A murder trial got under way in Sacramento Superior Court today for a 25-year-old man accused in the death of his live-in girlfriend's 3-year-old son who died of blunt force injuries to the head.
Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet said in her opening statement that jurors are going to have to make their decision on defendant Joseph Phillip Skates based solely on circumstantial evidence surrounding the Nov. 9, 2008, death of Manuel "Manny" Maciel.
The boy died in UC Davis Medical Center two days after he sustained his injuries in a North Natomas apartment on Zurlo Way. An autopsy showed that Manny sustained multiple contusions to the frontal scalp, brain bruising and contusions to an arm, leg, his small bowel and stomach, Bladet told the jury.
Skates told detectives he came home from taking another one of his girlfriend's three young boys to school and found Manny in distress while lying near the doorway of their home, the prosecutor said.
Skates told authorities the boy appeared to have fallen off a couch, possibly after choking on some chips.
Bladet told the jury that Skates moved in with his girlfriend, Rosalie Uribe, about six months before Manny's death. Skates, the prosecutor said, acted as the primary child care provider in the home while Uribe worked a fulltime job at Sam's Club.
"And then the injuries started happening," Bladet said.
The prosecutor said Manny had been observed suffering from assorted bruises and injuries two months before he died. One of his older brothers also was taken to the hospital with a broken leg, Bladet said.
Skates never called 911 the day that Manny was fatally injured, Bladet said.
"Facts don't lie...and at the end of the evidence, I will ask you to conclude that Joseph Skates inflicted injuries on Manuel Maciel that caused his death," Bladet said.
Rosalie Uribe, meanwhile, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges last Thursday during the trial's jury selection process. She is expected to testify in the case next week.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 26.
Defense attorney Jesse Ortiz said in his opening statement that Skates was not responsible for Manny's death and that his injuries resulted from an accident or that they were inflicted by somebody else.
Another adult relative of Uribe's was living in the apartment at the same time, Ortiz said.
"The issue is how he died, whether it was accidental or intentional, and who did it," Ortiz said.
Skates, Ortiz said, "loved those children. He referred to them as 'my boys.' In his mind, those three children were his boys."
The defendant never called 911, the defense attorney said, because he "panicked" and because his cell phone was going dead.
"He wasn't in his right state of mind," Ortiz said.
Ortiz suggested that some of the bruising documented in Manny's autopsy reported resulted from life-saving efforts performed on the boy by a California Highway Patrol officer.
The case, being heard by Judge Timothy M. Frawley, is expected to last about two weeks
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