Federal judges in Southern California once looked at a case with an argument between two sets of diners who were consuming alcohol. The argument at a restaurant in Santa Ana concerned whether Michoacan or Sinaloa was the better Mexican state.
The groups hurled angry obscenities at each other. The larger group of diners, which included Isais Mora, made an argument for Michoacan. On the other hand, Ivan Sanchez and a few other people in his group argued that Sinaloa was better than Michoacan. The two groups eventually faced off at a parking lot in Mariscos la Ola. There, Mora hit Sanchez and then his group members got into the altercation.
That pro-Sinaloa group’s members flew the Mexican parking lot in their Ford Explorer, retrieved a weapon and returned to the Santa Ana location to avenge the insinuation they faced. When they came back, Esteban Navarrete was there with his spouse around his vehicle, niece and her beau. They all were present in the restaurant as the groups argued over the matter, but they played no part in it.
However, as per police reports, Sanchez held Navarrete at gunpoint even as the latter said that his family had no role to play in the argument. Sanchez shot Navarrete in his head without uttering a word and killed him. Later, Sanchez tried to fly to Mexico but to no avail as the Santa Ana Police Department caught him. When Jim Garcia of Santa Ana PD interrogated Sanchez later, he stated that he felt disrespected as a girl was with him and that he wished to avenge Navarrete’s family. When Sanchez was told that he shot the wrong person, he stated that he mistook the shirt of Navarette for that of Mora.
In 2012, Santa Ana jurors gave Sanchez a murder conviction following a trial that happened over two days. After that, a judge sentenced Sanchez to a 50-year life imprisonment term. However, he claimed that he never committed a murder premeditatedly and that he had acted in a way that was not planned and was induced by drunken rage. Sanchez also claimed that he got very intoxicated at the time to try and overturn his first-degree murder conviction.
A long time later, Sheri Pym, a federal magistrate judge, did not find voluntary intoxication evidence a form of defense to the offense with which Sanchez was charged. Pym also found that a rational judge could interpret the piece of evidence as one that established Sanchez’s actions to be premeditated, willful and deliberate. Pym made a suggestion to rebuff the appeal, just like what the intermediate appellate court in California had earlier done.
Judge Ronald Sing Wai Lew of the District Court had the same viewpoint and closed Sanchez’s case a long time later. In 2019, Sanchez was serving his punishment in Ironwood State Prison. At the same time, the Rocha siblings, namely Ricardo Guerra and Maria Isabel, were punished with prison sentences for their parts in the California murder case.
