Marcial Anguiano Slits Throat In Court After Sentencing For Assault Charge

JEFF CARLTON | 08/31/10 04:54 PM

DALLAS — A suburban Dallas man used a thin blade from a safety razor to slit his throat in an apparent suicide attempt Tuesday in the courtroom where a judge had just sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

Marcial Anguiano, 47, of Duncanville, was taken from the Dallas County courthouse on a stretcher with his neck covered in bandages, state District Judge Larry Mitchell said.

Anguiano, who was talking as he was carried out, was hospitalized in stable condition, Dallas County sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Leach said. The blade cut into muscle but did not strike an artery.

Anguiano took the stand Tuesday and said he hoped to be sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to aggravated assault for cutting his niece with a butcher knife. But the judge, influenced by the defendant's five previous prison stints, instead sentenced him to 40 years.

"He looked up at me kind of quizzically and said, '40 years?'" Mitchell told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "And I said, 'Yes, 40 years.'"

Anguiano immediately pulled out the razor blade and "put it to his throat hard, and blood started gushing out," Mitchell said.

The courtroom bailiffs rushed the defendant, handcuffed him and led him to the holding cell adjacent to the courtroom, where he waited until paramedics arrived.

No one else was injured.

"If the bailiffs hadn't intervened, he was certainly capable of causing his own death," Mitchell said.

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/31/marcial-anguiano-slits-throat-in-court_n_701165.html