Crime & Safety

Mental State Key In Murder By Screwdriver Trial

Did Luis Hernandez act in a premeditated fashion or in a drunken rage when he fatally stabbed Rose Goulart, his ex-partner and the mother of his two children?

 

By Bay City News

A prosecutor told an Alameda County Superior Court jury that Luis Hernandez should be convicted of murder for fatally stabbing the mother of his two children in front of her workplace after she broke off their 20-year relationship in 2009.

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But his defense attorney is likely to argue for a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter, saying he wasn't in his right mind when he committed the act.

In her opening statement Tuesday, prosecutor Lindsay Walsh said Hernandez was "desperate" to get back at 46-year-old Rose Goulart, the mother of his two teenage children, after she finally gained the courage to move away from him after suffering years of abuse.

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The couple had lived in Castro Valley but some reports identify Hernandez as a San Leandro man.

The prosecutor described in grim detail how Hernandez stabbed Goulart on May 29, 2009, with a screwdriver that he had fashioned into an ice pick.

Walsh said witnesses told police that Hernandez twisted the screwdriver in Goulart's chest and then, as she lay on the ground with the screwdriver sticking out of her chest, stood up and kicked her twice in the head.

Goulart was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital and police arrested Hernandez at the scene.

The killing was so brutal that the Alameda County District Attorney's Office originally sought the death penalty for Hernandez but it later decided to seek life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Hernandez's lawyer, Deborah Levy, admitted to jurors that he killed Goulart. "We're not going to deny the act, we're not denying the actions," she said.

But Levy said his state of mind at the time is important. Hernandez was drinking and took a lot of drugs before the fatal stabbing and wasn't thinking clearly, Levy said.

She told jurors that he "snapped" and acted "in the heat of passion and rage," setting to stage to ask jurors to convict Hernandez of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder.

"If you plan to kill someone you don't do it in front of a lot of witnesses," she said.

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