HAYWARD -- An Alameda County Superior Court jury Tuesday convicted Henry Inocencio of first-degree murder with special circumstances for shooting death of a Safeway assistant manager, who was gunned down in September 2002 while he was driving under an Interstate Highway 580 overpass on his way to his job.

Jurors deliberated for just over a day before reaching their verdict against Inocencio, a 26-year-old Union City man, in the shooting death of Robert Ratto.

Inocencio faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced by Judge Roy Hashimoto on March 20. Prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty.

Witness Ralph Cortez testified three weeks ago that he was in the passenger seat of a Buick LeSabre driven by Inocencio when Inocencio fired multiple shots from a semi-automatic gun at Ratto and killed him. Cortez said he didn't know of any reason for the shooting.

But Inocencio's lawyer, James Giller, said in his closing argument last week that he thinks Cortez may have been the shooter and jurors shouldn't trust his testimony because he's a felon with convictions for possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of a weapon.

Giller also told jurors to consider the retraction two weeks ago by Reyna Cortez, who is Inocencio's girlfriend and isn't related to Ralph Cortez, of her previous testimony that Inocencio told her that he had killed Ratto.

Giller said jurors should give weight to Reyna Cortez's testimony that she implicated Inocencio only because she was rattled and felt "frightened" when eight Alameda County Sheriff's investigators came to the Milpitas apartment where she was living in March of 2003. She said she was alone when authorities came.

Cortez, who was pregnant at the time, said investigators told her that if she didn't cooperate with them she would go to jail and would have to deliver her baby while she was in custody.