A Pima County jury will be asked this week to decide if the death of a 20-year-old Tucson man in May 2008 was an intentional slaying or a justifiable act of self-defense.
Wednesday was the first day in the second-degree-murder trial of Jesus Javier Almaguer, who is accused of shooting Antonio Redondo Jr. in the chest at an apartment complex near East 22nd Street and South Kolb Road.
On the evening of May 16, 2008, Redondo was visiting his brother, Abram Redondo, at the apartment Abram Redondo shared with his former girlfriend, Jolean Lindhurst, and their two children, Deputy Pima County Attorney Casey McGinley told jurors. Eventually, Redondo's father joined the group, as did Lindhurst's new boyfriend, Albert Chino Cota, and his friend, Almaguer.
When Cota began urinating off the third floor balcony, McGinley said Abram Redondo confronted him and Almaguer, 27, got angry.
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It's unclear who threw the first punch, but Abram Redondo and Almaguer ended up in a fistfight, McGinley said. In the middle of that fistfight, McGinley told jurors, Almaguer pulled a gun, fired it, striking Antonio Redondo Jr. He died at the scene.
Cota and Almaguer fled.
Assistant Pima County Public Defender Joel Feinman started and ended his opening statement by asking jurors, "What does a man do" when he's lying on his back, surrounded by a metal balcony railing being beaten by three strangers?
The defense attorney told jurors it was Abram Redondo who threw the first punch, Antonio Redondo Sr. who took Almaguer to the ground and that Antonio Redondo Jr. joined in on the beating.
Almaguer avoided arrest until April 2010 when Mexican immigration officials brought him to the U.S. border in Nogales after he was released from a Mexican jail on unrelated charges.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Jose Robles is presiding over the trial.
