Denver cops accused of planting marijuana on dead 10-year-old girl

A defense attorney for Leo Cisneros accused the Denver police this morning of planting drugs in a child’s pocket and of conducting sloppy investigative work, and criticized them for focusing on the victim of a crime rather than the perpetrators.

Cisneros is charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death of his 10-year-old daughter, Auralia Cisneros, and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. He faces more than 50 years in prison if he is convicted.

Auralia was shot in the face about 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2007, during a shootout between her father and three men who tried to break into the front door of their west Denver apartment.

The robbers — Trivi Trujillo, Joshua Rojas and Juvencio Hernandez — have all pleaded guilty in the case and are serving or are expected to serve between 16 and 24 years in prison.

Wait a minute.  Three guys come breaking into your home, you defend yourself with your 2nd Amendment-protected firearm in a manner considered lawful under Colorado’s “Make My Day” law, your innocent daughter is killed in the crossfire, and you face twice as much time in prison as the three sociopaths because you deal small amounts of weed?

What’s the lesson here?  Yeah, I know, the prohibitionists would say “don’t deal pot.”  But if you do, are they telling us that a dead child is what you deserve?  If you’re dealing pot, let the gun-wielding trio of robbers come right on it, take whatever they like, and do to you and your ten-year-old daughter whatever they want?

She also told the jurors the robbers admitted they didn’t know whether Cisneros had drugs to steal before they broke in.

Police have testified that Auralia had a baggie of marijuana that she was clutching in her hands, inside her pants pocket at the time of her death.

Menninger told the jury that Auralia’s mother, a Denver police officer who was one of the first on the scene, and a neighbor who helped give Auralia CPR, all testified that Auralia’s hands were across her chest when she died and were not in her pocket.

By the time the coroner got on the scene, he testified that he pulled Auralia’s hand out of her pocket and found the baggie.

The defense asserts that the Denver PD planted the marijuana on Auralia, which the prosecution denies, of course.  The prosecution also contends that Cisneros’s gun was the one that fired the bullet that killed Auralia, but since Denver PD didn’t bother to trace the trajectories of the bullets from all the weapons (don’t they watch C.S.I. in Denver?), nobody can prove that one way or the other.

The robbers weren’t going after Cisneros because they knew he dealt weed; they were just robbers looking to steal whatever they could find.  So Cisneros’s pot dealing is irrelevant.  He could have been drinking cans of Coors Light when the bad guys broke in.  But because Coors Light is legal and cannabis is not, Cisneros is looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars grieving for his lost daughter.