Dear Army of One,
My client, Fernando Chireno was unhappy with his wife. She personally shot a video of him holding a long sword while he vowed to chop her up and bury her in the backyard.
She is heard saying that the reason she is making this video is to give to her parents so that when he does kill her, her parents will give the video to the police.
Go forward 6 months.
Well, what does his wife then do? She walks by his place of work everyday, taunting him by saying that he isn't a man and she will sleep with a real man one day.
Well, what does Fernando then do?
He goes to Home Depot and buys a hatchet (the video was introduced by the State at trial).
He goes into his wife's home (they were separated by a Restraining Order, which I had nullified and barred from introduction as evidence).
He finds his wife in bed with their 3 young children and begins to chop her up. She then runs for her life away from the kids and makes it out the front door.
Fernando catches her on the street and chops her into 15 pieces. He then takes a cab and returns to the scene in order to confess, on site to the police.
The next day, while in jail, he calls his mother in law and apologizes on the phone (all of which is recorded and introduced at trial) for killing her daughter.
The letter he sent his wife days before the murder, advising her that he was coming over to kill was also introduced at trial.
I was left with but one choice; an Insanity Defense which is only successful perhaps 5% of the time.
I introduced evidence that Fernando, while living in the Dominican Republic, stole a baby from a mother's arms in the street, set his own house on fire with his family inside,
attempted to stone his brother to death and brought a machete to school because he was angry at a teacher.
During the trial, Fernando turned to me and asked for a piece of paper from my legal pad. I obliged him and he began to tear it in pieces and eat the paper.
When the Sheriff's Officers told him not to do that, I objected right in front of the jury to let the jury know that Fernando wanted to eat the paper and had a right to do so.
At one point during the trial, while trying to make small talk, I asked Fernando what was his favorite food. He replied, "I like to eat my own shit."
The Jury deliberated for almost a week, but in the end, we lost. They didn't think he was insane.
Harley
