What to Know
- All jurors except one recommended a death sentence for the mother’s murder; all 12 jurors voted for death for the 6-year-old’s murder; and eight jurors voted for death for the 3-year-old.
- Under Florida law, at least eight of the 12 jurors would need to recommend the death penalty.
- Capital cases used to require all 12 jurors to vote yes, but the threshold changed after the Parkland shooting trial, where a 9-3 jury vote resulted in a life sentence for the shooter.
- Up next, the judge will hold a Spencer hearing, which is the defense’s last chance to ask for life in prison before Sierra is sentenced.
A jury on Tuesday recommended that Alberto Sierra be sentenced to death for the 2012 killings of his wife and two young stepdaughters.
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Jurors heard closing arguments Monday as prosecutors urged them to recommend death, while Sierra’s defense attorneys asked to spare his life.
Sierra admitted to suffocating his wife, Gladys Machado, and her daughters, 6-year-old Julia and 3-year-old Daniela, using a grocery bag.
Under Florida law, at least eight of the 12 jurors would need to recommend the death penalty. All jurors except one recommended a death sentence for the mother’s murder; all 12 jurors voted for death for the 6-year-old’s murder; and eight jurors voted for death for the 3-year-old.
Prosecutors said the family had planned to go shopping with Sierra in November 2012, but the trip turned deadly.
According to prosecutors, Sierra and Machado were in the process of separating when he accused her of cheating. Prosecutors said an argument eventually led to Sierra kidnapping Machado and the children from a mall and taking them to an apartment.
State Attorney Abbe Rifkin told jurors that Machado was bound, humiliated and tortured for hours while her daughters witnessed much of what happened.
Prosecutors said Sierra later killed Machado and the two girls and sexually assaulted two of the victims.
Machado’s son, Michael Padrino, survived because he had stayed behind with his great-grandmother watching “Caso Cerrado,” a Spanish court TV show. Now 19, he told jurors about the life and memories that were taken from his family.
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“We were supposed to have more time together, more birthdays, more holidays, more days where nothing important is happening or arguing over dumb things,” Padrino said.
Prosecutors argued Sierra deserves the death penalty, telling jurors there is only one appropriate verdict in the case.
“It might be hard. But it’s right. It’s just. And it’s time,” Rifkin told the jury.
Sierra’s attorneys, however, asked jurors to choose life in prison. The defense pointed to a brain injury Sierra suffered after he was hit by a car as a child as part of its argument against a death sentence.
“We are here to remind you he is a human being,” said Khurrum Wahid, Sierra’s defense attorney.
Capital cases used to require all 12 jurors to vote yes, but the threshold changed after the Parkland shooting trial, where a 9-3 jury vote resulted in a life sentence for the shooter.
Up next, the judge will hold a Spencer hearing, which is the defense’s last chance to ask for life in prison before Sierra is sentenced.
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