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Thursday, February 15-February 21, 2024
Local. Relevant. Trusted.
VOL. 8,
NO. 159
Teams from Corona, Murrieta, Palm Desert, Riverside advance in mock trials
Cathedral City man sentenced to death for Palm Springs quadruple homicide
By City News Service
By Kristy Ramirez, City News Service
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Murrieta Valley High School's mock trial team celebrates their 2023 victory. | Photo courtesy of the Riverside County Office of Education
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igh school teams from Corona, Murrieta, Palm Desert, Riverside and Temecula will match wits and attempt their best legal maneuvering Thursday for a chance to win the title in the Riverside County Mock Trial Competition. The 42nd annual event got underway during the last week of January at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta and the Riverside Hall of Justice. Since then, the field of competitors has narrowed to eight teams — Chaparral High School in Temecula, MLK High School in Riverside, Murrieta Valley High School, Notre Dame High School in Riverside, Palm Desert High School, Poly High School in Riverside, Santiago High School in Corona and Temecula Valley High School.
The "Elite Eight Round" will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Riverside Hall of Justice. The semifinals will follow with four teams on Feb. 20, and the final round is scheduled for Feb. 23 at the Riverside Historic Courthouse. Murrieta Valley High won the competition for the first time last year. Nearly 400 students from 22 high schools started in the county's mock trials this year, according to the Office of Education. The contest returned to in-person meets instead of virtual ones in 2023 after the public school system rescinded COVID-driven restrictions on gatherings that were in place during the 2021 and 2022 events. The 2020 competition was held prior to the school closures. The Office of Educa-
tion, in partnership with the Constitutional Rights Foundation, Riverside County Bar Association and the Superior Court, sponsor the competition annually. The county began holding student-level mock trials in 1983. More than 14,000 youths have participated since then, according to organizers. This year's contest has challenged participants to successfully argue the fictitious case of People v. Clark, involving the murder of a medical components chief executive officer. The made-up character was discovered stabbed to death in her hotel room, prompting accusations of possible family conflicts leading to the killing, or even corporate espionage. Students have been tasked with analyzing forensic evidence, the legality of warrants and
other matters during the trials. Teams consisting of eight to 25 students play the parts of deputy district attorneys, defense attorneys, bailiffs, witnesses, clerks and investigators. Contestants are given an allotted time, generally four to six minutes, at each stage of a proceeding, including opening and closing statements and cross-examinations. Practicing attorneys and judges assess students' performance, awarding points in accordance with criteria established for the contest. Students from public and private high schools are permitted to take part. The 2024 championship team will represent the county in the California Mock Trial Competition on March 22-24 in Los Angeles.
24-year-old man who killed four people in Palm Springs, including a 17-year-old girl, was sentenced Friday to death. Jose Vladimir Larin-Garcia of Cathedral City was convicted Feb. 6, 2023, of murder for carrying out the Feb. 3, 2019, killings of Jacob Montgomery, 19; Juan Duarte Raya, 18; Yuliana Garcia, 17; and Carlos Campos Rivera, 25. Jurors also found true a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait and multiple murders as well as sentenceenhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations. Jurors returned a unanimous verdict on Feb. 24, 2023, recommending a death sentence for the defendant. Before the sentence was imposed Friday morning at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos denied the defense's motions, one each for a new trial and to modify the death penalty verdict. Rivera's son, Yuliana Garcia's mom Maria Morales, and Larin-Garcia's mom Yudis Garcia shared statements during the hearing. See Homicide Page 17
California targets total grocery plastic bag elimination in environmental crusade
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By HeyWire AI
n a bold move to strengthen environmental stewardship, California is on the verge of completely outlawing plastic grocery shopping bags by 2026. This latest legislation, introduced by Democratic state Senator Catherine Blakespear, is set to close a critical loophole that has permitted the continued use of heavier, so-called "reusable" bags since the state's original 2014 ban on single-use plastic bags. A decade after California led the nation in anti-plastic legislation, the loophole allowing the use of these thicker plastic bags for a nominal fee has caught the eye of legislators and environmentalists. Evidence suggests that the wellintended initiative has been counterproductive, with California's plastic bag waste skyrocketing from 157,385 tons at the outset to an astonishing 231,072 tons by 2022, according to a report by consumer advocacy group CALPIRG. The increase per capita suggests a discouraging trend, despite a significant drop in the number of flimsy bags littering coastSee Plastic bags Page 32