CASE OF INTEREST

Date: September 13, 2004

Case: People v. Ernesto Fuentes, Case # 02F04046 & # 04F07071

Contact Person: D.D.A. John Pezone (916) 874-8756

District Attorney Jan Scully announced today that 28 year-old Folsom Prison Inmate Ernesto Fuentes was committed to the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane for life for the murder of his cellmate committed at California State Prison– Sacramento on November 6, 2001. In addition, the defendant will be transferred back to prison to serve a 25 year-to-life sentence should his sanity ever be restored. Correctional officers came upon the fatal assault on inmate Robert Andrews while viewing the cell shared by both the defendant and the victim during an inmate count. Fuentes was strangling the victim, who was face down on the floor of the cell. Fuentes was ordered off the victim, but refused. The officers got assistance and by using pepper spray, got Fuentes off the victim. Efforts were made to save Mr. Andrews, but he was pronounced dead at the prison. At the time of the murder, the defendant was serving a 14-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter, attempted voluntary manslaughter, and assault with a deadly weapon while his cellmate, Andrews, was serving a 25 year to-life sentence.

Fuentes was subsequently charged with the murder of his cellmate and during the prosecution of the case on July 4, 2004, Fuentes committed another prison offense of battery on a correctional officer, with which he was also charged. An examination of the defendant’s psychiatric history revealed that he had been treated for paranoid schizophrenia periodically since he was a teenager and attempted to commit suicide by self-mutilation while in prison. On August 12, 2004, a resolution was reached in both cases by agreement of the parties, which was approved by the court. Fuentes was found not guilt by reason of insanity of the 2001 first-degree murder of his cellmate and was found guilty of the 2004 battery on correctional staff. As a result of this settlement, the Honorable Judge, Michael P. Kenny, on September 9th committed the defendant to Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane for life or until his sanity is restored. Upon restoration of the defendant’s sanity, if ever, Fuentes will be transferred back to prison to start serving a 25 year-to-life sentence for his guilty plea as to the battery on correctional staff, which the Court stayed, pending Fuentes’ restoration of sanity.

D.D.A. John Pezone indicated that this resolution serves to provide psychiatric care for the defendant while ensuring that he will never threaten the public again.