A three-judge state Superior Court panel has upheld the murder conviction and life sentence of a Shenandoah man who killed his ex-girlfriend in April 2014 in the residence they once shared.
Luis R. Nunez-Calderon’s confession that he killed Wendy Contreras-Hernandez was voluntary and properly admitted into evidence, the panel ruled in a seven-page opinion filed Friday.
“There is no basis to overturn ... the determination that (Nunez-Calderon’s) confession was voluntarily and knowingly given,” Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote.
As a result, Nunez-Calderon, 43, will remain imprisoned at State Correctional Institution/Retreat in Luzerne County.
At the end of a four-day trial, a jury of seven women and five men convicted Nunez-Calderon on April 30, 2014, of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin, who presided over the trial, sentenced Nunez-Calderon immediately after the verdict to serve life in prison, which in Pennsylvania carries no chance of parole.
State police at Frackville charged Nunez-Calderon with cutting Contreras-Hernandez’s throat shortly after noon April 29, 2014, in the bathroom of her residence at 518 W. Centre St., Shenandoah. Police said the defendant cut the victim’s throat after dragging her into the house during the course of an argument.
In his appeal, Nunez-Calderon raised only one issue, claiming his confession was involuntary.
Bowes wrote that an evaluation of the totality of the circumstances justified the determination that Nunez-Calderon’s confession was voluntary.
“A confession is voluntary when a defendant knowingly waived his constitutional rights and if he was not pressured into (making) the confession,” Bowes wrote.
She noted that his claim that he does not speak English is irrelevant because he was given his Miranda warnings in Spanish when arrested in New York City.
(Nunez-Calderon) never complained that he did not understand (Adelis Acosta, the translator),” according to Bowes.
She also wrote that Nunez-Calderon had no right to review his confession, which does not have to be recorded.
Bowes also wrote that the evidence supported the county court’s findings that state police did not pressure, threaten or promise anything to Nunez-Calderon.
President Judge Susan Peikes Gantman and Senior Judge John L. Musmanno, the other panel members, joined in Bowes’ opinion.