Tuolumne County District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke announced today that on December 12, 2024, a jury convicted Prison Inmate Carlos Hernandez of Second-Degree Murder and found true the special allegation that he personally used a deadly weapon in committing the crime. The defendant then admitted that he had seven prior strike convictions, as well as aggravating factors that the crime involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, or other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness, that he was armed with a weapon when he committed the crime, that he has engaged in violent conduct that indicates a serious danger to society, that his prior convictions are numerous or of increasing seriousness, and that he has served a prior prison term.
The murder occurred on October 6, 2021, in the Prison Industry Authority of Sierra Conservation Center, where inmates learn skills in sewing and garment construction that they can utilize after paroling to help secure stable employment. On that day, the defendant used a pair of scissors and a pair of thread snips to attack Hubert Watts, who was also an inmate that worked in the sewing factory. The defendant repeatedly slashed and stabbed Mr. Watts, even after he was no longer able to try to fend off the defendant’s attack. The defendant ignored civilian staff orders for him to stop and still continued the assault on Mr. Watts after a correctional officer utilized his collapsible baton to try to gain his compliance and commanded him to stop. The defendant later jumped off Mr. Watts and took a fighting stance with the correctional officer and came at him several times. The correctional officer sustained significant injury to his leg during the incident which forced him to retire early. Mr. Watts suffered thirteen slash wounds primarily to his face and head and a stab wound that penetrated four and one-half inches deep into his chest and pierced his heart.
The defendant was initially sentenced to state prison for thirty years in 1993 for crimes related to the kidnapping and rape of an eleven-year-old girl at gunpoint. While serving his time for those convictions the defendant sustained his first in prison offense for possession of an inmate manufactured weapon and was sentenced pursuant to the old three strikes law to twenty-five years to life to be served after he finished his initial prison term. After the prior Proposition 36 passed in 2012, the defendant petitioned for resentencing, but the court denied it based on him posing an unreasonable risk of committing what the law refers to as a super strike. Then in 2016, the defendant was convicted of his second in prison offense for possession of a controlled substance in prison and the court sentenced him to an additional and consecutive two-year prison sentence.
Sentencing in the current case is scheduled for January 7, 2025, where the defendant faces a possible maximum term of imprisonment of an additional six years plus forty-five to life. This case was investigated by the Sierra Conservation Center’s Investigative Services Unit and prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Samantha Arnerich.
