when the shootings occurred--was a big factor in deciding on the lesser penalty. But Otha Standifer III, one of Tirado’s attorneys, said he is convinced that Tirado’s religious conversion since the shootings, which was a major part of the defense during the penalty phase of the trial, made the difference.

“Mario has changed; he’s more mature, with better moral judgment,” Standifer said. “It would have been absolutely unnecessary for him to be sent to the gas chamber.”

The defense presented more than 30 witnesses during the penalty phase--14 of them from Mexico.

Nearly a dozen of Tirado’s relatives sat outside in the hallway for two days awaiting the jury verdict.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton appeared only mildly disappointed at the outcome.

“This case was strictly a jury call,” he said. “We thought the crime was serious enough that we should present the death penalty as something for them to consider. But I have no problems with their decision. They were an extremely conscientious group of jurors.”

Defense attorney Standifer said the jurors wanted to know afterward if there was a chance Tirado might be freed from prison someday. The law does have provisions for a governor to reduce a life-without-parole sentence. But no one has yet been in prison long enough under a life-without-parole sentence to have the provisions tested.

Absent from the courtroom throughout the trial, and during the reading of Thursday’s verdict, were members of the two victims’ families.

“This is not all that unusual during gang cases,” Middleton said. “We had a lot of F-Troop gang members in here during this trial. The fear of retaliation is very real to these folks.”