The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of a man convicted of murdering a Pomona police officer and wounding another officer following a short pursuit over eight years ago.<\/p>\n
Isaias De Jesus Valencia, now 47, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the March 9, 2018, killing of Greggory Casillas in Pomona.<\/p>\n
Jurors convicted Valencia of first-degree murder and found true the special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer in the performance of his duties and murder for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest.<\/p>\n
The defendant was also found guilty of four counts of attempted murder, including one involving wounded Officer Alex Nguyen, three counts of assault with a firearm on a peace officer and one count each of fleeing a pursuing peace officer and possession of a firearm by a felon, along with finding true allegations that Valencia personally and intentionally discharged a handgun.<\/p>\n
In a March 10 ruling, a three-justice panel from California\u2019s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense\u2019s challenge to the warrant-less entry by police into Valencia\u2019s apartment after a standoff, along with a claim that he could only be convicted of six crimes \u2014 not eight \u2014 because he fired six rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cValencia\u2019s dangerous and bizarre conduct \u2014 wide-eyed laughing at police during an irrational high-speed chase leading nowhere, ending with a crash into a parked car \u2014 gave officers grounds for suspecting Valencia\u2019s blood would contain evidence of intoxicants,\u201d the appellate court panel found in its 24-page ruling. \u201cThe officers were justified in continuing their pursuit of Valencia through the front door of his apartment in an effort to arrest him before his metabolism eliminated evidence of intoxicated driving.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel added that \u201cValencia\u2019s conduct had been irrational, unpredictable, confrontational and hazardous to the public and himself\u201d and that he had \u201cposed a flagrant risk to others, to himself, and to the property of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pomona police responding to a 911 call of a suspected DUI tried to stop Valencia, with a brief pursuit ensuing that ended when he crashed into a parked car and ran into his apartment, according to Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian.<\/p>\n
Valencia fired six times at officers as police tried to open the door, shooting Casillas in the head and injuring Nguyen, who was shot in the left cheek, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Valencia was taken into custody by the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department the next day after a 15-hour barricade.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Ronald Higgins previously told City News Service he believes his client is \u201csuffering from a mental disorder,\u201d but noted that the defense didn\u2019t have the opportunity to present that to the jury.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor countered that Valencia was found competent earlier to stand trial, and said the defendant has \u201cno diagnosed mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with the life prison sentence without the possibility of parole, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mike Camacho also handed Valencia an additional 278-years-to-life sentence. The appellate court panel noted in its ruling that minor changes needed to be made in the sentence, but those do not affect the life prison term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of a man convicted of murdering a Pomona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10526,15262,4125,12423,3581,7718,11338,95,15263],"class_list":["post-30713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-valencia","tag-case","tag-convicted","tag-court","tag-murder","tag-officers","tag-review","tag-supreme","tag-valencia","tag-wont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}