By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
The prosecutor suggested today that Joseph Skates lost his temper when 3-year-old Manuel "Manny" Maciel had a potty training accident and that's why the man hit, kicked or slammed the boy so hard that he killed him.
In closing arguments in Skates' second-degree murder, trial, the defendant's lawyer countered that his client didn't do anything to hurt the boy, whom he considered his own, and that the district attorney was speculating about what happened inside a North Natomas apartment the day Manny was fatally injured on Nov. 7, 2008. Manny was taken to UC Davis Medical Center where he died two days later.
Arguments were scheduled to continue this afternoon before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley sends the jury away to deliberate.
Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet told jurors that a coroner's autopsy determined that Manny died of blunt-force injuries to the head and that his internal organs were "crushed" against his spine from an additional abdominal injury he suffered.
Bladet said it took "an adult man, using his hands, fist, and foot, who is frustrated, angry, and out of control" to "create that force." There was another adult male in the house at the time the boy is believed to have been injured, but Bladet said that Skates, testifying in his own defense last week, said that the other man was asleep.
Holding up the blue one-piece pajamas Manny wore the day he was hurt, Bladet said that the clothing was soaked in urine when authorities found it in a bedroom in the Zurlo Way apartment where the defendant was staying with his girlfriend and her three sons.
The prosecutor said that potty-training accidents are "the kind of thing that make people lose it."
Bladet also hammered on the 30 minutes it took for the 25-year-old defendant to call anybody from the time he discovered that the boy was hurt. Skates never called 911.
In his argument, defense attorney Jesse Ortiz told the jury, "You're being asked to speculate. You're being asked to guess about what might have happened because (prosecutors) say it happened."
Ortiz said that Skates loved Manny and his brothers and that he became attached to them. He showed the jury pictures that Skates and his girlfriend, Rosalie Uribe, took of the three smiling boys in a pumpkin patch less than two weeks before Manny died and another one of the boys dressed in Halloween costumes a week before the death.
"Those were Joseph's boys," Ortiz said. "He got them ready. He got them their costumes."
The defense lawyer said Skates "panicked" after he found the injured Manny on the floor of the apartment and that he "had no idea what to do."
"He wishes he could tell you why he didn't do more, but that's what happened," Ortiz said.
Ortiz has previously suggested that Manny sustained his head injuries by falling off a couch or that they were inflicted by somebody else. He argued today that it was a California Highway Patrol officer in his efforts to administer aid to Manny the morning he was hurt who inflicted the crushing abdominal injuries.
The officer "didn't know what he was doing," Ortiz argued.
Previous coverage:
Failure to call 911 cited at trial in death - Feb. 5, 2010
Mom of slain boy testifies at boyfriend's murder trial - Feb. 2, 2010
Sacramento man goes on trial in death of boy, 3 - Jan. 29, 2010
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.