23 September 2010 :

Jessie A. Quintanilla has death sentence reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Quintanilla, 42, hispanic, was sentenced to die for killing an officer (Lt. Col. Daniel Kidd) at Camp Pendleton on March 5, 1996. According to testimony at his court martial, Quintanilla was drunk at the time of the shooting, beset by family and financial problems, and angry at a poor job evaluation and being denied a spot as a recruiter. In 2006, a military appeals court set aside the death penalty decision and sent the case back to Camp Pendleton for a new sentencing hearing. The appeals court ruled that the trial judge had acted improperly when he allowed the prosecution to eliminate from the jury pool an enlisted Marine because of an allegedly inflexible attitude against capital punishment. But the sentencing hearing was delayed when Quintanilla was found by military doctors to be a paranoid schizophrenic and unable to assist in his own defense. After treatment and medication, Quintanilla was found competent. The new sentencing was an agreement between prosecutors, defense attorneys and the air-wing commanding officer. In exchange for lifting the death penalty, Quintanilla waived his right to further appeals of his conviction. The last Marine execution was in 1817.