New Sanity Trial Is Ordered for Driver
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A state appeals court Wednesday ordered a new sanity trial for a Buena Park man serving 25 years in prison for running his car into a bicyclist, then driving 13 miles as the victim -- thrown through the windshield -- bled to death in the passenger seat.
Isidro Calderon Hernandez, 32, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1999 death of John La Bord, 18, who was hit on Orangewood Avenue in Anaheim.
Jurors had decided that Hernandez, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was nonetheless legally sane at the time of the incident.
On Wednesday, however, the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned the sanity phase of Hernandez’s trial, ruling that the lawyer who was representing him at the time had failed to object to testimony considered inadmissible.
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