Jesus Angel Rebollar
An appellate court upheld the two life sentences without parole for a 23-year-old man a jury convicted in 2019 for firing more than 40 shots into a truck at a Starr County intersection that killed a 41-year-old man and is 3-year-old son.
The jury found Jesus Angel Rebollar, who was 20 at the time of his trial, guilty of two counts of capital murder for the deaths of 41-year-old Hector Garcia Jr. and his son, 3-year-old Julian Garcia.
The convictions and sentences followed a six-day trial and approximately three hours of jury deliberations for the Nov. 6, 2016 death of the father and son, who were killed in Garcia’s Chevy truck near the intersection of La Sagunada and Woods Brothers Road in Rio Grande City.
The jury — and the victim’s family, who attended each day of the trial — sat through testimony that was at times difficult as prosecutors published images of the crime scene and the autopsies.
Prosecutors also called an eyewitness — Jose Eduardo Salinas Jr. — who testified to witnessing the shooting. Salinas also identified Rebollar as the shooter based on his light complexion, hair cut, small amount of facial hair and a blue and white, plaid shirt he wore that day.
He also picked Rebollar out of a photo lineup and identified him as the two shooters from social media photos.
This witness identification was Rebollar’s main complaint in his appeal.
His attorneys argued that the trial court erred by allowing testimony about Salinas’ pre-trial identification of Rebollar and that it erred about allowing Salinas to make an in-court identification of Rebollar.
These issues also surfaced during the trial when defense attorneys called a legal psychologist who expressed serious doubts as to the reliability of Salinas’ testimony, including that investigators didn’t follow best practices when it came to photo lineups because Rebollar was the only individual in the lineup who matched the description Salinas previously gave investigators.
Judges with the 13th Court of Appeals in their Thursday ruling noted that investigators did not follow the best practices for eyewitness identification, but ruled that it didn’t rise to the level that prejudiced Rebollar.
Ultimately, the appellate judges said jurors were able to consider the defense experts’ testimony, but said the jurors had the authority to either agree with the expert or to disregard their testimony, which is what happened.
Rebollar’s final issue on appeal was that the evidence to find him guilty was insufficient.
The appellate judges disagreed.
Rebollar is being held in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Telford Unit in Rosharon, Texas.
