Free at last. (Exercising the Right).On November 16, 2001, Edwin Manuel Rivera, 21, was in his apartment in Upland, California Upland is a city in San Bernardino County, California with an elevation of 1,242 feet. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 68,393. It was incorporated on May 15, 1906, after previously being named North Ontario. , when a group of men arrived and began scuffling with some of his relatives outside the apartment. Rivera grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and went outside to help defuse the situation. As the fisticuffs continued, he fired a warning shot in the air, but rather than calming the melee it further inflamed the angry interlopers INTERLOPERS. Persons who interrupt the trade of a company of merchants, by pursuing the same business with them in the same place, without lawful authority. , at least two of whom turned on Rivera. During the ensuing foot chase and fight, Rivera opened fire, wounding one man and killing 26-year-old Floyd Martinez, who was holding a knife in his hand when he was shot. Despite claiming self-defense, Rivera was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder In the criminal law, attempted murder is committed when the defendant does an act that is more than merely preparatory to the commission of the crime of murder and, at the time of these acts, the person has a specific intention to kill. . He spent the next six months in jail, during which prosecutors unsuccessfully sought to entice him to admit guilt and accept a plea bargain plea bargain n. in criminal procedure, a negotiation between the defendant and his attorney on one side and the prosecutor on the other, in which the defendant agrees to plead "guilty" or "no contest" to some crimes, in return for reduction of the severity of the . On May 9th, following a three-day preliminary hearing, West Valley Superior Court Judge Paul Bryant ruled that Rivera had indeed acted in self-defense (Law) in protection of self, - it being permitted in law to a party on whom a grave wrong is attempted to resist the wrong, even at the peril of the life of the assailiant. - Wharton. See also: Self-defense . Judge Bryant dismissed all charges against him and ordered his immediate release from jail. The next day (his first full day of freedom since his arrest), Rivera told Inland Valley California's Inland Valley is a region that inlcudes parts of San Bernadino, and Riverside counties. As the name implies, the Inland Valley is situated on the inland side of the Santa Ana Mountains in southern California. There are few geographic boundaries to define the area. Daily Bulletin staff writer Rod Leveque that he had occasionally been tempted to accept a plea bargain to end his ordeal, but "the one thing that does make me happy is that I didn't go for the deals they were offering" since "I was innocent in the first place." Rivera, who lost his job as a forklift driver, remained upbeat. He told Leveque that he was looking forward to finding new work and "I'm happy. I get to have my family back. I get to have my life back. Everything is going good for me right now." |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion