Crime, Dan Markel, Deaths, Murder

The Dan Markel Case: No Resolution In Sight

One defense lawyer declares that this case is going to trial.

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Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera

Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera

It’s a well-known fact that more than 90 percent of criminal cases don’t make it to a jury trial. For better or worse, plea bargaining is an essential feature of our criminal justice system.

At the current time, however, it looks like the prosecutions of Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, the two men accused of murdering Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, could wind up in that small minority of cases that actually go to trial. Here’s a report on yesterday’s courtroom activity, from WCTV:

Sigfredo Garcia was in court Wednesday morning.

Garcia’s attorney Saam Zangeneh says he was just given a batch of new evidence in the case, including copies of wire taps. The state attorney’s office tells us it could be weeks before those records are redacted and released.

Garcia’s attorney calls the state’s case “circumstantial” and isn’t discussing his defense.

“It’s going to be a trial,” Zangeneh said. “It’s going to be a trial, and for us to give any additional information in regards to what we are going to do is kind of going to be like spoiling the anticipation before trial.”

One can understand why Garcia’s case could be the rare one to go to trial. With Garcia currently facing the death penalty, it’s likely that a plea agreement would require him to accept a very high possible sentence, perhaps life imprisonment or a very long term of years. And given that the evidence against him is circumstantial (even if, in the opinion of many observers, very strong circumstantial evidence), one can see why he and his lawyer would be willing to put themselves before a jury. Even if convicted at trial, Garcia could still escape the death penalty; a jury would then have to separately conclude that he deserved capital punishment. (In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hurst v. Florida earlier this year, the jury makes that final call, as opposed to giving a recommendation to a sentencing judge.)

Another possible hitch: presumably prosecutors want Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera to reveal who actually ordered the hit that they allegedly carried out. And perhaps the defendants don’t want to share that information — or perhaps the information they are willing to share is not consistent with the prosecution’s apparent theory of the case, which alleges involvement by relatives of Wendi Adelson, Dan Markel’s ex-wife. (This is essentially the claim of David Oscar Markus, counsel to Wendi’s brother Charlie: Garcia and Rivera “have not flipped [on the Adelsons], because what would they say? They’d have to make up something that other evidence would disprove.”).

Garcia and Rivera’s current trial date is November 14. And this trial date might actually see a trial.

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Wire taps to be released in Markel murder case [WCTV]
Man Accused of Killing FSU Law Professor Back in Court [WTXL]

David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

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