SAN JOSE -- At the prosecution's request Tuesday, all the jurors, family members and spectators in a Hall of Justice courtroom peered up at the clock, for just one minute. But 60 seconds seemed to take forever to tick by -- bolstering the District Attorney's argument that former firefighter Ralph Baldenegro had more than enough time to appreciate what he was doing in 1991 when he allegedly gripped accountant Julie Bucalo's throat and squeezed for several minutes while she lay helpless in handcuffs.

"He had time to make a choice," prosecutor Dan Fehderau argued, telling jurors Baldenegro "held Julie's life in his hands."

"He chose death."

The dramatic argument came on the last day of Baldenegro's 31/2 month trial. But as unusually protracted as the trial was, it was nothing compared to the 22 years it took for Baldenegro to be charged in the Nov. 9, 1991, killing.

Baldenegro, now 64 and already serving a long sentence for attacking a girlfriend and her teenaged daughter in 2006, is charged with special-circumstances murder, attempted rape and burglary. Prosecutors said his DNA was found a few years ago on Bucalo's hand and the shirt she was wearing the day someone broke into her South Meridian Avenue cottage, handcuffed her and tried to rape her before strangling her. He has pleaded not guilty and faces life without parole if the seven women and five men on the jury accept Fehderau's argument that he committed first-degree murder.


The attractive 26-year-old accountant and 42-year-old Baldenegro both worked at Price Waterhouse, but were just acquaintances. Baldenegro had left the Santa Clara Fire Department in disgrace a few years earlier after he was convicted of assaulting an ex-girlfriend and fired.

In a calm yet outraged voice, Fehderau said that in addition to the DNA evidence, Baldenegro had a history both before and after Bucalo's death of assaults against women that involved handcuffs or duct tape, a knife, suffocation and choking.

Baldenegro is now serving 94 years to life in prison for attacking a girlfriend and her 14-year-old daughter in Fremont in 2006 after slipping into her home and hiding behind the front door. When his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter arrived home, Baldenegro pointed a gun at her and told her, "This isn't your lucky day." Then he bound her with duct tape, blindfolded her and sexually molested her. Two hours later, he severely beat his girlfriend, handcuffed her and threatened to kill her.

Prosecutors have said they charged him with Bucalo's slaying anyway to bring justice to her relatives and to make sure he stays locked up in the event a higher court overturns his conviction.

But Baldenegro's attorney, Chris Givens, has said the prosecution is a waste of judicial resources given the unlikelihood of his client ever being retried in the Fremont case.

In an impassioned closing statement, Givens contested the notion that Baldenegro had exhibited a pattern in his attacks, saying some of the women exaggerated his client's behavior and some of the attacks were never charged as crimes. He also said there was no pattern because Baldenegro was intimately involved with the other women for years in tumultuous relationships, while he hardly knew Bucalo.

Givens noted that Bucalo's then-boyfriend was a longtime suspect and suggested there was still reason to believe he may have killed her in a rage. He said the chief investigator in the case made up his mind that Baldenegro did it and then "persecuted" his client, and called the DNA evidence "ridiculous." Baldenegro testified it was inadvertently transferred to Bucalo via a jacket worn by his then-girlfriend, who hugged Bucalo. Fehderau strongly disputed the claim, noting that the girlfriend can't testify because she is "conveniently dead."
