OAKLAND — Two males have been convicted of homicide within the capturing dying of a Hayward resident at a liquor retailer, however one of many defendants could also be respiratory a sigh of reduction.
Bryan Hernandez, 25, was convicted of first diploma homicide within the dying of 32-year-old Gustavo Tavera. However Hernandez’s co-defendant, 29-year-old Juan Vera, was acquitted of homicide and manslaughter, and convicted as a substitute of tried voluntary manslaughter with a gun enhancement.
Each are set to be sentenced on June 18, however solely Hernandez faces a life sentence.
The set of circumstances surrounding Tavera’s March 5, 2022 homicide have been horrifyingly weird, with jurors receiving a nuanced play-by-play at trial. Hernandez and Vera, who didn’t know each other, have been collectively at a celebration in Hayward that evening, and at one level Vera and a good friend left to purchase beer at N&M Liquors on the 200 block of A Avenue, which was strolling distance away, courtroom data present.
Tavera occurred by there too, with one other man, and obtained mad when the clerk refused to promote him beer. He loudly acknowledged, “you don’t want to sell beer to me, but you want to sell to these two dumba—s,” referring to Vera and his good friend, in line with courtroom data.
That’s when the battle began, and it could finish with Vera producing a gun and capturing Tavera a number of occasions, however not producing gunshot wounds that may have been deadly. Whereas this was occurring, Hernandez was strolling in the direction of the liquor retailer too, courtroom data present.
When Hernandez realized what had occurred, he walked into the shop, gun in hand, and shot the helpless Tavera 5 occasions within the head. Tavera was on the bottom, when Hernandez walked in, and by no means had an opportunity to defend himself, in line with witness testimony and video from surveillance cameras depicting the entire thing.
Vera’s protection relied on the idea that, had it not been for Hernandez, Tavera would have survived the encounter, and that the prosecution’s rivalry that the 2 labored in tandem was flimsy. Hernandez’s lawyer, in the meantime, argued that Hernandez lacked the psychological state needed for a homicide conviction.
In 2023, a choose agreed with Vera’s lawyer and refused to uphold the homicide case towards Vera, however prosecutors re-filed the case quickly after, courtroom data present.
Alongside the way in which, Vera’s legal professional accused prosecutors of “improper prosecutorial interference with Mr. Vera’s attorney-client relationship” and making an attempt to strongarm the lawyer, Barney Berkowitz, into “informing” on his personal shopper. The controversy stemmed from issues that Vera had tried to mail unredacted police experiences describing potential witnesses to a 3rd social gathering, from Santa Rita Jail, courtroom data present.
