Valley justice

In the Valley, justice apparently is not only blind, but also deaf and dumb - or, dare we say, stupid.

Once more, Valley residents have been stunned, but not totally surprised, to learn that a punishment meted out by a jury comes nowhere near fitting the crime for which the accused was convicted.

Last week Antonio Saldaña, a 46-year-old elementary school custodian, was convicted of murdering Pedro Garcia, a neighbor and former friend, who he thought was having an affair with his wife.

Nonetheless, Saldaña is a free man today after the jurors in the sentencing phase of this trial decided - in their infinite wisdom - to grant him 10 years of probation for the crime, even though he could have been sentenced to as much as life in prison.

Yep, you are reading this correctly. The same jury that convicted him of murder four days earlier decided, as state law allows in the sentencing phase, to reduce the crime to a second-degree felony and granted him probation based on the fact that they believed the crime was committed under the influence of sudden passion - never mind that Garcia, in actuality, was not having an affair with Saldaña's spouse.

Predictably, Saldaña's lawyer, Fernando G. Mancias declared the sentence a "great ending to a very tragic incident," adding that his client will now "go back to his community and be a great citizen."

Well, Mancias got at least one thing right, the entire incident was totally tragic. As for Saldaña - who at least did spend 15 months in jail awaiting trial - going back into the community and becoming a "great citizen," that remains to be seen.

We have to wonder what will happen the next time he loses his temper or again merely suspects that his wife has been cheating.

Needless to say, Pedro Garcia's family appeared to be none too happy with the sentence, ignoring Saldaña's post-sentencing attempt to approach them, ostensibly to apologize.

Outside the courtroom, Garcia's 16-year-old daughter, Cecilia, assessed the situation, saying the jury, in essence, "made it seem like it is OK to kill." It was Cecilia who, on Jan. 6, 2007, walked out of her house and found her father bleeding to death as Saldaña walked away carrying his shotgun.

Despite Mancias' attempts to paint his client as a sympathetic figure, our sympathies lie with the Garcia family, whose sense of loss was voiced Monday by Cecilia when she said - in the wake of the sentencing - that the Saldañas "are going to go back home with their father ... . Who do we have to go back to?"

Since the sentencing, The Monitor's Web site, www.themonitor.com, has been abuzz with comment on the story, with most calling into serious question the thought process behind granting probation to Saldaña.

Summing up the gist of what most online commenters had to say, one put it this way: "I never thought this could be possible ... The least they could've done was send him to the nuthouse. So how does the wife feel? Is she sleeping soundly tonight? Don't tell me he's going back home (to) live next to the family he has crippled for life. Totally unreal. Yes, momentarily I felt for the guy, but only because I thought he'd spend the rest of his life in a cubicle. Talk about unbalanced scales, blind justice and a corrupted system."

We find no argument with that comment and can only wonder what was going through the minds of the jurors when they decided to grant probation in this case.

his sentence, we believe, sends a very dangerous message regarding the use of terminal violence to settle questions of suspected marital infidelity.