As Turlock Diaz’s sentence is cut short, victim’s family says new law ‘favors murderers’
Young teens have drastically different brains than young adults and higher capacity for change through rehabilitation. That was the argument juvenile justice advocates made when they championed a new law that prevents the prosecution of children under the age of 16 as adults.
The uncle of a young Riverbank man murdered by a 14-year-old boy, who will now retroactively benefit from this new law, disagrees.
“When, not if, (Turlock) Diaz returns to his life of crime and kills the next innocent person, I will be reaching out to that person’s family,” The uncle of Chaz Bettencourt said in Stanislaus Superior Court on Thursday. “I will share with them our story of failed justice. I will explain to them why Mr. Diaz was out on the streets and not in prison where he belongs. I will tell them how the laws were changed in favor of murderers.”
Diaz shot and killed Bettencourt, 21, in a botched carjacking outside an AMPM in Riverbank in August 2010.
Kevin Bettencourt recalled testimony during the trial about a statement Diaz made.
“He said, ‘That’s what you do when you point the gun at somebody,’” Kevin Bettencourt said. “That is an answer someone who doesn’t comprehend the rule of law or someone who doesn’t know how to function in a normal society would give.”
Under the law at the time, Diaz and another juvenile were tried as adult, along with a third defendant who was 18. The other juvenile was acquitted but Diaz and the adult were found guilty of murder and attempted carjacking.
In 2015 Diaz was sentenced to 52-years-to life in prison.
But a 2018 law, recently upheld by the California Supreme Court following a three-year court battle over its constitutionality, says Diaz should never have been tried as an adult.
The difference between adult and juvenile convictions can be decades or even an entire life behind bars.
In 2016, voters approved Proposition 57, which gave local judges, instead of prosecutors, the authority to determine if a juvenile, from age 14 to 17, should be tried as an adult. Senate Bill 1391 took the juvenile justice reform a step further by barring any child under the age of 16 from being tried as an adult.
After SB 1391 passed, Prosecutors around the state, including in Diaz’s case, petitioned for appeals on cases affected by the new law, saying it was not consistent with the intent of Proposition 57.
Seven Court of Appeals panels upheld the law but one in Ventura County dissented. That case went to the California Supreme Court, which in February reversed the decision, saying SB 1391 is consistent with and furthers the purposes of proposition 57.
The law is partially retroactive, applying to minors whose cases had not been adjudicated or to those who had been convicted but were still pending appeal.
Diaz is one of two defendants in Stanislaus County to which the latter applied.
His case was remanded to juvenile court last week, when Judge Rubén Villalobos had only two options, release Diaz immediately or sentence him to a prison for juvenile offenders for a maximum of two years.
Juvenile offenders sentenced to prison terms go to the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), which has a focus on rehabilitation over punishment. It only houses offenders up to the age of 25 or, if the former minor is over the age of 25 when sentenced, for a two-year period of confinement.
Diaz addresses victim’s mother
Diaz, now 25, appeared at Thursday’s hearing remotely from Salinas Valley State Prison.
Sitting at a large brown table, wearing a light blue scrub top over a white undershirt and his hair in a ponytail, Diaz read a statement before closing arguments that he addressed to Chaz Bettencourt’s mother.
“I am aware of the fact that nothing I can say will change what I did,” he said. “I would like to express how much I regret my actions and really wish I was able to make better choices then. But I can testify that God has done good work in me.”
He paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “I pray for forgiveness and have received it. I pray God helps you be able to one day forgive me as well.”
Deputy District Attorney Jon Appleby said Diaz’s appology was a step in the right direction and acknowledged that he has pursued some rehabilitative services while in prison like for anger management and criminal and addictive thinking.
But he said Diaz would benefit from a two-year term and additional services offered at DJJ, specifically vocational programs, reentry programs and perhaps most importantly, drug and alcohol counseling. Diaz’s level of alcohol intoxication at the time of the murder was the basis of he defense at trial and he’s had several drug and alcohol relate offenses while in prison.
Defense attorney Martin Baker argued that the court didn’t even have the authority to impose additional incarceration. Diaz has already served more time than would a 14-year-old who committed the same crime, or worse, right now.
Baker said Diaz, with the support of his mother who testified he would live with her and she would help him get on his feet, could seek rehabilitation outside of custody.
“The prison system ... does not have a monopoly on drug and alcohol counseling or mental health counseling or vocational training for that matter,” Baker said.
The need for rehabilitation
Judge Villalobos disagreed and sentenced Diaz to the two-year confinement in the Division of juvenile justice.
Before making his ruling Villalobos addressed Bettencourt’s family.
“I am certain (you) didn’t get a call from the governor or a legislator or the writers of propositions to say they were sorry,” he said.
He said as a judge his only option is to follow the law but as the “face of this case” he apologized for what the family has had to endure over the last few years with a long appeals process.
To Diaz, Villalobos said, “I am a juvenile court judge. What that means is I’m not mad at you. I’m not making these rulings out of any type of anger. I am making these rulings consistent with the law, consistent with your rehabilitation and consistent with the safety of our community.”
The judge said Diaz’s actions while intoxicated took a man’s life and that he must always work, both while incarcerated and after his release, to address his problems with alcohol and drugs.
Villalobos said he was impressed by Diaz’s statement to Chaz Bettencourt’s mother.
“Those statements can be words, or those statements can have meaning,” he said. “That’s for Turlock to prove every day for the rest of his life.”
The other Stanislaus County defendant to benefit from the retroactive clause in SB 1391 was the driver in a shooting that killed a 17-year-old girl in 2004. Villalobos also sentenced him to two years.
The Division of Juvenile Justice has to accept both defendants. If that does not happen, they could be released sooner.
