REDWOOD CITY \u2014 A San Jose man pleaded no contest to attempted murder Tuesday for hitting a man in the head with a hammer multiple times at a San Mateo construction site in 2023, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Joaquin Tanori Morales, 44, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the attack, which was carried out against a man he did not know, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney\u2019s Office. The sentence was passed down by San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey B. Jackson.<\/p>\n
Morales also admitted to enhancements for causing great bodily injury, using a deadly weapon and committing a serious and violent felony, prosecutors said. He additionally admitted to a prior felony strike conviction, prosecutors added, which doubled his sentence.<\/p>\n
San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said that Morales\u2019 conviction was a \u201cvery strong disposition for public protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-one years, of course, is a very long stretch of time, and he earned that not simply because it was a very violent attempted murder, but additionally, he has that prior robbery conviction,\u201d Wagstaffe said. \u201cI feel this was a very, very strong sentence that was imposed by Judge Jackson.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victim, Wagstaffe added, was satisfied with the sentence.<\/p>\n
Wagstaffe added that Morales could have been a candidate for having two prior strikes, as he was convicted of robbery in both 1998 and 2003, but that his office \u201cdidn\u2019t feel that was appropriate\u201d because of the length of time that had passed. That would have put his sentence at 25 years to life.<\/p>\n
Ross Green, Morales\u2019 defense attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Morales was originally also charged with a felony count of taking a vehicle without consent, a felony count of receiving a stolen motor vehicle and a misdemeanor count of resisting a peace officer, according to court records. Those charges were dropped as part of the plea deal.<\/p>\n
Around 2:30 p.m. on May 30, 2023, Morales was working at a construction site in San Mateo where he had been hired that morning, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The victim, who did not know Morales, walked past him at the site when Morales \u2014 \u201cunprovoked and without warning,\u201d prosecutors said \u2014 grabbed a hammer and struck him on the head. The victim was knocked unconscious and collapsed on the ground, where Morales struck him with the hammer one or two more times.<\/p>\n
Someone who saw the incident yelled at Morales, who then ran to a worker\u2019s truck and fled the scene, prosecutors said. He later abandoned the truck and attempted to escape police but was taken into custody.<\/p>\n
A coworker told investigators that Morales \u201cseemed normal all day\u201d and that the attack came with \u201cno explanation,\u201d prosecutors added.<\/p>\n
Morales will next appear in court on Oct. 19 for a restitution hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REDWOOD CITY \u2014 A San Jose man pleaded no contest to attempted murder Tuesday for hitting a man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,861,7,8,1312,723,138,181,23,100,395,36365,88,90,89,2651,397,198,200,2442],"class_list":["post-440275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-bay-area-crime","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-peninsula","tag-peninsula-crime","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-mateo","tag-san-mateo-county","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay","tag-south-bay-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}