Garcia is released under house arrest

Raul Garcia, the 16-year-old charged with manslaughter in the July 6 shooting of his classmate, Sofia Palma, was released from jail to his parents.

At a hearing in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, Judge Pro Tempore Kimberly Corsaro said, “I have to consider what the law requires: That is whether or not you pose a flight risk. Based on the circumstances as I’ve heard them today and as they have been described in the pleadings before the court, I am gong to find in your favor.”

His attorney Thomas Fink hammered the county attorney’s office, because he said prosecutors failed to meet the burden of proof called for by the Arizona Constitution and Rule 7 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure. They specify a person has the right to be released prior to a conviction unless the state demonstrates that a person is likely to abscond and demonstrates tendencies that could prove dangerous to others, Fink said.

“A life has been lost,” he said. “Another one equally as promising hangs in the balance. We don’t play loose with the law when a kid’s life is in the balance. We have to follow the law to the letter.

“When prosecutors do not meet the burden established on them by the law to bring forth evidence to rebut a presumption in favor of release and when prosecutors fail to realize they have no such evidence, we look to judges to step in and apply the law,” Fink said.

Garcia is being tried as an adult and was in a special facility at the Pinal County Jail in Florence on a $250,000 bond.

The prosecution had agreed to reducing the bond amount to $100,000.

But Corsaro released him to his parents and placed him under house arrest. She ordered that he be assessed for “counseling purposes.” He may leave his family’s home in Nogales only to attend school, work or counseling, she said.

Deputy County Attorney Jessica Silva had argued that “the charges alone are enough to give the court pause to consider whether Mr. Garcia is a flight risk. Anyone facing such charges is bound to be scared.”

But Fink had told the court about listening to the recording of Garcia’s 911 call after police say and he has admitted to pointing a 9 mm handgun he thought was not loaded at Palma’s head and pulling the trigger.

Other teenagers in the room who were witnesses to the shooting ran. But Garcia remained and administered CPR and called police. “If there was an instant to flee and run, that was it,” Fink said, “Yet, he stayed and called 911.”

Matt Davidson, an attorney advocating for the parents and family of Palma, said Garcia was warned twice to stop playing with the handgun, “once by the girl who is now dead.”

He argued that the shooting itself showed “a degree of recklessness and danger to the community.”

He added that an investigation is not complete and that police are checking into reports that one of the witnesses said Garcia pointed the gun and put it down “several times before it went off.”

Fink snapped, saying Davidson’s comments were “disingenuous.”

He said, “The investigation has been completed. Police ran down that lead and it did not bear out.”

Earlier during the hearing, Fink called Garcia to the witness stand. He pointed out that Garcia had garnered his General Education Degree in less than a month while he was in jail. He noted Garcia did not have to study for the GED examination and passed it.

Under questioning, Garcia told Fink he plans to finish high school in Tucson and then attend the University of Arizona to pursue a law degree.

Silva then asked to approach the judge’s bench where she argued that the questioning about his schooling and future plans had no relevance to the hearing. But Fink countered that it was “clearly germane” as it demonstrated that if he has aspirations and plans, there is less of a flight risk. The judge agreed.