USA - California. The Supreme Court of California overturned the death sentence of Daniel Sanchez Covarrubias

The Supreme Court of California overturned the death sentence of Daniel Sanchez Covarrubias. The court in a unanimous ruling Thursday said the judge presiding over Daniel Covarrubias' trial wrongly excused a prospective juror after the man indicated in a juror questionnaire that he opposed the death penalty. The Monterey County Superior Criminal Court was ordered by the state supreme court to re-sentence Covarrubias. Monterey County prosecutors said Covarrubias was behind a November 16, 1994 robbery that ended in the slaying of a husband and wife, Ramon and Martha Morales and the wife's brother, Fernando Martinez. Investigators identified the gunmen as Covarrubias; his cousins, Antonio Sanchez and Joaquin Nunez; and his 16-year-old nephew, Jose Luis Ramirez. Judge Robert Moody, the judge who sentenced Covarrubias in 1998 for 1st-degree murder, agreed that there was "no direct evidence of precisely who shot whom." "Out of fear, we all shot. We fired the weapons that we had... we shot really like crazy," Covarrubias said, according to court documents. Since his arrest in 1995, Covarrubias has maintained his innocence, saying he didn't actually kill anyone in the house. The accused group of killers fled to Mexico after the triple homicide. They were found hiding in Mexicali by bounty hunters in the summer of 1995, and extradited back to the U.S. Ramirez testified against his uncles as part of a plea agreement with the Monterey County District Attorney's Office. He was sentenced to serve 11 years for burglary.