Prosecutors said Jesse Manuel Figueroa was barred from unsupervised visits when his daughter died.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jesse Manuel Figueroa was under a restraining order barring unsupervised visits with his infant daughter when prosecutors say he fatally struck 8-month-old Raina in 2020, leading to a murder conviction and life sentence.
The order became one of the central facts in a Santa Clara County case that ended May 29 with a 25 years to life prison term. Prosecutors said Figueroa, 36, convinced Raina’s mother to let him watch the baby alone despite the restriction. While babysitting, he struck the child across the face and head so hard that she suffered fatal brain injuries, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The legal restriction was not the only evidence jurors heard about violence in the family. Prosecutors said trial evidence showed Figueroa had repeatedly beaten and strangled Raina’s mother. They said he also abused the couple’s two older children, ages 2 and 3 at the time, including by making them kneel on rice. Those details put Raina’s death inside a larger pattern described by the prosecution. The public record does not say how long the restraining order had been in place or what exact findings led to it, but it did prohibit the kind of unsupervised contact prosecutors said occurred on July 4, 2020.
That day, Figueroa brought Raina to a Mountain View fire station while she was unconscious. He told police he had been taking the baby to a family barbecue when she mysteriously collapsed and blood began coming from her nose. Firefighters sent her for emergency care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, where doctors worked for days to save her. Prosecutors said the father told police that he had noticed nothing wrong before the collapse. The hospital course and autopsy later gave investigators a different account of what caused the baby’s condition.
While Raina was being treated, a bruise developed on her left cheek. Prosecutors said the mark was in the shape and size of an adult hand. An autopsy showed brain hemorrhages caused by blunt force trauma to the head, and the death was ruled a homicide. The medical examiner found that the force of the blow shifted Raina’s brain inside her skull. That medical conclusion became the core evidence against Figueroa and contradicted his account of a sudden unexplained collapse. Jurors convicted him of murder earlier in 2026 after hearing the trial evidence.
The case exposed a narrow and deadly gap between a court order and what happened in private. Prosecutors said Figueroa was not allowed to be alone with Raina, but he was alone with her when she suffered the fatal injury. The District Attorney’s Office did not publicly describe whether child welfare officials had prior contact with the family or whether any agency review followed the killing. It also did not identify the mother by name. The public sentencing release focused on the murder conviction, the restraining order, the medical evidence and the history of violence presented at trial.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said child murders shake the whole community because the victims are helpless. “Raina would have been 6 years old today instead of a name on a murder case,” Rosen said after sentencing. “These cases break our hearts, at the brutality, at the senselessness, at the sheer loss of an innocent child.” Rosen said the sentence gave some sense of justice because Figueroa would not hurt another child. His statement linked the punishment to both the killing and the fear raised by the evidence of abuse against other family members.
Raina’s grandfather also addressed the court through a victim impact statement. He wrote that Raina mattered, that her life mattered, and that she was not just a name in a case file. He described her as a baby who was deeply loved and should still be alive. The statement gave the sentencing judge and the public a family view of the child at the center of the case. In a prosecution filled with medical terms and court orders, the family statement set out the loss in plain terms.
The sentence of 25 years to life followed the jury verdict and made Figueroa eligible for parole only after a long prison term. Prosecutors did not announce any pending companion case or new hearing in the public release. The conviction stands as the main legal outcome. Any later appeal would move through the courts under state procedure, but the District Attorney’s Office presented the May 29 sentencing as the close of its trial-level prosecution.
Raina’s final days began with an unsupervised visit that prosecutors said should not have happened under the restraining order. The official record now says she died because of a violent blow from the father barred from being alone with her. Figueroa has been sentenced to state prison for 25 years to life.
Author note: Last updated June 29, 2026.