Santa Clara County authorities are considering their next steps after an appeals court overturned the conviction of a man accused of kidnapping and murdering Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar in 2012.
California’s Sixth Appellate District announced on Feb. 27 that the 2017 conviction of Antolin Garcia Torres on a first degree murder charge is reversed. Garcia Torres, who was a Morgan Hill resident when he was arrested in relation to LaMar’s disappearance, can be retried.
“In any retrial of (first degree murder), based on our finding of insufficient evidence of willful, deliberate and premeditated murder or a specific intent to kill, the prosecution is barred from relying on those theories,” says the Sixth Appellate Court’s ruling, which was signed by Judges Adrienne Grover, Daniel Bromberg and Sunil Kulkarni…