MANHEIM TOWNSHIP, LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa.– A state prison inmate will not receive a new trial for the drive-by killing of a man walking home on a Manheim Township street in 2014.
Mathew Morales, 26, is currently serving a life term after being convicted of first-degree murder last year in connection to the shooting of 25-year-old Xavier Garriga.
Morales requested relief from the State Superior Court claiming that the jury’s verdict went against what the evidence showed.
The state appeals court denied that argument, writing that an appeals court’s role is not to “reweigh the evidence” juries consider at trial.
Morales shot Garriga from his vehicle while Garriga was walking home on New Holland Avenue on June 21, 2014. The two men had been involved in a verbal dispute minutes earlier at a nearby convenient store.
At Morales’ trial, jurors watched a video recording of the men as they left the convenience store, and saw evidence that showed Morales’ vehicle would have been at the location when and where Garriga was shot.
Now, Morales will serve his life term.
