Wife Files Appeal of Murder Verdict

A battered wife who fatally shot her adulterous husband, then dismembered his body and burned the remains, is appealing her 2000 murder conviction, arguing in part that a California weapon-enhancement law is cruel and unusual punishment.

But state prosecutors argue that the 1997 firearms law has been upheld by courts around California and was appropriately applied in Gladis Soto’s case.

“It is just too easy to kill people with guns,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Ronald A. Jakob, who will argue the case before the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura later this week.

Soto, 40, was convicted of first-degree murder in December 1999 for shooting her sleeping husband, Pedro Alba, 35, in the couple’s Ventura apartment and then cutting up his body with an electric table saw.

During the trial, defense lawyers argued that Soto was sexually abused as a child growing up in Mexico and physically abused by her husband when the couple lived in Oxnard and Ventura.

She was diagnosed by a defense expert as suffering from battered-woman syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Soto’s lawyers said she could not have formed the intent to kill because of her psychological problems, and they suggested she be found guilty of manslaughter, not premeditated murder.

But it took jurors three days of deliberation to conclude that Soto had deliberately planned and carried out the killing.

Soto was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Under the 1997 law, the sentence was doubled because she used a firearm during the killing. Soto was ultimately ordered to serve a minimum of 52 years in prison based on the enhancement and a related charge.

In the appeal, defense attorney Susan S. Bauguess contends that the weapon-enhancement law is cruel, because it punishes defendants with no regard for mitigating factors, such as whether the person was abused, as in Soto’s case.

However, prosecutors say state courts have rejected such challenges.

Soto’s lawyer raises several additional issues in her appeal.

She contends that Superior Court Judge Herbert Curtis erred when he allowed the jury to hear evidence of a tearful confession, which defense lawyers say was coerced during an illegal police interview.

Soto further contends that Curtis never should have allowed the jury to view graphic photos of her slain husband’s burned body parts. The photos sickened one juror during opening statements at trial and prompted Curtis to call a court recess.

“The introduction of the gruesome photographs only served to bias the jury,” Bauguess argued in her opening brief.

The appellate court will hear arguments in the case Thursday afternoon. A ruling is expected in the coming weeks.