Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville on Wednesday listened patiently as a defense attorney representing former Phoenix police Officer Richard Chrisman detailed the alleged misconduct the prosecutor committed throughout Chrisman’s murder trial.
Chrisman’s attorney, Craig Mehrens, was making the allegations about Deputy County Attorney Juan Martinez in an effort to secure a new trial for his client, who was convicted of aggravated assault during a trial this summer, and the beneficiary of a hung jury on murder and animal-cruelty counts.
But about halfway through the sparsely attended hearing in a downtown Phoenix courtroom, Granville posed the question that framed the entire hearing.
“We are getting a new trial,” Granville said. “Isn’t that a sufficient remedy?”
When the 45-minute hearing was complete, Granville denied Chrisman’s request to vacate the aggravated assault verdict and penciled in a new trial date for early next year. Chrisman is set to be sentenced Dec. 20 on the aggravated assault count, which carries a range of 5 to 15 years in prison.
A jury found Chrisman guilty of aggravated assault in September for putting his gun to the head of 29-year-old Danny Frank Rodriguez shortly after Chrisman and his partner entered Rodriguez’s South Phoenix home while answering a domestic violence call in October 2010.
The jury reached an impasse when it came to the question of whether Chrisman committed second-degree murder when he shot Rodriguez twice in the chest, and whether he committed animal cruelty when he killed Rodriguez’s pitbull-mix, Junior, during the altercation that ensued in Rodriguez’s living room.
The testimony of Chrisman’s partner on the call, Officer Sergio Virgillo, was crucial in convicting Chrisman because he told the jury Rodriguez posed no threat, despite Virgillo’s own attempts to deploy his Taser at the methamphetamine user. Virgillo also told jurors he had successfully de-escalated the situation when Chrisman drew his weapon, and that Rodriguez was backing away from Chrisman with his hands in the air when he was shot.
Mehrens told Granville on Wednesday that Martinez was purposefully misleading throughout the trial — in his sharing of relevant documents, when he played coy about the witnesses he planned on calling, and when he made misleading statements to the jury — and pleaded with the judge to put a stop to Martinez’s “pattern of misconduct” so it will not continue in other trials.
Martinez characterized Mehrens statements as “ad hominem attacks on the prosecutor” and reminded Granville that whatever misconduct he might have been accused of in other proceedings, it has nothing to do with the Chrisman case.
Granville said many of the issues Mehrens raised actually dealt with the charges the jury could not agree on and not with the aggravated assault.
Granville gave Chrisman a Jan. 27 trial date for the second-degree murder and animal cruelty allegations, though the date could change depending on Martinez’s schedule with other trials.
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