An entire capital murder trial comes down to the one minute between 1:46 and 1:47, the afternoon of December 3, 2021 a Dallas County Prosecutor told a jury. That was the time the state says Jaime Jaramillo, 38 Balch Springs, made the decision to kill Mesquite police officer Richard Houston, he said.
Jaramillo is standing trial for the capital murder of a peace officer. The State is not seeking the death penalty, meaning if the jury returns a guilty verdict to the charge, the sentence will be an automatic life without parole.
Houston had been dispatched to an Albertson's grocery store parking lot Beltline and Cartwright in Mesquite after police received numerous emergency calls of a dramatic domestic disturbance. In opening statements, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus told the jury that Jaramillo's then-wife suspected he was seeing another woman. When an app on her phone suggested Jaramillo was at the store, instead of a health club, she and her daughter drove to investigate. That is when the argument started, Hermus said. Houston was the first officer to arrive. By then, Jaramillo had gone home and returned with a gun, he said.
"He learns that the defendant is part of this disturbance. But you know what he doesn't learn? That there might be a gun. Nobody told him there might be a gun." Hermus said.
Between 1:46 and 1:47, Houston would go from an officer who was responding to a disturbance, to a murder victim.
"Four shots were fired at Richard, before he ever got his gun out of his holster." said Hermus.
One of the shots hit a bullet-proof vest. Another shot shattered a leg bone. Hermus says the fatal shot passed around the vest as Houston fell, cutting through vital organs, including the officer's heart. For all intent, the officer was dead seconds later, Hermus said. He promised the jury it would see police body camera video of the entire time that officers arrived.
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The defense did not seem to dispute that Jaramillo was the gunman, but raised a question over whether the Balch Springs man knew he was firing at a police officer.
"The one issue could be what did this gentleman know in regards to who he is firing at?" asked defense attorney Lalon Peale. "That's where this is going. The emotional part will be if there's a punishment action here."
Indeed the defense appears to be skewing toward a potential verdict of felony murder, which carries a sentence of anywhere from five years in prison to a possible life prison term, but a term that becomes parole-eligible after 30-years. To convince the jury the case was not the capital murder of a peace officer, the defense will attempt to show that Jaramillo was acting out of emotion and in a fog over the domestic dispute, possibly unaware police had arrived.
"You'll hear about the altercation that was taking place there and how Mr. Jaramillo was going back to his car. But none of them will be able to say he knew police officers were there." Peale said.
The first witness called by the State was Shelly Houston, widow of the fallen officer. She recounted how she first learned something was wrong when the principal of her school where she was a teacher told her police were on the way to pick her up. She realized something was terribly wrong, but did not know how bad the situation was until she arrived at Baylor University Medical Center.
"I was overcome with anxiety," she said. "I was caught between wanting to know and not wanting to know what happened."
She was ushered into the emergency room bay where her husband's body was still on a table. But Mrs. Houston said her attention then switched to the couple's three children, an 18-year old who was at college, and a girl and boy who were at home. She was most worried about finding the 18-year old because she didn't want the teen to learn about her father from social media while driving. Ultimately, Mrs. Houston was able to locate all the children and had the job of telling them what happened.
"There is no way for me to recreate the sound my children made." she said. "Nobody should have to hear that sound."
The trial is expected to last most of this week.
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