MANUEL "Manny" MACIEL - 3 yo (2008) - Sacramento CA

SACRAMENTO — Rosalie Uribe sent Joseph
Skates the photo of her new belly tattoo just a couple of months after
he was arrested and accused of murder in the death of her 3-year-old
boy. She also wrote him a note that said, "You have no idea how bad I
want you right now."A couple of weeks before his trial, Uribe
mailed her one-time live-in boyfriend another letter at the downtown
jail. This time, she referred to herself as his "Wifey.""Well
hello honey," she wrote in the letter postmarked Jan. 13. "As you can
see, it's only me. You know, your beautiful wife. LOL. I wanted to
write you 'cause I'm missing you like crazy."
At times distraught and at times defiant, Uribe, 25, testified Monday
in Sacramento Superior Court as a key prosecution witness in her man's
murder trial. She
told jurors she suspected him of pummeling Manuel "Manny" Maciel about
a month before the boy died. Deep down inside, she testified, "I think
the honest feeling is that he had something to do with it.
"But Uribe said it didn't change who really mattered most to her."And
that's how you felt from the beginning, that he comes first and the
kids come second?" Deputy District attorney Dawn Bladet asked."Yes," Uribe replied. Skates,
25, faces an open count of murder in Manny's Nov. 9, 2008, death by
blunt-force injuries to the head, which he sustained two days earlier.
Defense attorney Jesse Ortiz has countered that Skates is innocent and
that the boy was injured either in an accidental fall off a couch or at
the hands of somebody else.At times during her two hours on the
witness stand Monday, Uribe wept in anguish over a lost son who woke up
the morning he got hurt and told her just before she walked out the
door to go to work, "I love you, Mommy."She decried her
self-admitted failure to prevent his death. She testified that she saw
bruises on Manny's lower back about three weeks before he died and
suspected that Skates inflicted them. She confronted him about them,
but testified that she ultimately accepted his denial. "He said he'd never do that,"
Uribe testified, "and I give him the benefit of the doubt."On
the eve of the trial, Uribe pleaded no contest to felony child
endangerment in exchange for her testimony against Skates. She faces
three years probation and 90 days of work furlough at her Feb. 26
sentencing by Judge Timothy M. Frawley.

Caretaker Not Guilty In Boy's Death

Manuel Maciel Died In 2008

POSTED: 4:21 pm PST February 11, 2010
UPDATED: 6:43 pm PST February 11, 2010


SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A man accused of killing his girlfriend's 3-year-old son has been acquitted of second-degree murder.

Joseph Skates was found not guilty of second-degree murder and assault with intent to commit bodily injury.

Skates was charged in the 2008 death of Manuel Maciel.

Maciel belonged to Skates' girlfriend, Rosalie Uribe.

The 3-year-old was found unresponsive inside Uribe's apartment located at 2101 Zurlo Way in November, 2008.

According to Skates, the boy fell off a couch and landed on his head while he wasn't there. Nobody called 911.

The autopsy revealed that the boy also had multiple injuries to his arm, leg and stomach.

http://www.kcra.com/news/22538250/detail.html

Sacramento judge: Jury made mistake freeing murder suspect
12 Mart 2010



At the trial's outset, Rosalie Uribe pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges.
A judge said from the bench today that he disagreed with a jury's verdict in his courtroom last month that acquitted a Sacramento man of murder in the death of a 3-year-old boy.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley's comments came in the sentencing of Rosalie Uribe, who pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges for placing her three children in the care of Joseph Skates, the man the jury turned loose.

"Don't be confused by that verdict," Frawley told Uribe, who sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes during the judge's excoriation of her and her ex-boyfriend at today's sentencing. "Joseph Skates got the benefit of the doubts that the jury apparently had. But their verdict was not innocent."

Frawley then made it clear that he felt the jury made a mistake Feb. 11 when it acquitted Skates.

"I personally was convinced by the evidence," Frawley told Uribe. "He killed your son."

The judge blasted Skates for never calling 911 when Manuel "Manny" Maciel sustained his fatal injuries Nov. 7, 2008 and instead called "his protector, his mother."

Frawley said he agreed with the prosecution theory in the case that Skates killed Maciel, who died of blunt-force trauma injuries to the head, because the boy had wet his pajamas.

"He is an emotional person," Frawley said of Skates. "He didn't deal with it right. He flew off the handle. He didn't want to kill Manny. But he reacted, and he did kill Manny."

Noting published reports in The Bee that Uribe has sought to get back together with Skates since the acquittal, Frawley advised the 26-year-old woman to "think about it."

"He's the person who killed your child," Frawley said.

Jesse Ortiz, the attorney who represented Skates at the murder trial, said today that Frawley's comments were "out of line."

"First, it's a total slap in the face to our justice system, and specifically our jurors who worked hard throughout this case and came to their verdict based on the evidence," Ortiz said.

Ortiz also disagreed with the judge's statement that Skates was not "innocent" in the case, "because a person accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the district attorney. That never happened. So they did find him innocent."

Before Frawley launched into his assessment of the Skates case, he denied a motion by Uribe's lawyer to reduce her conviction in the child endangerment case from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The judge said that Uribe lied to Child Protective Services workers about the source of injuries Manny had suffered in the weeks before his death, injuries that were reported to the agency by the boy's relatives.

"Because you lied, because so much time had elapsed and some of those injuries had begun to heal, CPS didn't have the legal authority to take the action that would have saved Manny's life," Frawley said. "They couldn't initiate a court action. They had no authority because you came up with half-baked lies that favored Joseph Skates."

A CPS case worker warned Uribe to not leave her children in Skates' custody, Frawley said, but she ignored it.

"And that's why you're a convicted felon," the judge said.

Frawley went on to sentence Uribe to three years probation and 90 days on the sheriff's work project, the deal to which prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed when she pleaded no contest on the eve of Skates' trial.

Uribe's lawyer, Alice Michel, also told the court that Uribe had her parental rights terminated on Thursday to her surviving sons, who are 7 and 5. They are now living with an aunt in Madera.

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