SAN JOSE — A judge on Friday upheld his recent decision to grant jail release to a Sunnyvale murder defendant ahead of his trial for a deadly shooting, rebuffing prosecutors who mounted a challenge after arguing the ruling posed a public safety risk.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Hector Ramon reaffirmed the supervised release of Vicente Aguilera Chavez, and also ordered similar release for his co-defendant, Agustin Sandoval. Both men are charged with murder in connection with a 2017 alleged gang shooting in a Sunnyvale night club parking lot.
The judge granted release to Aguilera on Oct. 31, citing Aguilera’s clean record since his 2022 release from an unrelated burglary sentence. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office subsequently filed a motion requesting that Ramon reconsider.
At the reconsideration hearing held Friday in a San Jose courtroom, Ramon rejected pleas from the district attorney’s office to give more weight to the allegations in the murder charges. He ultimately sided with public defense attorneys who argued that the defendants’ lack of violent histories, as well as their local family ties and community contributions, did not make them imminent public dangers or flight risks.
“I’m not going to reverse myself on Mr. Aguilera. Mr. Sandoval is going to be released on SORP over the people’s objection,” Ramon said, referring to the acronym for supervised release.
Deputy Public Defender Jennifer Redding, who represents Aguilera, said after the hearing: “I am very glad that Judge Ramon continued to follow the law and apply long-standing legal precedent and constitutional principles. He did the right thing.”
Redding told Ramon in court that prosecutors had nothing more than unproven criminal charges to justify the continued jailing of her client, and along with Deputy Alternate Defender Kristin Carter, who represents Sandoval, characterized the DA’s case as mostly circumstantial. She referenced a preliminary hearing over the summer — which ended with the defendants being held to answer for murder and gang charges — and highlighted the hearing judge’s skepticism of the strength of the charges.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen stood by his office’s position, saying “individuals who commit murder for the benefit of a criminal street gang and shoot and kill a complete stranger should be in custody.”
“The judge had the right to make that decision,” Rosen said after Ramon’s ruling. “We disagree with it very strongly, and we hope the community doesn’t suffer from it.”
Rosen also addressed Redding’s and Carter’s references to the preliminary hearing judge describing the murder case as having “major holes” and the absence of direct identifications and varying descriptions of the culprits’ vehicle.
“We don’t put all of our evidence on at the preliminary hearing. We put on enough evidence for a judge to find by probable cause that these charges are true,” Rosen said. “In front of a jury, we put more evidence on and we will.”
Redding reiterated testimonials given both in court and in legal filings that Aguilera, since receiving early prison release in 2022 from a burglary sentence, has been an attentive father to his 13-year-old son, stayed out of trouble, and contributed to his East Palo Alto neighborhood by starting a pop-up eatery. She also disputed the allegations of him having gang ties.
“Mr. Aguilera is a pillar of his community,” Redding said. “He’s enhancing the lives of those around him.”
Carter made similar arguments about her client, noting that he was living a quiet life on a farm in Escalon — in San Joaquin County — with his three children when he was arrested in January alongside Aguilera following a cold-case investigation by the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. Carter noted that Sandoval had no felony charges between when the shooting occurred and when he was charged.
“We’ve had seven years since this crime occurred, in which Mr. Sandoval hasn’t committed a felony and hasn’t hurt anyone,” Carter said.
The prosecutors who argued in front of Ramon, deputy district attorneys Noel Walton and Irene Williams, emphasized that both defendants were sent to trial, and that their backgrounds were already known when Ramon and the preliminary hearing judge remanded them to jail without bail. They disagreed with Ramon’s remarks that the presentation of the defendants’ recent trouble-free pasts — detailed in defense motions last month — constituted a change in facts to warrant revisiting their custody status.
According to the shooting investigation, in the early morning hours of June 8, 2017, Veliz was at the La Ronda nightclub and was visibly drunk and belligerent, resulting in him being expelled. While in the parking lot, Veliz reportedly drove against traffic and yelled out gang slogans.
Soon after, an SUV alleged to be carrying Aguilera and Sandoval pulled up alongside. The SUV’s headlights turned off, and shots were fired from the front-passenger side of the vehicle.
The shooting was a cold case for several years until detectives with the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety revisited the investigation, which included meeting with Aguilera in prison. They claim he spoke about being a passenger in the SUV in the parking lot when the shooting occurred, but denied any direct involvement.
Williams said Friday that “the mere facts of this case alone are sufficient” for pretrial jailing. Walton dovetailed that by echoing Rosen and emphasizing the charges allege Aguilera and Sandoval killed 21-year-old Edu Veliz-Salgado — with Sandoval alleged as the getaway driver — without any provocation.
“What happens to the next person who says the wrong thing in his presence?” Walton said of Sandoval.
In deciding on his rulings Friday, Ramon thoroughly referenced the landmark Humphrey decision by the California Supreme Court, which requires trial-court judges to factor a defendant’s ability to pay when setting bail and exhaustively consider whether non-jail alternatives — such as electronic monitoring — can sufficiently ensure public safety and the defendant’s court appearances.
After the hearing, Carter commended the judge’s process.
“I think he thoroughly reviews evidence. I think that he is not one to yield to any sort of political pressure. He takes every decision seriously,” she said. “I think he simply did what the law required him to do and for that I applaud him.”