South Bay Honor Student's Killer Denied Appeal

GARDENA, CA — A state appeals court panel Wednesday upheld a young man's conviction for murdering a 17-year-old honor student in Gardena.

The three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected Marcos Medina's contention that no witness had positively identified him as the murderer of David Amaro-Poblano.

The panel noted that a murder conviction does not require eyewitness identification.

"In this case, Medina confessed," the panel wrote in its five-page ruling.

Medina was convicted in June 2023 of first-degree murder for the teen's Feb. 22, 2019, shooting.

Jurors also found the defendant guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm, along with finding true a gun use allegation.

Medina, now 25, was sentenced in August 2023 to 52 years to life in state prison.

At Medina's sentencing, Superior Court Judge Laura Ellison called it a "cold-blooded killing" of an innocent teen who didn't deserve to die that day, and said Medina did it "all for the glory of his gang."

"He had no remorse, no remorse whatsoever," the judge said shortly before imposing the sentence on Medina, whom she said she believed is "a danger to the public."

Amaro-Poblano was gunned down while waiting for his mother to leave a friend's home, now-former Gardena Police Department Lt. Steve Prendergast said shortly after the shooting.

"Gardena detectives believe Amaro-Poblano was mistakenly targeted as a member of a rival gang," he said then.

The teen was struck by gunfire in the 1400 block of 146th Street and died that day after being taken to a hospital.

Amaro-Poblano had grown up in Gardena, was on the honor roll, played soccer at Environmental Charter High School and had been accepted to Cal State Dominguez Hills. He was in the process of joining the police Explorers program, then-Gardena Police Chief Thomas Kang said in the days after the killing.

"This is a great kid," Kang said at the time. "He didn't go out and hang out with anyone. He just did the thing that most kids do, and just be with his girlfriend and his mom. He loved his family."

The victim's mother, Idalia Poblano-Reyes, who wiped tears from her eyes before speaking during the sentencing, told the judge that her son "didn't deserve" what had happened to him.

"For me and my kids, it's been so hard without him. He was a great kid," she said of the teen, whom she said did not go out to look for trouble.

Medina's attorney, Mark Daniel Melnick, told the judge that the defendant had taken a "wrong turn" in his life.

The judge noted that the defendant had tried earlier to plead to a "much lesser sentence" that she didn't feel was justified and that she refused to go along with it.

Medina was arrested by Gardena police just over three months after the killing and has remained behind bars since then.

During his trial, Deputy District Attorney Lindsay Kurtis told jurors that Medina fired nine shots at the teen as the victim tried to run toward his mother's parked vehicle, the Daily Breeze reported.

Kurtis told the panel that Medina "had a plan to go to Gardena, find a rival Hispanic and execute him," but ended up targeting a "young male Hispanic," according to the newspaper.

The status of the case against a then-17-year-old boy who was arrested along with Medina was not available.

Copyright 2024, City News Service, Inc.