Alleged killer testifies man’s slaying done in self-defense

Carlos Argueta said he doesn’t recall the exact moment his knife pierced the heart of a 61-yearold street merchant on a gritty block in San Francisco, but he denied intentionally killing the man in a drunken confrontation.

Argueta, 34, called the stabbing of James Thomas an accident and said he was only carrying the knife to ward off a group of attackers on the night of Sept. 3, 2015.

At times breaking down in tears, Argueta spoke from the witness stand over three days in testimony that ended Wednesday in the closely watched murder trial.

“Without that knife out, I was vulnerable to being attacked,” said Argueta, a former city tenants’ rights attorney. “That’s the only way I felt safe.”

Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s decision to put his client on the stand allowed Argueta to vigorously defended his actions that night, but it also subjected him to rigorous cross-examination by the prosecution.

Assistant District Attorney Adam Maldonado played footage from numerous security cameras showing Argueta and colleagues drinking heavily in a bar in the South of Market neighborhood before a confrontation ended with the fatal blow.

“You could have stopped and thought about

the consequences and risks and danger you were pursuing, couldn’t you?” Maldonado asked.

“I could have, I suppose,” Argueta answered.

The district attorney’s office has charged Argueta with murder and robbery in the case, which is in its third week of trial. The prosecution has already called its witnesses.

Adachi chose to take on the case himself and soon unleashed a barrage of pre-trial motions. He unsuccessfully sought a dismissal for prosecutorial misconduct and has accused an earlier judge of racial bias against Latinos. Those motions and others were denied, clearing the way for a jury to ultimately decide Argueta’s fate.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Samuel Feng has carefully managed the case, denying efforts by both sides to introduce evidence.

The defense, for example, cannot tell the jury that another judge already tossed the case at a preliminarily hearing after finding the evidence was insufficient to prove murder. Prosecutors later obtained an indictment after taking the case to a grand jury.

The prosecution, on the other hand, was barred from introducing text messages Argueta sent to friends, slamming his decision to take a job doing nonprofit work after graduating law school. Adachi told the jury his client life’s work has been dedicated to helping others.

The fateful night in question began around 5 p.m., when Argueta met several colleagues for happy hour at the Showdown bar on Sixth Street around the corner from their office at the Eviction Defense Collaborative on Market Street.

Argueta and intern Pascal Krummenacher, a Swiss national, began what would be a night of hard drinking.

Argueta had two beers and 10 shots while Krummenacher put down more than a dozen drinks.

The video footage showed Krummenacher stumbling as the two men left the bar before they began walking north toward Market, where Thomas was sitting about to eat dinner.

Krummenacher grabbed Thomas’ red bag and all three men got into a tug-of-war, bumping against a car parked along Sixth Street.

During the fracas, Argueta lost his black messenger bag and eventually gave up on the tug-of-war.

Krummenacher, meanwhile, got smashed on the head by a man with a skateboard.

After recovering his bag, Thomas and others pursued the two men down Market Street, where Argueta pulled out a knife, causing the group to retreat.

“My sole intention of pulling it out was to keep them away,” he said, describing his weapon as a “shield” rather than a “sword.”

The case will likely hinge on what the jury believes happened next.

Rather than moving on or calling police, Argueta, knife in hand, followed the group back to the site of the first run-in. He testified he was looking for his bag.

“I believed if I waited any longer, the chances of my bag still being there went down,” Argueta said.

As he walked along Sixth Street, Thomas again confronted him and threw a sweeping punch that connected with Argueta’s left ear.

“He was all over me,” Argueta said. “He was grabbing me. He had just punched me. My goal was to get him off of me.”

But as he pushed Thomas away, Argueta plunged his blade through the man’s chest and into his heart.

“I don’t remember what happened,” he said. “We stumbled a few paces and I was able to push him off me. I don’t remember any part of the stabbing.”