Thank goodness you ended your post with "17 yr. old student".

I would have guessed 13.

Necessary.
Buy time, not by time.
If you're innocent, you get a good defense? Ever heard of O.J.?
He's at a loss, not a lost.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Things just don't add up to murder without reasonable doubt.

Judy D

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UPDATE: The Jury has asked the Judge to send back the Defense Attorney's timeline, the bed sheet from the victim's home with ALL the hair from Defendant, Victim, and numerous 3rd parties; they have also asked for pictures of the murder victim post mortum and the pictures of the defendant that show no marks on him evident of any struggle.

CAN YOU SMELL AN ACQUITTAL????!!!!!!

When I was a young state employee, I had a co worker who was in a bad marriage and who was being abused (physically at times) by her husband. I was in my twenties. My co-worker was in her late forties. It was a small office. My co-worker, I and our supervisor never socialized outside the office. In fact, we lived in three different towns maybe ten to twenty-five miles apart. My co-worker never confided in me but she did in our supervisor, another female. On a Friday afternoon, at the end of the workday, my co-worker agreed to take me to a local body shop to pick up my car – it had just been repaired (dents in one fender). Earlier that week she told me and our supervisor that she was finally divorcing her husband and that she wanted me, our supervisor and the supervisor's husband to go to a concert with her as a way of celebrating her decision to divorce her abusive hiusband. I was wary, as my own life with my gay partner was lived back in my town, not the town where our office was located. I like it that way – simple – very private life – remember this was in the 80's. My co-worker took me to the body shop that night on her way home from work. I immediately drove home to my partner and to a weekend of going to the beach and going to the usual gay bars to dance, etc.

Monday morning – co-worker did not show up at the office. Our supervisor said that in ten yrs of working together with her this had never happened. So, to end this story, our supervisor took another employee to my co-workers apartment. Her front door was ajar. She was found brutally murdered on her LR sofa. I was upset and cried at the office because this co-worker was a kind of mentor to me.

The police named me their primary suspect (I had no prior criminal history – and stellar military and civilian careers to that date) – FOR TWO REASONS:
1. I was the last person to see her and be with her while she was alive/
2. My co-worker had a notepad on her carseat stating "important, pick up concert tickets for me and thomas and Joe and Jane." It took a very bizare three days of interviews to convince the police that I never socialized with my co-worker, and that the tickets to the concert were a "once-in-a-lifetime" thing that my co-worker begged us to do to celebrate her upcoming freedom from her abusive husband.

So, I can well understand being very much a suspect based totally on circumstancial evidence. My sense is that Rios did not kill Jesse Valencia. The charisma of Mr. Valencia shines through in his pictures. It is sad that he was killed.

I do hope the murderer is found and prosecuted.

this so called "guilt" Rios has/had is/was nothing short of being outed not only for having an affair, but having an affair with another man. it's a double whammy against him in one of the most conservative areas in our country. and there is entirely way too much corruption in our judicial system to think it isn't a possibility that these conservative officers wouldn't try to cover it up. it sickens me that there is no concern for justice for this boy, his family, and college students, whether gay/lesbian/straight.

this "evidence" and these "witnesses" are horrible. are we disproving a high school rumor or is this a murder case? ridiculous.