A 23-year-old man accused of gunning down Johnathan Carballo on International Boulevard in 2023 will spend eight years in prison after his murder case collapsed into a mistrial and was ultimately resolved with a no contest plea to burglary. Marco Leiva-Saucedo was sentenced in May 2026, more than two and a half years after Oakland police first tied him to the killing of the 25-year-old Carballo.
Carballo died in August 2023 after what has been described as an argument about loud music, according to The Mercury News. Oakland police responded to the shooting in the 2300 block of International Boulevard after Carballo was killed, while a second man was taken to a hospital in stable condition, according to the Oakland Police Department.
Leiva-Saucedo was arrested on October 11, 2023, per the Mercury News report, though Alameda County prosecutors initially charged him with illegal firearm possession rather than murder, a decision that foreshadowed how the case would eventually turn out, according to the National Gun Violence Memorial, citing the East Bay Times. Hoodline previously reported his arrest in November 2023.
Mistrial Before the Plea
Leiva-Saucedo went to trial for murder in September 2025, but jurors were unable to agree on a verdict and the judge declared a mistrial, the Mercury News reported. His attorney had argued he was innocent, and Leiva-Saucedo himself insisted he did not kill anyone, telling the court he had simply found a pistol near the homicide scene. He remained jailed while prosecutors and his defense negotiated a resolution…