A 28-year-old man was legally defending himself when he fatally stabbed a drunk man who was on top of him, beating him at an Anaheim restaurant parking lot, a defense attorney argued Thursday as the prosecutor made the case the defendant “armed himself with a knife” before interrupting an argument that had nothing to do with him.
Armando Andrei Urbina-Martinez is charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. He is accused of killing 22-year-old Cody Stewart on Oct. 30, 2020, outside the Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant, 1734 S. Euclid St.
Stewart and two other friends — Daniel Canales and Zachary Chavez — went to Harvey’s Sports Bar at 1728 S. Euclid, but the bar was closed so they went over to the restaurant in the same shopping center, prosecutors said.
When the restaurant closed for the night, the three got into a dispute in the parking lot at about 2:15 a.m., Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Moore said.
Either Stewart or someone in his group made an insulting remark that is derogatory to homosexuals toward someone else in the parking lot wearing a San Francisco Giants cap, Moore said.
“These two groups start arguing about the comment,” Moore said. “It was a lot of drunk trash talk, posturing and insults.”
But eventually the dispute “calmed down,” Moore said.
That’s when the defendant entered the picture and got into a dispute with Stewart and his friends, according to Moore.
Urbina-Martinez’s attorney, Cameron Talley, noted that Stewart, who was about a foot taller and heavier, landed the first blow, knocking the defendant down.
Talley pointed to Canales’ testimony that Stewart was “going to (beat Urbina-Martinez) up,” to make his case that his client “acted in complete self-defense.”
“Clearly, there’s not even an intent to kill” when the defendant stabbed Stewart, Talley argued.
After he was arrested the next day, Urbina-Martinez “didn’t even know anybody had died,” Talley said.
When Urbina-Martinez got knocked down and starts getting pummeled, “What’s he supposed to do?” Talley asked. “If that had been an officer and he used a back-up knife, we wouldn’t even be here four years later.”
Talley also wondered if he had a white client who was attacked by Latino defendants, would that have affected how the case was prosecuted.
“Do you think a white kid would be on trial right now?” Talley asked.
“Any way you slice it, it’s self-defense,” Talley argued.
Stewart and his friends also chased the defendant around, Talley argued. Urbina-Martinez was knocked down three times, Talley said.
The defense attorney also said Urbina-Martinez made “random stabbing” motions to “get (Stewart) off of him.”
Urbina-Martinez “wasn’t trying to kill anybody,” Talley said.
“He doesn’t even have to fear for his life, he can fear great bodily injury” to defend himself, Talley argued.
Stewart’s blood-alcohol content was .11, above the legal limit for driving at .08, Talley said.
The defense attorney acknowledged that Urbina-Martinez had marijuana and methamphetamine in his system the next day, but there’s no evidence he had it in his system the night of the stabbing.
Moore objected to Talley’s hypothetical arguments about the ethnicities of the defendants and victim.
“He brought race into this, which I think is inappropriate,” Moore said in his rebuttal argument. “And the defendant isn’t a police officer. It has nothing to do with this case. A comparison to a police officer in this case is irrelevant.”
Moore also said Talley’s attempts to label the victim as a “thug” or “punk” who was drunk was an attempt to belittle his humanity, to “make it easier” to accept a self-defense argument.
Moore downplayed Canales’ testimony, which he said was mistaken at times. He pointed to the video of the incident as more accurate direct evidence.
“Just because he testified inconsistent with the video doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way,” Moore said.
Moore argued that the blood on the victim’s back shows he was stabbed standing up, not while on the ground with the defendant in a struggle, as Talley had argued. Moore noted that Stewart was still upright and able to get into his friends’ car after he was stabbed as more evidence he could have been stabbed while standing up.
“Though he’s stabbed in the chest, he’s a young man, 22, drinking and running on a lot of adrenalin,” Moore said.
Stewart’s friends got him in the car to take him to a hospital and called 911 along the way. Police finished taking the victim to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Moore pointed to Urbina-Martinez fleeing the scene of the stabbing as evidence of “consciousness of guilt.”
Also, “the defendant destroys evidence,” Moore said.
“He wipes Cody Stewart’s blood off the knife,” and he put his bloody clothes in a plastic bag, Moore said.
Urbina-Martinez “was having a bad night” before the stabbing, Moore said. He had a dispute with his girlfriend, he was drinking and got a knife after getting beat up in a fight before, Moore said.
“He wasn’t going to let it happen again,” Moore said of getting beat up again.
“He armed himself prior to going over there” where Stewart and his friends were bickering with other patrons in the parking lot.
Urbina-Martinez told police after his arrest that he was in fear for his life and “blacked out,” so he couldn’t remember the details of the stabbing, Moore said.
“If you’re in a fight for your life, you’re going to remember it,” Moore said.
Urbina-Martinez argued with Stewart and his friends for a few minutes before it escalated into a fight, Moore said.
“He went over there looking for trouble,” Moore said. “The defendant brought a knife to a verbal argument, not a fist fight… An argument that had already settled down.”
Jurors will be able to consider charges from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter.