In an unusually strong sentencing statement, 3rd District Judge Judith Atherton told a convicted murderer his "chilling" testimony at trial and clear lack of remorse for shooting another man to death during rush hour traffic showed he no longer belongs in society.
Atherton on Friday sentenced Gene Garza, 21, to prison for five crimes and ordered all sentences to be served consecutively.
The sentence was five years to life for first-degree felony murder; one to15 years for second-degree felony criminal mischief; and zero to five years each for three counts of third-degree felony criminal mischief.
Garza was convicted on all counts after a three-day jury trial in February.
"I find it particularly chilling you showed no remorse for taking a human life and threatening the lives of three other people. They could have been killed, too," Atherton said.
"You repeatedly justified it and acted with a degree of pride in your behavior," Atherton told Garza about his conduct at trial. "That tells me you simply don't belong in society. There is utterly no excuse for your behavior."
Atherton said she also was disturbed by Garza's continuing insistence that he does not belong to a gang. If he admitted that and said he had been threatened, it could possibly be a mitigating circumstance in his sentencing, but his refusal to acknowledge gang membership shows there was no provocation for his actions, she noted.
"Someone makes a gesture, you do not go out and kill them," Atherton said.
Garza was in the front passenger seat of a car traveling on 4100 South in West Valley City on May 25, 2005, when he shot and killed 17-year-old Guillermo Padilla. Their cars were moving side by side around 5 p.m. "I think I got him! I think I got him!" Garza said, according to court documents.
After he was shot, Padilla's car side-swiped two other vehicles and then veered into oncoming traffic causing a head-on collision that injured Cindy Comeaux, who suffered a broken arm and foot, and various scrapes and bruises. She needed surgery to repair injuries to her foot.
Garza turned himself into police the next day and when they escorted him to jail, he blew kisses at photographers and reporters outside the station.
As he left the courtroom Friday, Garza smiled broadly at weeping relatives in the front row who called out, "God bless you!"
Outside the courtroom, Garza's mother, Anna Peralta tearfully lashed out at the court and denounced the sentence as unfair. "My son did what he did in self-defense," she said. "Mr. Padilla threatened my son many times. The day he was killed, he was at my home. I was there. He was telling my son he would put a bullet in his head."
Peralta said the conviction was wrong. "The jury didn't listen. One juror fell asleep. One was half-deaf. We will appeal this and my son will be home soon."
But later, Hector Rodrigues, the uncle of the victim, said in Spanish through a friend who translated that Garza deserved a longer prison sentence or even should be put to death for killing a minor.
Rodrigues said Padilla was a good boy who was not a troublemaker and was not in a gang.
Garza's legal troubles are not finished: He faces two second-degree felony charges — one for child abuse and another for aggravated assault — in another case.
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com