A state appeals court on Monday upheld the murder conviction of a Long Beach man who drunkenly crashed into a couple and their 3-year-old son as they walked home from trick-or-treating on Halloween night in 2019.
The 20-year-old driver, Carlo Navarro, had downed shots of Jack Daniel’s and was speeding through the Los Cerritos neighborhood when he hit Joseph Awaida and Raihan Dakhil as they pushed their son Omar in a stroller.
“Navarro drove his SUV between approximately 30 to 40 miles per hour over the speed limit down a residential street on Halloween evening when people were out walking,” Justice Gregory J. Weingart wrote. “He did not slow down but instead continued to accelerate. He flew through multiple stop signs without stopping. He was moving at such a high speed that he lost control and drove onto the sidewalk.”
Navarro showed wanton disregard for human life that justifies a murder conviction, according to Weingart.
Despite this, the three-judge panel was split on the decision, with one justice, Frances Rothschild, arguing the murder conviction should be overturned. Jurors, she wrote, should not have been shown close-up images of Omar and Raihan’s bodies. These autopsy photos “are shocking,” she wrote, but they had little use in proving the prosecution’s case other than eliciting “great anger” from anyone who saw them.