Jurors Will See Brief Video of Caro Sons

When jurors meet next week to decide on life or death for convicted murderer Socorro Caro, they’ll see only a few brief segments from the Caro family home videos that prosecutors wanted to introduce, a Ventura County judge ruled Monday.

The videotape clips show family activities involving the three young sons Caro was convicted of murdering.

Superior Court Judge Donald D. Coleman also ruled that jurors will get to hear from Caro’s husband, Dr. Xavier Caro. Defense attorneys attempted to bar his testimony about the personal effect of the crime, arguing that jurors would learn nothing they had not heard during Caro’s nine-week trial.

Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley described the physician as a “gifted communicator,” suggesting that his testimony about the loss of his three sons could unfairly sway jurors deciding whether to recommend his wife’s execution or life imprisonment without parole.

Caro was found guilty of first-degree murder Nov. 5. The penalty phase is to start Nov. 27 and is expected to last about two weeks.

Jurors will view three scenes from the five-minute video, which prosecutors thought would convey a vivid impression of the boys who were killed. Eleven-year-old Joey, 8-year-old Michael, and 5-year-old Christopher were shot as they slept on the night of Nov. 22, 1999.

In one scene, the three boys kick around a soccer ball on a grassy field.

In another, Joey scores a run at a softball game as his father tells him: “You did a good job, buddy. We’re proud of you.”

The final scene is of Christopher, who was then a toddler, crawling up the stairs for the first time as his brothers and father cheer him on.

Coleman excluded a number of other segments, however, saying they would be repetitive and would not give a sense of the Caros as a family. For instance, jurors will not see one of the boys recite a poem he had memorized for school.

A number of issues remain to be decided in a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Caro’s attorneys want the judge to keep prosecutors from again showing jurors photographs of the boys sprawled on their bloody beds or lying on autopsy tables at the Ventura County morgue. Coleman indicated he probably would allow limited use of the photos, but said he needed more time to study arguments from both sides.