Topete faces death penalty

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Marco Antonio Topete, the Arbuckle man accused of murdering a Yolo County sheriff’s deputy.

Jeff W. Reisig, the Yolo County district attorney, filed the announcement Tuesday in Superior Court. The court released the statement Wednesday.

The 35-year-old Topete was arrested the morning after the June 15 shooting in Dunnigan that killed Deputy Jose Antonio “Tony” Diaz. The slaying followed a high-speed pursuit of Topete’s car up Interstate 5 and onto rural roads.

Topete was indicted Aug. 12 on charges of murder, and six other counts, including felony evasion of officers, gang membership and child endangerment. The California Highway Patrol says he abandoned his car and left his infant daughter behind after Diaz was shot.

He has been held without bail in Sacramento County.

If a jury convicts Topete of murder, jurors must unanimously agree to sentence him to death. Otherwise, he would receive life imprisonment without the chance of parole.

Before Diaz’s death, Topete had accumulated a long criminal history, including nine years in state prison for a shooting. He was paroled in March 2007, then jailed again for 16 days in November after a parole violation.

Diaz, a four-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, was the first Yolo County deputy to die in a homicide in 65 years.

A status conference on Topete’s case is scheduled for 9 a.m. today.