A state appeals court panel Wednesday upheld a repeat DUI offender’s conviction for fleeing from the scene of a crash and colliding with another car in North Hills, killing a 42-year-old woman.
Estuardo Alvarado was convicted last year of second-degree murder for the Feb. 19, 2017, collision that killed Sandra Duran.
The San Fernando jury was the second to hear the case.
The first panel deadlocked on the murder count, but convicted Alvarado of one count each of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence causing injury, driving with over a 0.08% blood-alcohol content and hit-and-run driving resulting in injury.
The appeals court rejected the defense’s claims, including that his conviction for gross vehicular manslaughter in his first trial precluded his second trial for murder under double jeopardy principles and that jurors in his second trial shouldn’t have seen video from a responding officer’s body camera in the aftermath of the fatal crash.
The appellate court panel noted that it is “undisputed Alvarado was highly intoxicated” when he struck a Honda Civic and “chose to get back in his car to flee the scene.”
“He drove over 60 miles per hour in a 40-mile-per-hour zone, ran a red light and rammed into Duran’s car. He continued on until he ran over the median divider and hit a parked car,” the panel noted in its 18-page ruling.
Duran was pronounced dead at the scene from multiple blunt-force injuries, and one of her passengers was hospitalized for seven to 10 days, according to the ruling.
The justices noted that the record demonstrates that Alvarado was “aware of the dangers of driving while intoxicated” in light of his three prior convictions for driving with over a 0.08% blood-alcohol content in 1997, 2001 and 2006.
“He admitted in jailhouse calls that he was intoxicated and his girlfriend had warned him repeatedly about the consequences of driving drunk,” the appellate court panel added.
Alvarado was sentenced in May 2019 to more than 21 years to life in state prison.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice earlier told the Los Angeles Daily News that “Department of Homeland Security databases indicate Mr. Alvarado has been removed to Mexico five times since 1998, most recently in 2011.”