LTC assists State of Arizona in Defense Verdict

Phoenix, AZ. July 13, 2007

When his conviction for aggravated assault was overturned in 1999, nobody sprung Juan Garcia Sanabria from prison: not the judge, not his public defenders, not prison officials.

He served his sentence without knowing he'd been awarded a new trial, and then, even though he had been living and working in Arizona as a legal immigrant, he was deported as an alien felon.

Sanabria, 44, sued his two public defenders, thinking they let him slip through the cracks and hoping to be compensated for the extra 3½ years he spent in custody. The case, Juan Garcia Sanabria vs. State of Arizona, et al. CIV2004-1101-PHX-SMM

But on Friday, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury sided with the attorneys and refused to award anything to Sanabria.

He was arrested when he returned to Arizona - illegally this time - and was facing another three years in prison when immigration officials finally realized that he was not a convict.

In 1995, Sanabria was working as an armed security guard at a bar in Glendale. One night, under questionable circumstances, his gun discharged at the bar and he accidentally shot a friend in the chest. He was charged with aggravated assault. Partway through the trial, he panicked and fled instead of going to court and was convicted in absentia. On April 20, 1998, after he was re-arrested, he was handed a sentence of five years in prison. A year later, Anna Unterberger, a deputy public defender whom he never met, was able to get the verdict reversed and sent back to the trial court for a re-trial. This mainly in part after his initial arrest, police officers had continued to question him even after he asked for a lawyer.

When the case got close to trial, attorney Rick Strohm of the Law Offices of Richard L. Strohm, PC, who represented Public Defender Unterberger, called on Legal Technology’s Chris Lakso to assist him with the presentation of evidence during the trial. Lakso’s responsibilities were to manage the technology in court, assist with the strategy of presenting evidence and operate the equipment to publish evidence to the jury. Lakso used Sanction for this trial and loaded the nearly 500 exhibits and several video depositions into the trial presentation software program.

Using a combination of the Sanction Trial Presentation software and PowerPoint for demonstrative graphics, Lakso, with direction from Attorney Strohm proceeded to present their case to the jury over the one week period.

“Chris did an outstanding job without error”, said Strohm. LTC always does a good job when we use them to assist us in trial”. Attorney Strohm was very please with Lakso’s efforts and very grateful for the assistance. “If I have my choice, I will always use Legal Technology Consulting for my trial presentation needs”