Alvarez gets life without parole

LOS ANGELES — Jurors on Tuesday ruled that Juan Manuel Alvarez should spend the rest of his life in prison, forgoing a death sentence for his role in a deadly 2005 train derailment.

Alvarez, 29, smiled after Court Clerk Alberta Jordan read the verdict from the nine-woman, three-man panel that on June 26 found the former construction worker guilty of 11 counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson.

Jurors took less than four hours to return the sentence, which precludes Alvarez from seeking parole.

Shortly before 6 a.m. Jan. 26., 2005, Alvarez parked his Jeep Cherokee perpendicular to train tracks that bisect Glendale from Los Angeles. An oncoming Metrolink train filled with commuters slammed into his sport utility vehicle, derailed and hit two other trains. Eleven people died, and 184 passengers and crew members suffered injuries.

Train, public safety and city officials scrambled to hospitalize the injured and recover the losses from a wreck that they said was the worst in Metrolink history and one of most destructive events ever in Glendale.

“I truly believe that Mr. Alvarez did not intend to hurt, let alone kill anyone when he drove his Jeep on the train tracks,” said the jury foreman, who would not give his name. “He was reckless, he was a dangerous man, but I don’t think he had any intention. If it wasn’t for the felony murder statute, he probably wouldn’t have been convicted.”

The felony murder rule is a legal principle prosecutors sought that calls for a tougher sentence when a victim dies accidentally or without specific intent in the course of a felony, such as arson. It increases what might have been manslaughter to murder.

“We convicted him of arson, and since there were some deaths and, even though I think they were unintentional, it is automatically a . . . conviction of first-degree murder,” the foreman said. “We had no choice. I’m glad it’s over.”

The prospect of sending Alvarez to death weighed heavily on many jurors, some saying they fought bouts of insomnia throughout the trial.

“The struggle was emotional,” one juror said. “I felt like he [Alvarez] needed to pay with death because people did die, and there was a lot of suffering that he caused because of his actions. Yet, I felt I should follow the law and not lead with emotions.”