After juror problem, judge decides sentence in Fort Worth murder defendant argued was just

It was a one-handed man against an unarmed one.

It was a killing that the shooter, Peter Cardona, whose right hand is deformed because of a birth defect, believes was justified because he was acting to defend himself against imminent injury from Alfredo Olivares, an acquaintance with whom the defendant had a prolonged conflict.

But at a trial in February a jury concluded that, after a house party in Fort Worth, Peter Cardona did not have legal justification to shoot Olivares dead. It found him guilty of murder.

When it reached the guilty verdict, the jury was sent by Judge George Gallagher to lunch with the expectation the panel would consider punishment upon its return. As the interlude ended, Gallagher interviewed a juror on a matter about which the judge did not elaborate on the court record. The defense requested that Cardona be permitted to change his punishment election, and the state agreed that Gallagher should sentence the defendant after a probation officer completed an investigation report.

Which left the call on a prison term to the judge, who on Tuesday sentenced Cardona to 15 years in prison.

Before he announced the sentence in 396th District Court in Tarrant County, Gallagher told the defendant that in his 24 years on the bench, the judge had not seen a person charged with a first-degree felony offense who was then not also accused of a single bond violation over a 2 1/2-year period, as was true for Cardona.

As an example of his steadfast bond condition compliance and work ethic, defense attorney Emily LaChance, who represented Cardona with Micheal Schneider, displayed work boots that Cardona modified to accommodate an ankle monitor.

Cardona’s clean-as-a-whistle record since he was charged in the September 2020 killing should be considered at the same time as the violence of the crime on which he was indicted, Gallagher suggested. The defense had sought a five-year sentence. The state had asked for a minimum of 25 years. The possible term was between five years and 99 years to life.

Cardona is 26.

Cardona’s defense attorneys argued that the killing was justified because their client was defending himself from Olivares. The defendant testified during the guilt-innocence phase that Olivares reached for something as he walked toward Cardona in a street, narrowing the distance between them, and that Olivares had verbally threatened to kill him. A reasonable person considering the circumstances from Cardona’s point of view would assess the encounter as Cardona did, LaChance and Schneider argued.

When he was shot to death, Olivares was on house arrest as a condition of his bond in connection with an indictment on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police concluded that Olivares had, at his house about a year before he was shot to death at the same location, shot a friend as he attempted to shoot another person.

Prosecutors argued that the killing, in the street outside Olivares’ house on Valentine Street near Clover Lane in the Alamo Heights section of Fort Worth, was not an instance of legitimate self-defense and was instead motivated by anger that flared within Cardona when Olivares referenced a dispute.

Cardona and Olivares, who was 19 when he died, were acquaintances and their relatives were close. About two years before the killing, Cardona believed Olivares had broken a window, confronted Olivares and was assaulted by people associated with Olivares at his direction, the defendant testified.

Cardona testified in the trial’s first phase that he intended to leave the party at the Valentine Street house and was walking toward his pickup truck when Olivares began to yell at and follow him.

Olivares used an expletive and said he would kill Cardona and his family if he was not paid money he was owed, Cardona testified. The defendant testified he did not owe Olivares.

Cardona told jurors that he reached into a pocket for keys and looked over his shoulder.

“I seen him reaching for something,” Cardona testified. Cardona said that he took from his waistband a pistol that he always carried when outside his house and fired at Olivares, who sought cover and did not, prosecutors argued, have a weapon.

Olivares was fired upon six times, audio from a neighbor’s surveillance video recording suggested. He was struck by two of the 9mm rounds.

Olivares’ decomposing body was exhumed about three months after he died when a review of an autopsy report suggested that he likely suffered a second gunshot wound that a forensic pathologist had misidentified.

While a portion of the last minutes of the encounter between Cardona and Olivares was recorded by a surveillance camera, the shooting was not.

Cardona’s wife and a sister testified on Tuesday that he was a source of significant support who had provided guidance on their faith and relationship with God.

Under cross examination, Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Kyle Russo won acknowledgments from both relatives that Cardona had violated one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not kill.

Russo prosecuted the case with Assistant Criminal District Attorney Lucas Allan.

From the witness stand, Cardona read a letter in which he apologized to Olivares’ family and wrote that he lives with the knowledge that he took him from them. He maintained he was defending himself when he fired his gun.

After the sentence was announced, in what is known as an allocution, Olivares’ mother addressed the defendant from the gallery.

At least Cardona’s mother will still be able to see him, Celia Martinez observed.

“I won’t be able to see my son anymore in this world,” she said.

After he was shot, Olivares walked into his house and found his mother.