{"id":225842,"date":"2025-09-14T09:41:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T09:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225842\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T09:41:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T09:41:12","slug":"judge-denies-new-trial-in-tijuana-death-of-san-diego-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225842\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies new trial in Tijuana death of San Diego teen"},"content":{"rendered":"

A San Diego federal judge on Friday denied a new trial for a Tijuana man convicted of fatally shooting a San Diego teenager<\/a>, ruling that a potentially suspicious text message received by one of the jurors did not taint the jury or violate the defendant\u2019s right to a fair trial.<\/p>\n

Brian Alexis Patron Lopez had argued that his conviction should be vacated<\/a> because the juror who received the unsolicited text message<\/a> had expressed concern that it might be related to the case and discussed those concerns with other jurors. He argued that the message distracted the juror who received it from fairly deliberating the evidence and that she violated the judge\u2019s instructions by not reporting it until after a verdict had been reached.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors had argued Patron\u2019s conviction should be upheld and he should be denied a new trial because the text message was clearly spam and every juror who saw it or heard about it treated it as such.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge William Hayes sided with the prosecutors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the text was not received until after the jury had begun deliberating, the text exchange could not have interfered with any juror\u2019s ability to follow the evidence, the lawyers\u2019 closing arguments, and the Court\u2019s reading of the final jury instructions,\u201d Hayes wrote in a 47-page ruling Friday.<\/p>\n

The judge found that nine of the jurors either never knew about the text message at all or only learned about it after reaching their verdict. He found that the juror who received it and the two jurors with whom she discussed it during deliberations were not influenced by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court finds that all three jurors who knew of the text exchange prior to the verdict testified unhesitatingly, unconditionally, resolutely, and credibly that the text exchange did not cause them to fear any retaliation, did not impact their ability to follow the Court\u2019s instructions, and did not impact their ability to be fair and impartial,\u201d Hayes wrote.<\/p>\n

Patron was convicted in March of multiple charges in the May 2020 slaying of 19-year-old U.S. citizen and San Diego resident Miguel Anthony Rendon, who prosecutors said stole more than 2 pounds of methamphetamine that he was meant to smuggle across the border. The theft sparked a manhunt by the drug dealers who had tasked him with moving the drugs. Once they found Rendon, they abducted him, tortured him and attempted to extort<\/a> his family in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors alleged that while at least five people were involved in taking Rendon hostage, Patron had taken control over the kidnapping and shot Rendon five times in the head \u201cto up his status in the drug trafficking organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury convicted Patron of intentional killing while engaged in drug trafficking, hostage taking resulting in death and conspiracy to take hostages resulting in death.<\/p>\n

But on the day the jury reached its verdict, after most of the jurors had left the courthouse, one juror asked a bailiff about a text message she\u2019d received the previous night that was mildly concerning and might be related to the trial.<\/p>\n

That revelation led Patron to ask for an evidentiary hearing to learn more about the text message and its potential influence over the trial and the verdict. Hayes granted that request and brought all 12 jurors back to the courtroom to testify under oath about what they knew of the message and whether it influenced their verdict.<\/p>\n

Patron eventually requested a new trial, but\u00a0Hayes wrote in his ruling Friday that after considering \u201cthe full context of the text exchange, its impact on the jurors\u201d and other relevant factors, Patron had failed to show the text \u201c(raised) a credible risk of affecting the outcome of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patron could appeal the ruling and ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate his conviction and grant him a new trial.<\/p>\n

For now, Hayes is set to sentence Patron in November. The judge has sentenced four other defendants<\/a> in the case to prison terms ranging from five years to just under 12 years. Patron faces a minimum of life in prison on two of the counts for which he was convicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego federal judge on Friday denied a new trial for a Tijuana man convicted of fatally…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":225843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,42364,55354,1582,276,356,5295,1370,728,50,3549,3550,7264,55993,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-225842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-baja-california","10":"tag-border-baja-california","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-local-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-san-diego","19":"tag-san-diego-county","20":"tag-sandiego","21":"tag-tijuana","22":"tag-top-stories-sdut","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}