KENNEWICK — Three stray witnesses, including a police officer, derailed a murder trial on Monday in Pasco before opening statements could even begin.
The men inadvertently walked into a courtroom last week and sat down, apparently not realizing that they were in a room full of potential jurors.
Judge David Petersen ruled their 90-minute stay created the potential for jurors to have formed an opinion about them before hearing their testimony so he declared a mistrial.
Osman C. Morales-Salto, 19, Angel Isaiah Garcia, 19, and Brian Armando Panduro-Valenzuela, 20, are charged with shooting and killing Denali Anderson, 20, at a party nearly two years ago.
“While it doesn’t appear that (the witnesses) conversed with the general jury population, nobody knows exactly what they heard in there,” Petersen said Monday afternoon.
Even beyond that, the fact that one of the men was wearing a suit and they appeared to be friendly, could make it hard for the defense to change a juror’s opinion about a witness, he said. One man was the host of the party and another was a Connell police officer.
Some of the potential jury members were asked Monday about what they saw and heard when the witnesses came into the courtroom last Wednesday as jurors were filling out questionnaires.
The questionnaires help attorneys ask questions to weed out jurors with potential conflicts of interest or biases.
The men, two in civilian clothes and the other in a suit, picked up a questionnaire, and began filling it out after they entered the courtroom.
One of the potential jurors overheard one man comment that his name was on the witness list.
The woman told the judge Monday that it seemed wrong, and she shared what she had heard with other potential jurors.
One of the witnesses eventually spoke with the bailiffs and asked whether he should be in the courtroom.
Petersen did not lay blame on the court staff for the mistake and instead said the men should have followed the instructions on their subpoenas to call the prosecutor’s office first.
The three defense attorneys, Tracy Collins, Bevan Maxey and Stephen Graham, said that this interaction colored the potential jurors’ opinions of the witnesses.
Among the defense’s arguments is that there was a confrontation involving Anderson and another shooting victim, Caiden Gawith, earlier that evening.
However, Deputy Prosecutor Frank Jenny argued that the interaction between the men and the potential jurors was minimal and didn’t cause any problems. He wanted to see the trial move forward.
Petersen sided with the defense. He also noted that it’s less expensive to have a new trial at this point than to continue with this trial only to have an appellate court require a new trial.
Even if Petersen had ruled that jury selection could continue, it’s unclear if it could have. By Monday afternoon, the jury pool had just 52 people remaining to be questioned. The attorneys could have challenged nearly all of those without having a reason.
2022 shooting
Caiden Gawith, who also was shot but survived, told police the shooting started after Panduro-Valenzuela and Anderson began arguing, according to court documents.
Panduro-Valenzuela, Morales Salto and Garcia were in a Nissan Altima, and Garcia got out of the car and allegedly shot Anderson, said court documents.
The other two in the car reportedly began firing as well, according to police.
Gawith was shot in the stomach and chest. He later admitted to having a gun in a backpack near him but it’s unclear if he returned fire.
Anderson retrieved his handgun and fired all his rounds, according to court documents.
Gawith said he saw Anderson fall and one of the teens got out of the car and shot Anderson twice as he was on the ground, according to the documents. He died at the scene.
While the accusations started with the three men in the Altima, there have been claims other teens were involved. Jaelin Fields was initially charged with second-degree murder, but that charge was dropped after Fields agree to testify.
The teen who allegedly helped Fields escape the scene of the shooting, Zhane Davis, 20, continues to be charged with first-degree rendering criminal assistance.
The trial has attracted attention from Anderson’s family who had been critical of how the prosecutors have pursued the charges.
