A protection lawyer in a demise penalty case introduced in opposition to a 26-year-old Vallejo man charged with three killings in late 2014 and early 2015 mentioned the Solano County District Lawyer’s Workplace is “not the gatekeeper” with regards to offering the protection related data and proof for a proposed discovery movement.
Talking throughout the Wednesday afternoon session in Division 7 in Vallejo, lawyer Thomas Kensok of Napa informed Superior Court docket Decide Tim P. Kam that the state Legislature settled the problem in 2020 with the passage of AB 2542, which added Part 745 to the Penal Code, declaring that sentencing on the premise of race, ethnicity or nationwide origin is illegal.
However the protection should first show, by a preponderance of the proof, that the defendant was charged or convicted of a extra severe offense than defendants of different races, ethnicities or nationwide origins who commit related offenses, and that the proof reveals prosecutors extra typically sought or obtained convictions for extra severe offenses in opposition to individuals who share the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or nationwide origin.
Kensok, who together with Martinez-based lawyer Jon C. Weir, represents Lorenzo Mateo Cortez, informed Kam that he must make a case for his consumer not with largely state knowledge however with a “statistical pattern in Solano County.”
Getting “uncooked knowledge” to truly file a proper movement in courtroom is critical, added Kensok, who on Monday submitted an almost 80-page rebuttal in response to the prosecution’s opposition to the information request, noting in his submitting that Cortez is a mixed-race man, “born to a black mom and a Latino father.”
In response, Deputy District Lawyer Mark Ornellas, who's helping the lead prosecutor, Senior Deputy District Lawyer Julie Underwood, informed Decide Kam that the protection had not established “trigger” in its submitting and that the three victims have been racial minorities.
Nonetheless, Kam accepted Kensok’s argument and issued three orders: 1) The DA’s Workplace should present defendants’ race data in homicide circumstances filed between Jan. 1, 2011, and Feb. 16, 2022; arrest and detention kinds in regards to the info of the circumstances; and three) data on the race of the victims throughout the 10-year span.
Kam then questioned the attorneys about jury choice for the trial, at present set for March 22 within the Justice Constructing in Vallejo. He additionally requested if jury choice would start “with demise penalty qualifications,” that's, questions in regards to the health of jurors to serve on the case, relying on their views about capital punishment.
Jury summons would “exit” on March 29, mentioned Kam.
Cortez who sat on the protection desk, had informed Kam weeks in the past that he not wished to characterize himself.
Throughout that Feb. 2 listening to, Kam acknowledged he had acquired from the protection attorneys a Pitchess movement, a movement to sever every of the three homicide counts and conduct separate trials for every, and a discovery movement.
The movement to sever, the Pitchess movement and a trial administration convention is ready for 1:30 p.m. March 2; one other trial administration convention at 1:30 p.m. March 14; and the jury trial at 8:30 a.m. March 22.
Cortez is charged with the Nov. 3, 2014, homicide of Isaac Lopez-Reid, 18; the Dec. 20, 2014, homicide of Luis Perez, 18; and the Jan. 10, 2015, homicide of William Brown, 20. All have been shot in Vallejo.
Vallejo police investigators, who arrested Cortez on March 2, 2015, whereas he was in Solano County Jail on unrelated felonies, imagine Cortez shot the primary sufferer as a result of Lopez-Reid had accused him of being “a snitch.” Investigators additionally imagine the deadly shootings of Perez and Brown have been execution-style killings, with each victims robbed of cash and their belongings. Cortez was 19 when he dedicated the alleged crimes.
He stays in custody with out bail on the homicide costs within the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.
Court docket information additionally present that there have been, at one time, two co-defendants within the case, Jeman D. Baker and John Kevin Johnson, nevertheless it seems their circumstances have been dismissed.
Kensok has defined the movement to sever meant that, if permitted, Cortez can be tried on the three counts by three separate juries. Ought to a jury discover Cortez responsible of, say, a particular circumstance, akin to capturing from a automobile within the first depend, a jury might impose the demise penalty.