Miguel Castaneda
SANTA CRUZ — A judge sentenced convicted murderer Miguel Castaneda on Thursday to serve 35 years to life in prison for gunning down his ex-wife’s lover on the side of a Watsonville road.
The Santa Cruz County Superior Court ruling came shortly before Judge Stephen Siegel reprimanded Castaneda’s defense attorney Rory Bartle for his conduct during his client’s nearly four-week jury trial.
In May, a jury found Castaneda, 43, guilty of second-degree murder and assault with a firearm in the April 2018 slaying of Victor Vasquez Lopez, his 36-year-old former neighbor. Immediately before the shooting on Riverside Drive, Vasquez and Castaneda had been attending family court together in the Watsonville branch. The hearing’s purpose was related to custody rights and a name change for Vasquez’s young daughter, who lived in the shared home of Castaneda and his ex-wife.
The jury found Castaneda guilty of following Vasquez and a friend toward Highway 1, forcing him off the road and then shooting Vasquez as he fled. Later, the jury found, Castaneda had threatened to shoot Vasquez’s passenger.
Vasquez’s mother, in attendance with a number of other family members Thursday, broke out into emotional sobs during the sentencing proceedings. His oldest daughter read statements written by Vasquez’s wife and the middle of three daughters, as well as her own.
Daughter Nicole Velasquez Morales said that the loss of Vasquez had far-reaching impacts on her family, including leaving a widow, a 6-year-old wondering when her father would return home and “tired of being fatherless,” two young children and she herself working three jobs in order to pay for a college education.
“Nothing will bring you back, but at least justice has been served,” Vasquez’s eldest daughter read aloud in her statement to the court.
After the hearing, Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Michael Mahan said his office had been seeking a 40-year-to-life sentence on the murder charge, plus an additional 14 years for the firearm assault charge on Vasquez’s passenger. Castaneda, who had been jailed since the shooting, will receive a time-served credit of nearly four-and-a-half years.
“We do believe that the sentence imposed by the court is appropriate and fair, given the defendant’s lack of criminal history,” co-counsel Assistant District Attorney Johanna Schonfield said outside the courtroom.
While Castaneda’s family members diligently attended court hearings for the man over the years, none stood to speak at Thursday’s sentencing. Ahead of the hearing, however, a large number of written positive character statements were submitted to the court on his behalf. Crying, Castaneda’s young daughter called out in Spanish that she loved him, as he was being taken from the courtroom in shackles.
At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, Siegel held aside attorneys in the case to address a complaint from the District Attorney’s Office related to allegations against Bartle, Castaneda’s attorney. Schonfield told the judge that she was “asking the court for accountability” on “the most unprofessional conduct I’ve seen in front of a jury in my professional career.” She cited allegations that Bartle had repeatedly interrupted her, yelled his statements during the trial and made critical editorial comments to the jury after the judge sustained objections against him. At one point during the trial, the hearing was paused while Siegel took Schonfield and Bartle, “both shaking” with emotion, back into his judge’s chambers, she said.
Schonfield added that her complaint was not intended as malice toward Bartle, who she said she gets along with, but for what “feels like chaos” in the courtroom.
Bartle disagreed with the accusations, saying there may have been a problem with his tone, but not his conduct, which was carried out as a “zealous defense of his client.” He added that the tension between the lawyers had not been all on his shoulders. Professionalism, said Bartle, is not just tone of voice, but attorneys’ willingness to follow rules and the law and to “not seek loopholes.”
Bartle later apologized for making Schonfield feel uncomfortable in the courtroom and acknowledge he “maybe got carried away.”
Siegel said that he felt Bartle “went overboard numerous times” during the trial with comments made out-of-turn and an unprofessionally loud voice volume. He offered Bartle a choice of a sanction with a $500 court fee or to have the issue referred to the Santa Cruz County Bar Association. Bartle requested and was given time to think over the issue.
Originally published at Jessica York