A San Luis Obispo man convicted in 2006 of murdering an elderly man by battering him with a skateboard, has lost his second attempt at release from prison, the District Attorney’s Office recently announced.
D.A. Dan Dow said Robert Holguin, now 23, had been granted parole by the Division of Juvenile Justice for the second time and for the second time, Gov. Jerry Brown reversed that decision, keeping Holguin behind bars.
Holguin’s case is one that shocked the community when it happened nearly 10 years ago.
On Feb. 17, 2006, Dow said in a news release, Mr. Holguin was found by the San Luis Obispo County Juvenile Court Judge to have committed murder in the first degree —with use of a deadly weapon, residential burglary, robbery, elder abuse and vehicle theft. The victim was 87-year-old Gerald O’Malley.”
Holguin was tried as a juvenile because he was just 13 at the time of the crime, which Dow said, “precluded him from being tried as an adult. Mr. Holguin was sentenced by the Juvenile Court Judge to 42-years-to-life, however, due to his age, the potential confinement for his crimes totaled approximately 12 years.”
Under California law a juvenile may only be incarcerated for a juvenile crime until his or her 25th birthday, Dow said.
On Oct. 8, Dow said, the California Juvenile Parole Board, for the second time, found that Holguin “no longer poses a threat to public safety and found him suitable for discharge.” Gov. Brown nixed that and Holguin will now likely remain in prison until his 25th birthday, which would come in December 2016.
“I applaud the Governor’s decision to once again deny the early discharge of Mr. Holguin,” Dow said, “as it shows that he still poses an unreasonable danger to society.”
