Juarez Jurors Tour Site of Linares’s Murder

The 15 jurors serving in the murder trial of Ricardo Juarez went on a field trip around downtown Santa Barbara this morning to take a look at the scene of the March 14, 2007 stabbing of 15-year-old Luis Angel Linares in the Saks Fifth Avenue parking lot.

Known in legal terms as a “jury view,” the group – three men and 12 women, with three of them being alternates who may not end up participating in final deliberations – did a walking tour of all four corners of the intersection of State and Carrillo streets, so as to get a personal perspective of the general area that has been the setting for many witnesses’ testimony. They also toured the inside of some second-floor business offices on the 100 block of West Carrillo, directly across from the Saks parking lot, where several witnesses had viewed the crime.

The jurors were instructed by Judge Brian Hill not to talk among themselves about anything related to the case during the jury view – which was escorted and supervised by several Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s deputies – so as to not taint each other’s thoughts about any potential piece of evidence or information they might use when deciding the defendant’s guilt or innocence.