Schwarzenegger partially commutes manslaughter sentence of Esteban Nunez

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, just hours before leaving the governor’s office, shaved nine years off the combined 16-year sentence of Esteban Nunez, the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

The younger Nunez was one of three young men charged in a knife fight near San Diego State University in October 2008, in which Luis Dos Santos was stabbed to death. The man who wielded the knife in the fatal attack, Ryan Jett, entered a plea agreement with prosecutors and was sentenced to state prison.

Esteban Nunez wielded a knife that injured another participant in the fight. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with the use of a knife, and assault with a deadly weapon.

“I do not discount the gravity of the offense.  But given (Esteban) Nunez’s limited role in Santos’s death, and considering that, unlike Jett, Nunez had no criminal record prior to this offense, I believe Nunez’s sentence is excessive.  Accordingly, I commute Nunez’s sentence to the lower term for the crimes for which he was convicted: seven years in state prison,” the governor wrote on Sunday in announcing the partial commutation.