Traffic-Spat Killer Draws 10-Year Term : Justice: Sentencing judge laments crowded legal system that, he says, allowed Howard Barton’s victim to evade the law on traffic violations.

Pacific Beach realtor Howard Barton was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for killing Marco Sanchez in a shooting that a judge said could have been averted if the legal system had been able to prosecute Sanchez for numerous traffic violations.

In sentencing Barton, 48, Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd noted the irony surrounding the Feb. 22, 1990, incident, which began as a minor traffic altercation between Sanchez and Barton’s daughter, Andrea Barton, in Pacific Beach. The dispute between Sanchez, 24, and Andrea Barton, 21, prompted Howard Barton, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, to go looking for Sanchez.

A jury convicted Barton of voluntary manslaughter Feb. 22, a year-to-the-day that Sanchez, a construction worker, was killed. He could have been sentenced to a maximum 16 years in prison.

The shooting occurred after witnesses said that both Andrea Barton and Sanchez exchanged obscene gestures when the young woman’s car stalled near Ingraham Street and Grand Avenue. Witnesses said that both Andrea Barton and Sanchez proceeded to cut each other off as they continued driving on Garnet Avenue.

Mudd said that Sanchez, a National City resident, had failed to appear in court on numerous traffic citations and was driving without a license. Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Chappell said that Sanchez had $8,200 in outstanding traffic warrants on the day of the shooting.

But for an overcrowded County Jail, Sanchez should have been arrested and prosecuted for a long string of traffic offenses, and, perhaps, prevented from driving, Mudd said.

Sanchez “totally disregarded all of the laws that relate to using and operating a motor vehicle,” said Mudd. “This is a perfect example where an overcrowded jail and overcrowded (court) system would have been able to do something. . . . Every time (Sanchez) was picked up he thumbed his nose at the system and failed to appear.”

In a surprising statement delivered before he imposed the sentence, Mudd made it clear that he believed Sanchez contributed to the events leading up to the shooting.

“The evidence is overwhelming that Sanchez . . . singled out (Andrea Barton) in a car for harassment,” Mudd said. “ . . . It is clear that it was a violent harassment of Barton’s daughter.”

He also said that Sanchez’s widow, Gloria Sanchez, perjured herself when she testified about a knife that may have been used by Sanchez to threaten Barton. An unopened knife was found by investigators under the front seat of Sanchez’s car. Gloria Sanchez said she placed the knife under the seat, but identified different knives on two occasions.

In the trial, defense attorney Milton Silverman argued that Barton shot in self-defense when Sanchez waved a knife at him. Despite the testimony of several witnesses who said that Sanchez was not armed, Silverman continued to insist Friday that Sanchez threatened Barton with a knife.

Mudd also expressed skepticism about other evidence recovered by police after the shooting. Sanchez was shot while sitting inside his car and staggered out the passenger door. He walked a few feet to a dry cleaner owned by family members, where he collapsed in the doorway and died.

Police recovered a set of keys and a baseball cap near his body. During the trial, Silverman speculated that family members substituted the keys for a knife, raising the possibility that Sanchez had two knives in the car.

“If there was another knife, what happened to it?” Mudd asked.

Investigators said family members waited several minutes with the mortally wounded Sanchez before police arrived.

Later in his remarks, Mudd said he was convinced that Sanchez never threatened Barton with an open knife, suggesting that he believed Barton may have seen the victim holding a closed knife.

Although Mudd expressed doubts about some facts in the case, he blamed Barton for Sanchez’s death. He said that Sanchez “did not deserve to die.”

“As wrong as Sanchez was . . . as clearly an irresponsible individual as he was, the circumstances did not justify the drawing of the weapon,” Mudd said. “ . . . The great provocation was of your (Barton’s) doing.”

Before he was shot, witnesses said that Sanchez twice tried to walk away when confronted by Barton inside a sporting goods store and on the sidewalk. Howard and Andrea Barton had gone looking for Sanchez after the traffic altercation and found him inside a store on Garnet Avenue.

Sanchez walked to his parked car and got behind the steering wheel. Witnesses said Howard Barton followed Sanchez to the car and pointed a gun at him while Sanchez was sitting in the driver’s seat, with the driver’s door open.

Mudd said that Sanchez was “truly vulnerable” when he was shot by Barton in the back. The victim was “clearly moving” toward the passenger door, trying to get away from Barton, Mudd said.

In sentencing Barton to 10 years, Mudd complied with a request by Silverman, who argued for a mid-term sentence instead of the maximum 16 years in prison requested by prosecutor Chappell and Sanchez’s family.

Before he was sentenced, Barton was allowed to address the court. In his brief remarks, Barton expressed remorse for killing Sanchez and asked the judge and Sanchez’s family for forgiveness.

“In my own mind, every day is a living hell. Unless you’ve taken somebody’s life, you can’t know what it’s like,” said Barton. “I would like to go back to my family and help the Sanchez family.”

Earlier, Chappell had told Mudd that, regardless of what Barton or Silverman said, “Barton still shot a man in the back over a traffic altercation.”

“That makes him a danger to society,” she argued.

In an emotional appeal to Mudd, Sanchez’s mother, Vivian Sanchez, and his widow, Gloria Sanchez, asked him to impose the maximum sentence.

“I wish you could give him a sentence that would bring my son and father of my granddaughter back,” Vivian Sanchez said.

Then she read from a prepared statement by Gloria Sanchez, who was too distraught to speak.

“Barton’s defense attorney said he (Barton) was a role model prior to this tragedy. He and he alone changed that by pulling the trigger. We ask you to now make him a role model for his action by giving him the maximum sentence,” said the victim’s mother, reading from Gloria Sanchez’s statement.

However, Mudd noted that Barton did not have a record and explained that the law also limits the prison time he could give Barton. Mudd sentenced him to six years for the voluntary manslaughter conviction and to an additional four years for using a gun in the commission of a crime.

The judge ruled out the possibility of probation for Barton. Mudd said he was compelled to send Barton to prison in order to punish him, protect society and to deter others.

“In our society today, traffic encounters . . . have become justification for physical assaults, beatings and death,” Mudd said. Putting Barton on probation would defeat the sentencing objectives and “send the wrong message to society,” he added.