Jury in Banda case deadlocks on hit and run, convicts on misdemeanors

Sept. 06--A jury announced Tuesday that it could not agree on whether an unauthorized immigrant, deported from the United States more than a dozen times, was behind the wheel of a Chevrolet pickup when it slammed into a car at a San Ysidro intersection, injuring a 6-year-old passenger.

After deliberating about three days, the jurors deadlocked on the most serious charges filed against Constantino "Manuel" Banda Acosta, 39, including felony hit and run causing serious injury, and two counts related to driving under the influence of alcohol.

The jury did reach verdicts on the remaining misdemeanor counts, finding him guilty of vandalism, battery and driving without a license. It is unclear whether the District Attorney's Office will retry Banda on the felonies.

Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sontag ordered the lawyers to return to court Sept.18 to discuss how the case will proceed.

Banda, a Mexican citizen, was arrested shortly after the May 6 collision that left 6-year-old Lennox Lake, who had been riding in the backseat of his family's Honda sedan, with a skull fracture and other injuries. His family was returning home that evening from a trip to Disneyland.

The case drew attention in San Diego County not only because of what happened to Lennox, but because federal authorities said the accused drunken driver had repeatedly crossed the border illegally, adding fodder to the ongoing debate about immigration policies in the United States and their effect on border cities in particular.

Records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security show Banda had been deported to Mexico, or allowed to return to that country voluntarily, 17 times since 2002. He was last deported on Jan. 18.

Peter Nunez, chairman of the board of directors for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, said in an interview Friday that Banda is an example of the need for greater border security.

"Those who say we don't need a wall, or the border is secure enough -- that's nonsense. This guy's living proof," said Nunez, who served as U.S. Attorney in San Diego for six years in the 1980s. The center he chairs is a nonprofit think tank that conducts research and policy analysis on immigration issues.

"We should not have to deal with people from foreign countries who commit crimes," Nunez said. "The challenge I see is, what can the United States do with these egregious repeat offenders?"

A possible solution, besides improving border security, would be a sort of "prisoner exchange," in which a convicted felon is returned to his or her native country to be imprisoned there, Nunez said, adding that such agreements with other nations have worked in the past.

Other San Diegans have cautioned against using Banda to make the case for the type of immigration reform supported by President Donald Trump. The verdicts in the Banda case came the same day Trump's administration moved to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, created by former President Barack Obama's administration, which protected unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children from deportation.

"Drunk driving is a nation-wide problem that has affected the lives of far too many," Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, told the Union-Tribune previously in response to Banda's arrest. "Using the pain and suffering of victims and their families to vilify a single community is irresponsible and unhelpful. We all need to work together, immigrants and citizens alike, in an atmosphere of trust in order to solve public safety issues."

Although it was noted in court that Banda was in the country illegally, his immigration status did not play much of a role -- if any -- in the case.

Instead, the lawyers focused on a key question: Who was driving the pickup when it blew through the intersection at Dairy Mart Road and Camino del la Plaza and broadsided the Lake family's Honda Accord?

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Chandler argued that the evidence pointed to Banda, who was seated in the driver's seat when Border Patrol agents pulled him from the damaged vehicle less than two miles from the crash site.

Another man, Jorge Adame Ariza, was in the passenger's seat.

Chandler conceded that surveillance video shows Adame driving earlier that evening, when the two men left a Chula Vista restaurant, but he argued they switched seats sometime before the collision. The prosecutor said Adame -- also an unauthorized immigrant-- didn't have a driver's license so he asked Banda to take the wheel.

Adame has testified that it was Banda who ran a stop sign and struck the Lake family's car.

Deputy Public Defender Juliana Humphrey argued in trial that Adame was the driver at the time of the collision, and that his testimony to the contrary has been inconsistent and untrustworthy. She said police assumed too quickly that Banda was the driver and didn't question Adame until three days after the crash.

Reached by phone late Tuesday, Humphrey said she was "relieved" at the outcome of the case so far, acknowledging that her client could be tried again. She commended the jurors for their careful consideration of the evidence.

"I think the jury was diligent," Humphrey said. "It's a difficult case. You have a young boy who is a completely innocent victim, and his family. Your heart cries out for them. It's hard to evaluate evidence dispassionately when there's so much emotion involved, but I think (the jury) did that."

Humphrey said both she and the prosecutor spoke with jurors outside the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, and it appeared that their decisions on each of the charges had not changed since Friday when they first revealed they might be deadlocked.

The judge questioned the jurors briefly before ordering them to return to court after the Labor Day holiday for further deliberations.

On Tuesday, the jurors announced they were divided 8 to 4 on each of the three felony counts, in favor of finding Banda guilty.

Hearing that news, Lennox's mother Ingrid Lake burst into tears.

"It is disappointing but we still have hope -- it is not a guilty verdict," she said outside the courtroom. "I guess we will just go back to the drawing board... We so badly want justice for Lennox. So, if this is what it takes, yeah, it's hard, it is really hard, but we want justice."

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield

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UPDATES:

8:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 4 p.m.

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