Jury weighs Metrolink killer’s fate

The fate of a man convicted of 11 counts of first-degree murder after he caused the deadliest crash in Metrolink history three years ago now rests in the hands of a jury that will decide whether he should live or die.

In closing arguments Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, prosecutors told jurors it was up to them to decide the appropriate punishment for former Compton laborer Juan Alvarez. And in the prosecution’s opinion, the most fitting penalty should be death.

“He does not deserve your leniency for his deliberate, intentional actions,” Assistant Dist. Atty. John Monaghan told the panel of nine women and three men. “He does not deserve your mercy. ...In this case, Mr. Alvarez has forfeited his right to live.”

Alvarez, 29, who faces a death sentence or life in prison without possibility of parole, parked his sport utility vehicle on railway tracks near Glendale on Jan. 2, 2005, and fled. A Metrolink passenger train plowed into the vehicle, struck a parked freight train and slammed into an oncoming commuter train. In addition to the 11 killed, at least 180 people were injured.

He was convicted last month.

In closing arguments, his defense attorney acknowledged the “tremendous pain” suffered by victims’ families.

“There is nothing I could say. . . . construct . . . put into words that could alleviate the tremendous pain and suffering and the prolonged loss of each of the families,” said attorney Michael Belter.

He said survivors would “suffer for the rest of their lives,” but he called on jurors to “make a rational decision.”

A self-acknowledged methamphetamine addict who survived a tortured childhood and has exhibited mental instability, Alvarez testified that he planned to commit suicide but changed his mind.

Belter argued that Alvarez’s troubled childhood and deteriorated mental state played a role in his actions. He reminded jurors that Alvarez had written in his diary five weeks before the crash of his desire to commit suicide.

“Is that fake?” Belter said, referring to the prosecution’s argument that Alvarez did not intend to kill himself.

It was “a confluence of unpredictable, almost unforeseeable triggers” that led to the tragedy, Belter said.

Belter reminded jurors of Alvarez’s tortured upbringing, in which he “was beaten as a dog.”

“His mother is useless, his father is a monster and he has nowhere to go,” Belter said. “This is the world this man was brought into and was raised in.”

But prosecutors told jurors that Alvarez’s psychological health and troubled upbringing could not be used as “an excuse” or “a crutch” for his actions later in life.

“People do terrible things. Mr. Alvarez did a terrible thing,” Monaghan said. “He must pay for that with his life.”

--

ann.simmons@latimes.com