SerpApi.Org
A Sacramento County prosecutor has a difficult job: a duty to administer justice and not simply be an advocate for the politics and political pressures that exist in Sacramento.
If mistakes are made by the prosecution, if a case is presented in haste to a judge, the scientific laboratory of the criminal courtroom can reject it.
That appears to have happened on Tuesday when a Sacramento Superior Court judge declared a mistrial in the K Street mass shooting case focusing on the two surviving suspects of the 2022 incident in the urban core of California’s capital that killed six people, seriously wounded many others and garnered international attention.
When the bullets went silent and the smoke cleared, Dandrae Martin and Mtula Payton were left to face first-degree murder charges, the highest penalty possible. The jury could not reach a verdict on first-degree murder and prosecutors dismissed those charges on July 16.
Then the jury could not reach a verdict on the second-degree charge on Tuesday, and a mistrial was declared by Judge Michael Bowman.
I believe that the political context existing in Sacramento at the time of the shooting set the table for the problem faced by the prosecution four years later. The shooting took place on April 3, 2022, two months before the end of a hotly contested campaign for the election of a new district attorney in Sacramento County.
One side had a reform candidate, Alana Matthews, who argued that being tough on crime was not the same as being tough on criminals, that the root cause of crime needed to be stamped out. The other side was very vocal and led by current Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho, whose political posture was pointed toward “taking back the streets” and prosecuting to the fullest extent.
At that time, Sacramento had spent a lot of energy rebuilding and rebranding a downtown area after the economically crippling nationwide pandemic. This shooting in the heart of that renewal was the last thing the city needed. Against that background was the DA’s race.
A very large number of rounds were fired the night of April 3, 2022. The people who were left standing were charged in the case. However, what they were charged with proves what can happen to the system when haste, however motivated, influences the work of the prosecution.
First-degree murder requires premeditation - the deliberate, conscious act with prior forethought. The prosecution said the shooters were part of rival gangs. The prosecution said that, as rival gangs, they know when they see each other that they are going to shoot.
Was there evidence that Martin knew who was shooting at him? No. None of the statements made after the shooting helped prosecutors build a case for first-degree murder
Defense attorneys argued that a shooting took place, people pulled out their guns and shot in self-defense. It is undisputed that the first person to shoot is now dead.
The jury hung hopelessly. No one is saying the jury bought the defense argument completely. They would have acquitted if they did. But the DA just didn’t have convincing evidence that the shooters knew before shooting who was shooting at them.
The jury then returned to deliberate on second-degree murder. The key distinction is that second-degree murder is still murder, but without premeditation.
The unusual optics throughout the trial was that only two defendants were left, as one died in custody. The two defendants, with their two lawyers, sat right next to each other. What’s unusual about that? The two defendants are members of rival gangs. They sat next to each other for months, no problems.
That really helped the defense.
If they had been convicted of first-degree murder, it would have been life without the possibility of parole. And they’re young people, the shooters.
The scientific laboratory of the criminal courtroom showed there was no evidence the defendants were doing anything other than acting in self-defense after shots were fired. The question is whether enough time was taken to determine that. With cameras rolling, candidates watching poll numbers, and sound bites being crafted, did political pressure cause these issues to be overlooked?
Mark Reichel has been a civil and criminal defense attorney in Sacramento since 1991.
