Attorneys/Judges
| Prosecutor(s): | Dolores Carr |
Dog kicked, beaten, choked and thrown
Milpitas, CA (US)Incident Date: Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007
County: Santa Clara
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Alex Michael Castro
Case Updates: 5 update(s) available
Alex Castro didn't like his girlfriend's dog. The 10-year-old cocker spaniel named Copper would bark and whine, neighbors told police, and the 46-year-old Milpitas man responded by kicking the dog, choking it and throwing it into the air.
Late one night, a woman in his trailer park said she saw Castro carrying the dog's lifeless body by the neck. "I finally did it," Castro told another neighbor, who relayed the statement to authorities, according to court records. "I kicked him and he was yelping so loud I had to kill him, so I took my hammer and put a hole in his head."
What happened to Copper has outraged pet lovers and drawn the attention of a nationwide animal-rights group. What happens to Castro may prompt a debate: Prosecutors have invoked the state's "three strikes, you're out" law because Castro has prior convictions for violent crimes. He now faces a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
The sometime construction worker is scheduled to appear in court today on a felony charge of animal cruelty on suspicion of killing the dog July 31.
"People in the community are clearly going to have an emotional response to this kind of case," said Castro's attorney, deputy public defender Ross McMahon. "The real question, however, is: Do we as a society feel that this alleged conduct merits a life sentence?"
A judge will decide the penalty if Castro is convicted. But prosecutors in the Santa Clara County district attorney's office said the crime and Castro's prior record meet their criteria for seeking a "three strikes" sentence.
Castro's record includes felony convictions, in separate cases, for assault with a deadly weapon and battery resulting in serious injury. He served three years in prison and a series of shorter stints for six parole violations from 1999 to 2004.
Court records detailing those cases were not immediately available. But Castro's girlfriend, Joanie Gonzalez, said he told her one case stemmed from a bar brawl in which he used a metal pipe to crack the skull of a man fighting with Castro's father. The other supposedly occurred when Castro severely choked a man who made unwelcome comments to a former girlfriend.
Gonzalez, 47, said she's horrified by what happened to Copper, the dog she raised since it was a puppy. Still, she said, she isn't sure Castro should spend the rest of his life behind bars.
"I loved my dog like my kids," she said, "but that's a long time."
Gonzalez said she met Castro in 2005 and thought he was turning his life around. But after her neighbors found the dog's body and called police, Gonzalez said she told Castro she didn't want anything more to do with him.
"It's hard because I cared about him," she added. "We had planned to spend our life together."
A local animal-welfare official, without endorsing a specific penalty, said the dog's death should be treated as a serious crime.
"It's been clearly documented that with this kind of thing, there's a very strong correlation with future or current violence against people," said Jon Cicirelli, deputy director for San Jose's Animal Care & Services agency, which works under contract for the city of Milpitas and helped police investigate the case.
Gonzalez declined to say if Castro was abusive to her, but police said she told them he was verbally abusive and that she had "physical confrontations" with him last year.
The case first drew attention when the weekly Milpitas Post published a story about the dog's death. The activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals posted a summary on its Web site and urged readers to contact District Attorney Dolores Carr.
"This strikes me as one of the more cowardly attacks that I've read about," said Martin Mersereau, a PETA spokesman. "We're talking about an elderly, defenseless animal who had his head bashed in."
Though prosecutors received e-mails from people who saw the PETA posting, Assistant District Attorney David Tomkins said that didn't affect their decision.
As with every "three strikes" case filed by his office, Tomkins said a committee of senior prosecutors reviewed Castro's file. He said the decision to charge Castro with a felony, which made him eligible for a "three strikes" sentence because of his record, was consistent with similar cases of animal abuse.
The committee looked for any extenuating circumstances that would justify dropping one or both "strikes," Tomkins said. "We decided there wasn't."
Prosecutors can revise the charges against Castro if they get new information, Tomkins noted. "Perhaps there's a side of him that we're not aware of, some type of mitigating circumstances that the defense will make us aware of, and if they do we'll certainly consider that."
Castro is being held in lieu of $950,000 bail in the Santa Clara County Jail.
Case UpdatesAnimal activists are jumping into the fray in the hopes of getting the state's highest court involved in the case of a Milpitas man who was originally convicted for the brutal death of his ex-girlfriend's cocker spaniel, Copper.
Last week, PETA, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, urged state Attorney General Kamala Harris to petition the state Supreme Court to review - and reverse - an appellate court's decision to throw out Alex Castro's 2009 animal cruelty conviction.
Castro, 51, a drywall worker, was sentenced to 36 yeas to life in prison under the Three Strikes Law for beating Copper to death with a hammer in 2007. He had two prior felonies.
PETA activists wrote they wanted to make sure that "Copper gets the justice he deserves and to ensure that such an egregious act of violence does not go unpunished!''
The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose said Castro's lawyer didn't hire a handwriting expert to evaluate whether he had written a threatening letter to dissuade the prosecution's star witness. And if Castro's defense team had hired an expert, the appellate court ruled, the outcome of the trial might have been different. Castro maintained that he never wrote a threatening letter. He remains in custody as the case is still in legal limbo.
Harris's office did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
If Castro's 36-year sentence and conviction aren't reinstated, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Smith said that he would refile the animal cruelty charge against Castro.
If so, that would be Castro's third trial. In addition to being convicted of animal cruelty in 2009, which is now being debated, he also sat through a separate trial where he was acquitted of trying to intimidate a witness.
"We're back at square one,'' Smith said. "But if we have to have a third trial, we will. It's worth it. Anyone who uses a ball peen hammer to kill a dog because it is barking, and with his history of violence, it's worth it, however many trials we have to do." | Source: mercurynews.com - Feb 6, 2012
Update posted on Feb 6, 2012 - 6:49PM |
An incriminating letter in the trial of a Milpitas man charged with beating his girlfriend's cocker spaniel to death was apparently a forgery, a state appeals court said Friday in overturning his animal-cruelty conviction and "three-strikes" sentence of 36 years to life in prison.
The outcome of Alex Castro's trial would probably have been different if his lawyer had agreed to his request to ask a handwriting expert to examine the letter, said the Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose. The ruling entitles him to a new trial.
Castro, who had a long criminal record, was accused of using a hammer to kill Copper, the 10-year-old pet of his girlfriend, Joanie Gonzales, in July 2007.
The couple lived with the dog in a trailer park. The chief prosecution witness was park manager Michael Gillem, Gonzales' ex-boyfriend, who said Castro had told him the next day that he beat Copper because the dog wouldn't stop barking.
Other witnesses said they had heard Castro call the dog stupid and say he wished Copper were dead. The prosecution also introduced an unsigned letter, purportedly written by Castro before trial, addressed to a member of Gillem's motorcycle gang. The letter complained about Gillem's statements to police and threatened to send police reports about the incident to other motorcycle clubs if Gillem's organization didn't keep him quiet.
Castro denied writing the letter or killing the dog. The court said his trial lawyer defended his decision not to consult a handwriting expert by saying the letter was less important than other prosecution evidence against Castro.
But the court said the prosecution had an otherwise weak case that relied mostly on Gillem, who had "a strong motive to lie" because of his past relationship with Gonzales. The letter was "very damaging," the court said, as it bolstered Gillem's credibility and demonstrated Castro's "consciousness of guilt" and his "violent and threatening disposition."
Most importantly, the justices said, when prosecutors separately charged Castro with threatening a witness, based on the same letter, a handwriting expert testified that the letter was forged, and Castro was acquitted.
Similar testimony in the dog-killing trial would have cast "significant doubt on the entirety of the prosecution's case," said Presiding Justice Conrad Rushing in the 3-0 ruling. | Source: sfgate.com - Jan 28, 2012
Update posted on Jan 28, 2012 - 5:37PM |
A Milpitas, Calif., man has been sentenced to more than 25 years in prison for killing his girlfriend's 10-year-old dog, Copper, prosecutors said.
Alex Castro was sentenced Friday for beating Copper to death with a hammer in 2007. His sentence was influenced by two former violent felony convictions, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Smith said.
"Despite the defendant's claims he was getting too much time for 'only killing a dog,' he is getting this sentence for the violence in his past," Smith told The San Jose Mercury in a story published Saturday.
In 1994, Castro was convicted of serious bodily injury for choking a man until he turned blue and nearly died, and in 1982, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for striking two men with a tire iron multiple times, a probation report said.
Castro, 48, also had 20 misdemeanor convictions, including driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license.
Joanie Gonzalez, who owned 10-year-old Copper, a cocker spaniel, said she was "satisfied" with the verdict. | Source: upi.com - Sep 26, 2009
Update posted on Jan 28, 2012 - 5:35PM |
In July 2007, Alex Michael Castro, Jr. was arrested for cruelty to animals when he allegedly killed his girlfriend's cocker spaniel. He is accused of bludgeoning the animal to death in the head with a ball-peen hammer. He is in custody awaiting a trial and, if convicted in that case, could be sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.
Castro has now been accused, while in custody, of soliciting a local motorcycle club, the Regulators, to prevent a key witness against him from testifying. Castro allegedly mailed a letter from jail and asked the Regulators to silence a witness who had information about the case. If convicted of the new charges, Castro could be sentenced to an additional 25 years to life in prison.
Castro will be arraigned on the new charge at 2:01PM on Monday, November 10, 2008 in Department 23 of the Hall of Justice in San Jose. | Source: Santa Clara Office of the District Attorney Press Release - Nov 10, 2008
Update posted on Nov 7, 2008 - 7:15PM |
Prosecutors added an additional allegation today against a Milpitas man who was already facing 25 years to life in prison for the hammer-killing of his girlfriend's dog, making ex-convict Alex Castro eligible for an additional 10 years in prison if he is convicted in the case.
Castro appeared briefly in a San Jose courtroom but the case was postponed until Nov. 16, after Deputy District Attorney Kevin Smith announced that his office was amending its charges against Castro. The new allegation, which simply says that Castro used a deadly weapon in the crime, would add 10 more years to his potential sentence under state law.
Authorities say Castro used a ball-peen hammer to kill the dog, a 10-year-old cocker spaniel named Copper. He is charged with felony animal cruelty, which by itself has a maximum sentence of three years in prison. But because he has two prior convictions for violent felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon and battery causing serious injury, prosecutors have invoked the state's "three-strikes" sentencing law.
Smith said his office decided to add the hammer allegation today because prosecutors only recently realized that their original complaint did not specifically invoke the use of the weapon. Using the weapon would make Castro eligible for the additional 10 years in prison, if he is convicted. | Source: Mercury News - Oct 19, 2007
Update posted on Oct 23, 2007 - 3:38PM |
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