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I’m absolutely heartbroken for this sweet child and what he went through during the last 8 months of his life. It’s particularly telling that just days before the night Gabriel was to be tortured, beat, and kicked to death by his Mom and her fiancé, he had been working on a school project for Mother’s Day where he wrote heartfelt messages about how much he loves his Mom and wants to make her happy by trying harder “to be good”.I am a fairly stoic individual when it comes to display of emotion, but the Gabriel Fernandez case — at least as I know it from the Netflix docu-series that I just watched, as well as some news articles I had read some time before — has evinced such sadness and compassion in my heart that I’m having a very difficult time containing the urge to cry — something I almost never do.So that is how the story impacted me, and I know these feelings are shared by millions of people in Los Angeles County and across the world. But what I want to address in my answer is the justice portion of the story and the verdict reached by the jury in the Capital Murder trial of Isauro Aguirre. Let me preface what I’m about to discuss by differentiating between explaining a person’s actions and excusing a person’s actions. Nothing can ever, nor will ever excuse what Pearl and Isauro did to Gabriel. Such horrific emotional and physical cruelty inflicted on an a child by his own mother and functional stepfather is so contrary to our core values and sense of what defines humane that it strains comprehension. And in the strongest terms I condemn Isauro for each and every act of emotional and physical torture he inflicted on Gabriel, irrespective of cause. And I think the prosecutor was justified using the terms ‘evil” and “monster” to apply to Isauro.The evidence presented at trial was powerful and overwhelming in establishing that Pearl and Isauro did these awful things to Gabriel and that they consistently lied to Sheriffs Deputies and Social Workers who responded to complaints called in by concerned family members, teachers, and others. There is a lot more to be said about these visits by authorities where they completely failed to corroborate what they were told by the mother. She always had a ready made explanation for why Gabriel had injuries and wasn’t attending school. What is striking is the number of calls made by Gabriels teacher who had asked Gabriel specifically what happened at home, and still the Social Worker, Stephanie Rodriguez and her direct Supervisor, Kevin Bom, failed to adequately follow up in their duty to ensure the well being of this child. They could have mandated a Doctor’s examination of the child, standard procedure in this type of situation, and the whole ugly truth would have been lain out for all to see and Gabriel would have been taken out of harm’s way. Instead, what they did was tantamount to leaving a child stranded in the middle of a busy road with cars and trucks speeding by and effectively tempting a fatal injury to snuff out the tenuous flame of his delicate physical existence. The amount of abuse Gabriel experienced during and after Stephanie Rodriguez’s handling of the case is just mind boggling. What are these County employees supposed to be doing if not ensuring the well being of the children on their watch? If there is suspected abuse by a parent or guardian, then obviously you don’t take what that person says at face value without verifying it. The level of mediocrity that seems to be standard practice in this particular Los Angeles County bureaucracy is simply untenable. If they had done the job they were trained and tasked to do Gabriel could have been freed from the jaws of Hell.So it was well established at trial that Gabriel had been murdered at the hands of Isauro and aided and abetted by Pearl Fernandez. The challenging question for the jury was deciding which type of murder proscribed by the Law applies to this case. The prosecution was asking for Murder in the 1st Degree which necessitates the element of premeditation. The defense argued for Murder in the 2nd Degree which is less severe and does not carry the penalty of death. And it is here that I find problems with how the jury arrived at their final decision.The degree of awfulness that the evidence in this case reveals about the actions of this defendant compels many to demand he face the most severe punishment our Criminal Justice system has to offer. It is a perfectly understandable emotional response and one that I share. But this is not how a jury is instructed to come to a decision in criminal court cases. They are given specific guidelines for how they should consider evidence, how they should reason when forming conclusions, and they are admonished by the Judge — both orally and in written instructions they have for reference in the jury room — to preclude their emotions from their mental process in deciding a verdict.Some might argue that it is unreasonable to ask jurors to leave their emotions parked at the door when they consider the evidence put before them. After all, the evidence came from a real life situation whereby their own experiences in real life come into play in their understanding of the story and events in which the crime occurred. And since emotions are a fundamental part of our very existence, this seems like too tall an order. And clearly in practice this is not what happens. But, the idea behind such an admonition is to emphasize the straightforwardness of the process the jury is expected to follow as they discuss the matter among just themselves, isolated from any outside input. They are asked to dispassionately consider all that has been said in the courtroom and presented as evidence, and to use their common sense to evaluate what is credible and true, and be able to explain their reasoning to other jurors.Now, who among us can say that he has critically examined his own process of reasoning for how he regards this, that, or the other thing. Certainly most of us have sacred cows where we think of some things in a certain way because it affirms things we want to believe and don’t wish to have outside scrutiny point out fallacies in our personal reasoning process. Humans are hard wired with all kinds of tendencies, not all of which work favorably for the individual nor the society he is in. So the jury process is meant to uncloak biases and beliefs we generally keep private that color our perceptions because we have to explain why we think what we do to the other 11 people whom we didn’t know before the jury service. And some of them may well find fault in your reasoning and point it out for the entire group to consider and comment. This can engender testy exchanges and resentment but I think the idea is that in spite of everything, the group eventually can wend its way to an agreement everyone is comfortable with.In the murder trial of Isauro Aguirre the question of premeditation became a sticking point with just one juror unwilling to vote with the others in convicting him of 1st degree murder. Educated and trained as a civil engineer, he is well acquainted with the folly of the normal reasoning process in most humans and how it can lead to disastrous mistakes. He rightly pointed out the questionable assumptions and leap of logic that must be made to conclude premeditation on the part of the defendant. The jury forewoman stated for the camera that the amount of time between forethought and commission of the murder was irrelevant. One second ahead of the event constituted premeditation. This just can’t be so. When someone kills another in a fit of rage, the defense can call for 2nd degree manslaughter on the grounds that the defendant’s better judgment is overridden by anger. Another juror echoed essentially the prosecution argument that the amount and severity of abuse that was done to Gabriel could only have one eventuality, that being death. The implication being that it was Isauro’s intention all along to kill Gabriel.I agree with the one juror who held back his vote. The events that culminated in Gabriel Fernandez’s death do not add up to premeditation. Without hesitation one can characterize these acts as monstrous, unconscionable, horribly inhumane, sadistically cruel…but where do they fit into premeditation? If you plan to murder a child whom you have ipso-facto guardianship over, who on earth is going to go about it by an escalating pattern of beatings, imprisonment and infliction of mental cruelty in the presence of siblings and a dozen or so close calls with Sheriffs deputies and Social Workers investigating suspected abuse? And when the final death blow is dealt by you, in your home, with no third party to accuse, how could you envision getting away with this? Isn’t getting away with it part and parcel to premeditating a criminal act?Even though Pearl was not a co-defendant in Isauro’s murder trial, all the evidence shows that she was fully aware of everything that happened to Gabriel, that she herself shot him with a BB gun, knocked out his teeth with a baseball bat, beat him with the metal part of a belt, punched him in the face with closed fist giving him a black eye; she was also in the bedroom where Isauro beat Gabriel to death and cleaned up the crime scene ahead of paramedics and sheriffs arriving. For all intents and purposes the two of them were equally complicit in Gabriel’s abuse that culminated with his death. So if the intention was not to murder Gabriel, then why did they do all these horrible things to him.The prosecution told us Isauro is the personification of evil. They characterized him as a sadistic monster who is undeterred by a normal human conscience and sense of compassion, whose cruelty knew no bounds in the abuse he inflicted on Gabriel.But then the defense put on its first witness. I could not have been more surprised by the testimony of this well-dressed woman who had a sort of unforced aristocratic air about her. She was the administrator of an upscale home for the elderly in Woodland Hills where Isauro had been employed for 3 years as a driver and caregiver. Everything we thought we knew about Isauro from the prosecution was completely turned upside down. This stately woman described in detail how Isauro was a kind and considerate caregiver in this community of the elderly, many of whom were infirmed and wore adult diapers. Isauro, in his capacity as a caregiver, was one who would perform the unpleasant task of changing dirty diapers when the need arose. She testified that Isauro was beloved by all the residents there and everyone wanted to be among those that he looked after. When he would drive a group for a getaway trip to a restaurant or museum, he would select a scenic route along the coast highway so these elderly people could have a more pleasant journey. She stated plainly that if he had had so much as the slightest hint of indifference or unkindness that there is no way he could have worked for her for the three years that he did.Her testimony went completely unscathed during cross examination. When asked her reaction to the crimes Isauro is charged, she seemed utterly baffled, unable to make any sense of it. Clearly this is a gash in the prosecution’s theory of pure evil. If Isauro was of that ilk, it surely would have become evident at some point during that 3 year span of time. There are such people who prey on the elderly, getting them to take out life insurance and naming this person as beneficiary who then suffocates them with a pillow; or showing a pattern of neglect and contempt for these helpless individuals. Nothing even remotely like that applied to Isauro. So what could drive this gentle giant to commit such heinous acts of cruelty?I don’t know how the timeline matches up between Isauro becoming involved with Pearl and his employment at the elderly home. But I’m venturing to guess that there is little overlap, if any. Furthermore, granted that the Netflix docu-series couldn’t cover every detail of the saga, we nonetheless never heard one kind thing said about Pearl from various family members. Neutral at best, testimony from family was centered mostly on concern for her kids. Her relationships with men were described as ruthless and manipulative. I think Pearl was the evil inside Isauro plain and simple, and I’ll explain how and why.In the vast hinterland of the inland empire, there are pockets of gang culture that exist in isolation from the general tenor of American society. Often ruthless and callous to the core, these people have a quite negative association with gayness in men. It’s not simple to comprehend, but it has similarities to the status of gays in prison. On one hand it is considered contemptuous and demeaning. On the other, transsexuals garner some respect for their feminine allure. But bottom line, if you are one of these gangster chics out there in the Antelope Valley, you don’t want to be known as having given birth to a boy who turns out to be gay. I don’t recall the exact details of how Pearl came to regain custody of Gabriel, but she had had custody of him for just 8 months before he died. We know that for several years of his childhood Gabriel was cared for by a Gay uncle and his partner. And that at a certain point, another relative thought this arrangement was improper and Gabriel then moved back with his grandparents, and at some point after that Pearl petitioned to get custody of Gabriel.Even though we could play connect the dots with Gabriel being raised by his Gay uncle and his fondness for playing with his sister’s dolls, I think most children of 8 have not yet formulated a sexuality. And I don’t think the uncle and partner set out to mold Gabriel into a pre-pubescent gay boy. I think the most we can glean from this is that Gabriel had a gentle demeanor that was not discouraged by his uncle. And from this Gabriel maybe didn’t know about the social stigma of a boy wanting to play with girl dolls. Unsurprisingly, Pearl was not okay with any of this. True or not, she perceived Gabriel as exhibiting Gay tendencies and she figured she could just beat it out of him. Out of love? Hardly. Custody of Gabriel translated into $800 a month in free money from the County of Los Angeles. She’s just a disgusting cruel person who was deeply embarrassed about her son being gay. And with Aguirre, she had a guy she could control and manipulate because he felt she was out of his league and he was all too willing to please her. There were also some strange text messages between the two that suggested that punishing Gabriel functioned as an aphrodisiac for their intimacy.Aguirre told Police that on the night he killed Gabriel, Pearl had told him Gabriel said he wanted his mom to leave Isauro. She had made that claim other times before that. Frankly it doesn’t sound like something Gabriel would say. But it does sound like something Pearl would make up in order to rile Isauro’s anger. I think that she operates on base instincts and from this standpoint has Isauro in her clutches. Every blow to Gabriel’s head and body executed by Isauro was effectively her fists and feet beating and kicking him. Nothing excuses Isauro falling into this mode of behavior. That he even did it once is outrageous. But, I agree with the one juror who had the courage to follow the jury instructions and make his decision based on reason. I don’t necessarily blame the prosecution for over prosecuting. In our adversarial court system the prosecution is expected to come on strong. That’s why we have a jury of 12 ordinary people who make the final decision taking into account both sides. Calling Gabriel’s murder premeditated was a stretch from the get-go. It just doesn’t make sense that if they wanted to kill him they would do it like that. Together, Pearl and Isauro were heartless, violent abusers, but I think killing Gabriel was an accident.