CONVICTION UPHELD IN CHILD'S DEATH.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

An appeals court has upheld the murder conviction of a young Lancaster man who was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison for the death of his girlfriend's toddler son, who authorities say died from being violently shaken.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal found no evidence that 20-year-old Carlos Arellano's consumption of beer affected his mental abilities, ruling that the trial judge properly denied Arellano's defense attorney's request to tell the jury about voluntary intoxication.

``Defendant contends that his testimony that he was `buzzed' and drunk was sufficient evidence of mental impairment to support his requested instruction ...,'' the ruling said. ``The evidence of defendant's alleged intoxication failed to show that defendant was intoxicated or that any intoxication affected his mental state.''

Arellano was convicted in September 2005 of second-degree murder, assault on a child under 8 years of age causing death, and four counts of child abuse in the death of 17-month-old Jonny Garcia.

An autopsy after the boy's June 2003 death showed he suffered 37 rib fractures over his short lifetime as well as a lacerated liver three days before his death, prosecutors said.

Arellano was 20 at the time of the boy's death and his girlfriend 18. They married while he was in jail awaiting trial, the ruling said.

Arellano testified in court that he drank a 24-ounce beer after dinner and shared two 24-ounce King Cobra beers with one or two others at a friend's house, then returned to his parents' mobile home in Rosamond and found Jonny on the steps of the front porch wheezing and crying ``as if he was choking,'' the ruling said.

Arellano said he picked Jonny up and tapped him on the back ``because I wanted him to be quiet so he won't cry no more.'' He did nothing to determine if Jonny was choking. To stop him from crying, he said he shook Jonny three to five times but did not shake the toddler really hard, the ruling said.

Jonny continued to cry after the defendant shook him, but went ``limp'' seconds later, the ruling said. Jonny's mother arrived and took the boy inside the house where others attempted to resuscitate him, the ruling said. At the hospital, the ``defendant told (his girlfriend) to get her story straight,'' the ruling said.

When interviewed by detectives, the girlfriend said that Arellano was jealous of Jonny, who was not his son, and that he became less patient with the boy after she became pregnant with Arellano's baby, the ruling said. She said her son was afraid of Arellano and had bruises that Arellano said came from falling.

But at trial, after they married, she denied that Arellano hit, punched or kicked Jonny or that Jonny had bruises. She testified that the detectives told her what to say, and that the detectives coerced her false statements by screaming at her and banging on the table. She told the officers what they wanted to hear so they would let her go, the ruling said.

Several of Arellano's relatives testified that the defendant loved the victim and that they never saw him abuse the toddler, and a friend said that Arellano treated Jonny as if he was his own child, the ruling said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

[phone]