larry millete was found guilty of first-degree murder on July 9 in the killing of maya, ending the trial phase in a case built without her body. Jurors reached the verdict after six hours of deliberation in San Diego County Superior Court, and applause and cheers rang out in the South Bay courthouse.
Laura Halgren on sentencing
Retired Judge Laura Halgren said the defense can still file post-trial motions before sentencing. “The most frequent motion would be a motion for new trial,” she said, adding that “The grounds can be varied,” including juror misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct or legal errors made during the trial.
Halgren also said, “For the sentencing hearing itself, the defense will want to be preparing a packet of information to submit to the judge, not only for purposes of sentencing, but it would accompany the defendant to prison and be information that would be available down the road for a parole hearing.”
South Bay courthouse verdict
Millete, 44, had been incarcerated since Oct. 2021 after being arrested on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors took roughly eight weeks to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed Maya, the mother of his three children, using circumstantial and digital evidence after her body was never found.
Because Millete was convicted of first-degree murder, he faces a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life. A sentencing date had not yet been set, and he is scheduled to return to court on July 20 regarding a separate weapons charge, when a sentencing date may be announced.
Appeals process ahead
The verdict shifts the case from trial to the next legal steps: possible motions, a sentencing hearing and an appeals process that could last for years. Halgren said, “So [the defense] they're thinking about a lot of different things at the same time: the sentencing hearing itself, what might happen on appeal, what can happen down the road with parole,”
For readers following the case, the immediate question is whether the defense will use the period before sentencing to file a motion for new trial or another challenge to the verdict. If it does, that filing becomes the first test of whether the conviction stays intact before the case moves to punishment and appeal.
