San Diego 6 has a good summary of why the sentences for manslaughter were handed out this way, and it shows how Esteban was influenced by his friends. This isn’t too surprising when you look at the photos that Esteban Nuñez had published on his myspace account showing him and his friends drinking, partying, posing like thugs, etc.:

Esteban Nunez of Sacramento pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for the Oct. 4, 2008, confrontation that took the life of Luis Santos — also known as Luis Dos Santos.

Ryan Jett, 24, of Sacramento, also pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault for instigating the incident, in which two of Santos’ friends were also stabbed and another friend suffered an eye injury.

Two others — Leshanor Thomas, 21, and 20-year-old Rafael Garcia — pleaded guilty to lesser charges and will be sentenced next Friday.

“Had they not all acted together, Luis would still be alive,” Deputy District Attorney Jill DiCarlo said.

Nunez was next to Jett the entire time to “aid and abet” the assault, the prosecutor said.

“He was not a passive participant — he did not play a minor role,” DiCarlo said. “He took on a tough guy, dominating role.”

Hopefully, the family of Luis Dos Santos finds peace and Esteban Nuñez serves out his sentence and avoids this kind of violence in the future. And I hope that politicians such as Mayor Villaraigosa and Kevin de Leon, who were quick to defend the younger Nuñez, think twice about publicly offering support to their colleagues’ children who engage in this kind of behavior. In rushing to defend Esteban Nuñez, these elected officials created an impression that they support deviant behavior.

1. The now infamous Rolling Stone profile of General McChrystal. This is a must read. It’s very well done, and really to me, it displays how arrogant this man is. Also, the article pretty much confirms my suspicions about what a mess the war in Afghanistan is. This piece is also a pretty good account of the events leading up to McChrystal turning in his resignation today.

2. A pretty good Q&A about Latino politics with Columbia University Professor Rodolfo de la Garza. I read a lot of his work in college, so I’m familiar with his scholarship.

3. This new report by the Center for Responsible Lending about how Latinos and blacks have been affected by the foreclosure crisis. I had blogged about the mortgage and foreclosure crisis last year as it relates to the Latino community here and here.

4. And finally, Mayor Villaraigosa and his freebies to concerts and sporting events in Los Angeles. Villar is saying that he was at these events in his official capacity as mayor, and that may very well be the case, but his predecessor did not take as loose of a view toward these sports and cultural events. And in these tough times, accepting so many freebies is probably not a good way to win over the goodwill of the public, especially when the City of Los Angeles is laying people off and cutting services. I think that Mayor V should be more mindful of the public sentiment before scampering about the city like this or at least convey the impression that something fruitful is coming from attending all of these events in his official capacity.

So here’s the latest:

Ten News in San Diego is reporting that jury selection is being pushed out until Tuesday. And here is a repeat of what is to be decided before the jury:

“Ryan Jett, 24, and Esteban Nunez, 21, are charged with murder, assault, vandalism, conspiracy to commit an assault and conspiracy to destroy evidence in the death of 22-year-old Luis Santos.

If convicted, both face 25 years to life behind bars.

Two co-defendants, 20-year-old Rafael Garcia and 21-year-old Leshanor Thomas, pleaded guilty to lesser charges.”

A few weeks ago, the LA Weekly reported that a hearing was held where the judge ruled that rap lyrics written by Esteban Nuñez could not be brought before a jury, but a text message that Nuñez sent to his co-defendant Rafael Garcia shortly after the killing can be presented to the jury. The message read, “Gangsta rap made us do it.”

Now many of us have heard of the twinkie defense used by Dan White in another high profile California murder case, but I haven’t heard of the ‘gangsta rap’ defense, have you?

It’s also worth listening to this report by KNX 1070.

UPDATED 5/5/2010: Esteban Nuñez and his co-defendant Ryan Jett have pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death of Luis Santos. Sentencing is scheduled for June 25, and the judge has indicated that he plans to send both young men to prison but may not impose the maximum 16 year sentence. In pleading guilty, both men will now have two strikes. I have a sneaky suspicion that Fabian Nuñez will get on some sort of prison reform kick or will attempt to revise the three strikes law, which I actually think is worth revisiting for drug offenders, not necessarily murderers. I always thought that Esteban had projected an entitlement attitude based upon how he presented himself online and in the remarks he made that became evidence.

Finally, if you want to read about the actual court room drama from today. The LA Weekly has a nice, brief write up of the emotions and mood projected by the Nuñez family.

“Here’s why the political elite in California are watching this tragic murder case involving alleged killers who come from private schools and lives of power and privilege:

The case has elicited the involvement of California’s Democratic Party political stars, from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to County Federation of Labor chief Maria Elena Durazo — all rallying around the accused while doing nothing to support the family of the widely-loved dead young man, who went, simply, by the name Lu.”

I think that Villaraigosa, Durazo, Romero, and De Leon should have said nothing publicly about Fabian Nuñez’s kid, Esteban and his trials and tribulations, especially without expressing sympathy for the real victim in this case, a deceased young man, Lu Santos. Politically a “no comment on this pending case” would probably have served all of these leaders better than expressing sympathy for Fabian Nuñez and his child, who is out on bail, in my view.

There are a few items that I will be blogging about this week, but in the never ending search for new material, I came across this piece regarding Latinos and the “tea party movement.” Essentially, Latinos have become the perfect scapegoats for the Tea Partiers. Here’s the latest video from the Facebook group “Cuentame” exposing some of the hate being spread around at these tea parties:

In California politics, Mayor Villaraigosa’s cousin, John Perez was sworn in as the new Speaker of the Assembly. Perez is the first openly gay speaker to serve in this role. Today he expressed that his sexuality does not define him, but he gave a nod in acknowledging gay political leaders who came before him. Perez also distinguished himself from his cousin, Mayor Villaraigosa, when asked about the possibility of following his older cousin’s career path:

“It’s not my goal in life,” Perez said in a recent interview with the Times. “You never rule anything out but it’s as close to a rule-out as you can possible do. I love my cousin. We’re very different people in many ways. Just because he did it doesn’t mean I want to do it.”

You can read Speaker Perez’s swearing-in speech here. I particularly liked the part about public-private partnerships in the community colleges and his expressed commitment to fight for higher education in California.

In regards to the recent earthquake in Chile, I have come across some interesting pieces about why Chile is poised to recover more quickly from this disaster than Haiti was. Most notably, Chile has more modern building codes, but its economy is considered one of the “best run” in all of Latin America. Also, this week, Secretary Clinton will be hand delivering the first American assistance to Chile in the form of satellite phones.

Well, he’s at it again, playing celeb. This time Mayor Villaraigosa is going to be on a set for a taping of All My Children (a fitting title for the lady’s man that he is) next week playing himself opposite soap diva Susan Lucci. The episode is scheduled to air in February, so if you have nothing better to do, please record it! Since I don’t watch TV, I most likely won’t be able to see it. Also worth noting is Los Angeles Councilman Eric Garcetti also participating, but let’s be real…the buck stops with Mr. Mayor.

The Los Angeles Weekly isn’t too pleased with this latest Villaraigosa stunt, and I can’t say that I am either. Seriously, this man is overpaid to govern, and he doesn’t govern very well. The City of LA’s finances are in shambles, and he already has a reputation for being out of town quite a bit instead of being on the job:

“Now, you could hardly blame Mayor V. if he had been on the ball and had a productive 2009. But Mayor V. has been everywhere but at the epicenter of the fight to keep this city afloat. In December he took a nine-day, $120,000 taxpayer-funded trip to Europe, one of many out-of-town visits he made in 2009.

And after years of watching the city’s medical marijuana economy grow out of control, the mayor finally spoke out last month against laissez-faire pot shops. Just this month, as the city continued to face dire news about its budget (an aspect of the city’s credit rating was downgraded and Garcetti even mentioned bankruptcy as a possibility if the city doesn’t get its finances under control), it was the Neighborhood Councils Coalition that called an emergency summit on the city’s finances, not Villaraigosa.”

Part of me hopes that Villaraigosa likes acting and all the attention of being on set, getting makeup, wardrobe, and being in front of multiple cameras because he could have another career, one that he is actually more dedicated to. I do believe that acting would appeal to all of his superficial qualities such as being a clothes horse and chasing empty headed women who read the news.

This piece from the Huffington Post caught my attention about Villar (as many like to call him) or Mayor V. It speculates that Villar may be holding out to run for the Senate in 2012 to take the seat occupied by Senator Diane Feinstein, who will be nearly 80 years old:

“The key to the mayor’s political future, as is often the case in politics, is being held not by Villaraigosa, but by someone else.

This could prove to be the perfect timing for Villaraigosa to make his move.”

In my view, Villaraigosa may be plotting to do this, but he is going to have to accomplish something noteworthy in Los Angeles to be taken seriously. As the LA Weekly has pointed out, he has been rather mediocre as mayor, and of course, he has proven to be more interested in globe trotting and photo ops than in hands on governing. And skimming through the comments in the Huffington Post piece reveals that many share similar views about Villaraigosa’s limitations, while a substantial portion aren’t entirely thrilled with Senator Feinstein either.

In other news, Congressman Joe Baca will no longer pursue legislation to bestow the Congressional Gold Medal award to golfer Tiger Woods in light of recent developments surrounding Woods’ familial issues. According to the LA Times, Joe Baca has been trying for several years to give Woods this highest civilian honor from Congress.

I should note that Joe Baca is a golf fan and has worked successfully to give the same award to golfer Arnold Palmer. Frankly, with the high foreclosure rate in Baca’s district, I think that he should cease with this honors for wealthy golfers and concentrate on more substantive problems, but like regular citizens, sometimes our politicos are starstruck. I’m glad that Baca has the decency to stop pursuing an award for Woods, and I hope that this dissuades him from trying to honor other celebs like this. Instead, Baca can look for the unsung heroes in his community and try to do something for them. I find Woods appalling to say the least, but count me as one who was never a fan.

Finally, Justice Sotomayor issued her first opinion from the high court and used to term “undocumented immigrant” instead of “illegal immigrant.” As Jennifer McFadyen states, “Although the opinion itself had little to do with immigration, Justice Sotomayor’s choice of terminology is being applauded by immigration advocates and supporters. It may seem like a small thing–using one word instead of another–but with comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, the deliberate choice of one word over another in the nation’s highest court does not go unnoticed.” I would have to agree — undocumented is more accurate than illegal, even from a grammatical and stylistic point of view. I’m glad that Justice Sotomayor chose to use more humanizing language.

I actually had an opportunity to meet Police Chief Bratton some years ago before Villar became mayor at an event that I organized, and I can say that Bratton lives up to the hype. He’s intelligent, can speak “policy,” is quick on his feet, and exudes confidence. Former Mayor Hahn made a great choice in bringing Bratton to Los Angeles, which was a big help to Villar.

Robert Greene, in this opinion piece for the LA Times, states that the real Villaraigosa era begins now, as many of the key people put in place by Hahn, including Bratton, have moved on.

Essentially, Villaraigosa followed the course that Hahn had established with public safety. And it served him well with Bratton leading the way, as Villar could continue to claim credit for something Hahn had started.

As Greene states:

“When Villaraigosa inherited Bratton, he had the political smarts not to try to outshine him, as difficult as it may often have been given Villaraigosa’s obvious relish for the spotlight. Villaraigosa also knew not to mess with Bratton’s successes — declining crime rates, a more professional department, vastly improved community relations. And although Villaraigosa had previously helped derail his predecessor’s bid to expand the Police Department to 10,000 officers, once he became mayor, he made the target his own and stuck to it tenaciously — and wisely.”

So now, the choices that Villar makes will have a more lasting impact on his legacy because the results will be attributed to those decisions. It is being reported that the new police chief will be named tomorrow. I know that there has been some mention of Villaraigosa possibly naming a Latino to the top cop job in the city, and some people have been upset that there were no Latino finalists named. However, it is interesting that one finalist Deputy Chief Michael Moore claimed to have Spanish heritage on his father’s side, which I don’t think would win too many points with a largely Mexican and Central American citizenry.

In other news with Mr. Mayor, a rail car deal that was supposed to bring a handful of jobs to LA fell through. You can read about it here. Basically, Villar wanted to reward one of his supporters, Steve Bing and his Italian rail car company, with the work, but there had been warnings about the company’s ability to deliver.

With the traffic situation in LA being as bad as it is, if Villar can deliver on half of what he has promised with transit, he could chalk up a win, but favoring companies that have already had problems delivering, as the LA Weekly documented, won’t help him get there.

The LA Times reports:

“Rafael Garcia, a college student in Northern California, pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy to destroy evidence, including a bloody shirt. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him in the Oct. 4 death of Luis Santos.

As part of a plea bargain, Garcia agreed to testify against three co-defendants: Ryan Jett, Esteban Nuñez and Leshanor Thomas.”

In other Fabian Nuñez related news, his consulting firm is working a new gig for Mayor Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.