{"id":40735,"date":"2025-11-08T06:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T06:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/40735\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T06:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T06:33:14","slug":"attorney-explains-possible-reasons-why-charges-for-suspects-in-simon-cuevas-case-were-downgraded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/40735\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney explains possible reasons why charges for suspects in Simon Cuevas case were downgraded"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 None of the four suspects arrested in connection with<\/a> a 14-year-old\u2019s death are being charged with capital murder. Instead, their charges have been downgraded from murder to assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, I don\u2019t have the benefit of viewing all of the evidence in this case,\u201d Karl Alexander, a local defense attorney said. \u201cThere are multiple ways in which this can happen. Often people don\u2019t really understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander is a criminal defense attorney with Chacon, Campbell & Alexander, PLLC, and is not part of this case.<\/p>\n

On April 16, Simon Cuevas<\/a> left San Antonio Independent School District\u2019s Brewer Academy at dismissal with a group of students. Minutes after leaving campus, authorities said he was beaten, shot and killed at the corner of Elmendorf Street and Merida Street.<\/p>\n

Surveillance video showed a group of five people following Cuevas as he left school. After Cuevas was beaten and shot, everyone ran from the area.<\/p>\n

All five people were arrested, and all originally charged with capital murder.<\/p>\n

However, all of the teens\u2019 charges were downgraded to third-degree felony charge of injury to a child with bodily injury.<\/p>\n

Fernando Flores and Andrew Cantu, both 18 years old, have not been sentenced. <\/p>\n

Two teen brothers<\/a>, 14 and 15 years old, were sentenced on Nov. 6 to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, based on progress and behavior.<\/p>\n

Caesar Tijerina, 20, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems very shocking that someone can be arrested for capital murder and then suddenly a charge that is significantly less serious than that actually gets filed,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n

He said this can happen for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n

Alexander said there a several factors, including that police might have acted too soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a public safety concern, you have to react,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cYou have to do something; you have to make an arrest and get someone off the street. And then as the investigation unfolds, you realize that \u2018well, perhaps we jumped to a conclusion, and it wasn\u2019t quite the charge we thought it was.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, Alexander said, there is flaw in the evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t allow the district attorney\u2019s office to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it\u2019s an intentional and knowing killing,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n

Another factor: Maybe no one talked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf no one talked and they have nothing to demonstrate that everybody knew that gun was there, that that gun was going to come out, that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to run into a stumbling block,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n

More coverage of this story on KSAT.com<\/a> :<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 None of the four suspects arrested in connection with a 14-year-old\u2019s death are being charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[815,82,84,83,23798],"class_list":{"0":"post-40735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","11":"tag-san-antonio-news","12":"tag-simon-cuevas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}