Judge Brian Buckelew declined Friday to step aside from Antolin Garcia-Torres’s retrial in the Sierra LaMar murder case. The final stage of jury selection is scheduled to resume next week.
Garcia-Torres’s lawyers had argued that Buckelew was biased, pointing to earlier rulings and his former job as a Santa Clara County prosecutor. Buckelew said he had no role in the first case and that the defense raised its objection too late. The defense did not challenge his decision.
In another pretrial ruling, Buckelew barred prosecutors from using Cybergenetics, a DNA analysis firm involved in the first trial, for potential analysis. He cited a conflict of interest.
LaMar was 15 when she disappeared on her way to school in Morgan Hill in March 2012. Her body was never found. Garcia-Torres was sentenced to life in 2017, but a judge overturned his conviction in February, partly because prosecutors had used three unrelated kidnapping cases against him.
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