An Ector County took just one hour Thursday to reject an Ector County man’s claim that he shot his cousin to death in self-defense.
Jacob Escobedo, 30, was killed in the early morning hours of Aug. 11, 2018, outside his uncle’s home on Coen Street in Pleasant Farms, 12 miles south of Odessa. Misael Marquez Hernandez, 33, was arrested later the same day at his girlfriend’s house in Odessa and charged with first-degree murder.
During closing arguments Thursday morning, defense attorney Kevin Acker argued the evidence showed Escobedo was high on cocaine and alcohol, the two argued and Hernandez was forced to shoot him in self-defense.
According to Texas law, someone can successfully argue self defense if they “reasonably believe it’s immediately necessary to protect oneself against unlawful deadly force” or serious bodily injury. The law further states a jury must believe an “ordinary and prudent” person would act the same way in the same circumstances.
During the trial, the jury heard testimony that the two men spent Aug. 10, 2018, eating barbecue chicken and drinking beer with their uncles and an aunt and Escobedo was found dead the following morning by one of the uncles. Hernandez, who lived and worked with the victim, was gone and authorities immediately began looking for him.
Investigators found a 9 mm handgun in Hernandez’s possession when they arrested him and tests later proved it was the gun that was used to kill Escobedo.
During a taped interview that jurors watched, Hernandez told Ector County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Javier Leyva he and his cousin argued and during the argument Escobedo hit him once while they were sitting inside a pickup truck and later threw beer in his face.
The defendant also said he shot Escobedo while Escobedo was standing outside the driver’s side door of the truck and he was sitting in the passenger seat. After firing the gun once, Hernandez told Leyva he got out of the truck and shot Escobedo three more times while the victim was on the ground moaning.
During closing arguments, Acker told the jurors that during deliberations they get to be Sherlock Holmes by making deductions and drawing conclusions.
He reminded the jurors a nearly full plastic bottle of tequila and measuring tape was found near Escobedo’s body and suggested they might’ve been potential weapons.
Pounding a package containing the tequila bottle repeatedly on the jury box, Acker asked the jurors if a reasonable person might think they would sustain a serious bodily injury if they’d been hit by it. He suggested the tape measure could have acted as a pair of brass knuckles in the hands of a man like Escobedo, who once served three years in prison for robbery.
He pointed out Escobedo’s Texas Rangers hat wasn’t pastel, it was red and black. He reminded jurors Escobedo had alcohol and a cocaine metabolite in his system at the time of his death. The defense attorney also recalled that a medical examiner testified Escobedo had a main coronary artery that was 75% blocked.
The defense attorney suggested Leyva didn’t sit close to Hernandez so as to develop a rapport with him during the interview, but rather to intimidate him. He also suggested Leyva purposely changed the subject everytime Hernandez mentioned self-defense because Leyva was part of a team determined to charge him with first-degree murder.
When Leyva asked Herndandez if Escobedo was alive when he left, Acker pointed out his response was “Did he die?”
“He had no clue that he had even hit him,” Acker said.
During his rebuttal, First Assistant Ector County District Attorney Greg Barber stood up and pointed at Hernandez.
“Yeah, Jacob Escobedo had a heart condition. He had a 9 mm bullet in it that was fired by that defendant,” Barber said.
As for Escobedo’s hat, Barber showed the jurors a photo of a deceased Escobedo still wearing it. If there had really been a fight, would it still be on his head? Barber asked.
It was Hernandez who brought a gun to a cook-out, a cook-out down the street from his own home, a cook-out where he wasn’t surrounded by strangers, but by family, Barber said.
Barber also showed the jurors the portion of the videotaped interview of Hernandez acting out the shooting. Had he fired the gun while protecting himself, wouldn’t Hernandez have thrown up one of his arms to ward Escobedo off? Barber asked. In the video, he just showed himself firing the gun, his gun arm over his chest, the other in a resting position.
Hernandez himself also showed how he stood stationary while firing the final three bullets into Escobedo, who he said was moaning, Barber said.
“Is that self-defense?” Barber asked.
Escobedo wasn’t a danger to Hernandez when he was standing outside the pickup and “he certainly wasn’t a danger” after the first shot left him wounded on the ground, Barber said.
If the shooting had been in self-defense, why didn’t Hernandez seek help from his uncles or call 911? Barber asked. The prosecutor also noted Hernandez never complained of any injuries and he urged the jury to study all of the photos of Hernandez to find injuries.
The prosecutor also pointed out two other key points in the transcript of the Hernandez interview.
Barber noted that Acker failed to point out the moment when Hernandez told Leyva he’d told Escobedo, “You are (expletive) starting to piss me off. Get out of here.”
From that statement alone, it shows who was the angry one that night, Barber said.
In addition, Barber said that when Leyva asked Hernandez where he got the gun, he said he’d bought it and he fist bumped the detective, seemingly unconcerned with the fact he’d killed his cousin hours before.
It was only after being told that he was being arrested did Hernandez say he was “forced” to shoot Escobedo, Barber said.
The prosecutor refuted the idea Hernandez wasn’t allowed to give his full story.
“He had every opportunity to say what happened and he did,” Barber said.
The punishment phase of the trial was expected to begin at 1:30 p.m. today.
