Status hearing for the 2019 Walmart shooting case
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A status hearing for the 2019 Walmart shooting case took place Thursday afternoon, Jan. 18 where Judge Sam Medrano heard from the defense and prosecution on where the case is currently at.
The end result for Thursday’s hearing was that Judge Medrano set another status hearing for next month, where he expects an update from both parties.
District Attorney Bill Hicks said in the hearing that the only new discovery is a ballistics report, surveillance from businesses, along with dash and body camera footage.
“It’s completely overwhelming. The amount of discovery that we’ve got. The District Attorney’s Office says, well, “we just produced it multiple times and it’s the same thing.” Are we supposed to just trust them? Are we supposed to just take them at their word? We have a legal, moral and ethical obligation to review everything they [the defense] give,” Defense Attorney Joe Spencer said.
Hicks said his team created a case portal system where all evidence could be made easily accessible for both parties.
The defense argued that the prosecution is disorganized and the files in the case portal system did not work or open.
The prosecution said, “The problem in the case is that there was so much shared discovery.”
“This is an issue of justice versus politics,” Spencer said in court.
“We got seven terabytes of discovery this month over four and a half years later. Why does it take four and a half years for us to get the discovery? That’s not our fault. That’s not the judge’s fault. That’s a district attorney response and it’s simply because politics plays a role,” said Spencer.
Spencer also said that the defense felt as it’s “paper sabotage.”
The defense allegedly claimed that the prosecution gave them a disk infected with a virus and the prosecution side said they were not made aware of any issue nor were they asked about it.
“It’s been my statement from the beginning that we’re going to be moving this case forward as best as we can. And we have completed all the discovery. So, we’ll be back in February… I think we communicated to the court well what the situation was that there’s, you know, obviously lots of discovery in this case,” Hicks said.
The next status hearing is set at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, February 22.
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