EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — As the community prepares to remember the 23 lives lost after the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart, voters also have an important decision to weigh on who will act as lead prosecutor in the state vs. accused shooter, Patrick Crusius.
Republican incumbent Bill Hicks, who has been in office since 2022, is the third district attorney to take the reins in the span of five years. His seat is being challenged by democratic opponent James Montoya.
Both candidates share the goal of having Crusius tried in front of a jury by 2025, but who will lead that effort will be determined by the November 5th election.
KTSM spoke with both candidates ahead of the five-year mark, where the two opponents shared more about the status of the case and their prosecution strategies.
A question shared by many community members is “why has it taken so long to prosecute Crusius?”
Crusius was already convicted and sentenced to serve 90 life sentences by a federal judge in July 2023.
“Capital cases take a long time. Murder cases take longer than other cases. Cases where the state is seeking the death penalty take even longer,” said Montoya.
Montoya said he has several opinions on what has set the district attorney’s office behind – his primary blame on former DA Yvonne Rosales.
“Yvonne Rosales grossly mismanaged the case. When she took office in 2021, she fired every single person who was working on the Wal-Mart case in 2019, in 2020. It wasn’t just lawyers. It was secretarial staff. It was victim services staff. There was no continuity whatsoever,” said Montoya.
In addition to the chaos left behind by Rosales, Montoya said a state prosecution running parallel to a federal prosecution, on top of working through the pandemic were just other factors contributing to the delay.
Hicks, who has been DA for two years, says he believes the delay is jurisdictional.
“While he’s in the custody of the federal government, the state case cannot legally proceed. We can’t have any hearings in the state case where he’s supposed to be present, which would be any hearing where there’s going to be a contested matter,” said Hicks.
“We can’t have a motion to suppress. We can’t have a motion on the experts. We can’t start jury selection. We cannot do anything while he’s in federal custody because the judge in the state case has no power to compel the county jail to turn him over into state custody and bring him into state court,” Hicks added.
Hicks said his office has been communicating with Crusius’s defense team and declaring that the state is ready to go to trial, all that awaits is for a judge to begin the proceedings.
A scheduling conference has been set for Sept. 12 by district judge Sam Medrano where a trial date could potentially be set for Crusius who faces charges of capital murder and aggravated assault.
Both Hicks and Montoya agree that having a trial by jury will take time.
Montoya said:
“The jury selection in this case is likely to take months. I mean, six months, nine months. Normally in murder cases or in ordinary criminal cases, if you’ve ever been called to jury duty, they bring you down and they question you in a giant room with all of your potential fellow jurors. In smaller cases, it might be 60 jurors. In murder cases, it might be 100, 150 jurors where you’re interviewed all at once. In a death penalty case, jurors are interviewed individually.
“I think in this case, we’re probably going to have to send out questionnaires to over 2000 potential jurors to finally weed down to see who is qualified to sit on the case.”
Hicks reiterated this assessment, he said:
“It’s going to be very difficult to get a jury on this case. We’re probably going to go through a lot a lot of jurors, trying to find enough jurors who are willing to listen to the evidence, set aside everything they’ve heard on the Wal-Mart case, set that aside and they’re going to hear from the witness stand and make their decision on the guilt or not guilt of the shooter. If they can do that and be fair and impartial, then they can be a potential juror in the case to get that select number of jurors. That’s going to take a long time.”
Montoya speaking to the family of victims and survivors shared this message:
“I’m sorry that we are still here. I’m sorry that we’re not really any closer to getting this resolved. Moving forward, we’re going to keep the train on the tracks. You know, like I said, the people who are working on the case now, they’re going to continue to work on it. The only thing that I would ask them for is, is patience. I know that they’ve already been very patient for all these years. But it’s important that we get this right on the front end. The more work and attention to detail that’s placed on the front end of a case, there’s less appellate issues later on down the line.”
Hicks said the words he has shared with the families involved in the shooting will remain between them but shared this statement:
“El Paso is a big, small town. I love that about our community. But one thing about that is also very true is that our entire community was impacted by what happened on August 3rd and because of that, I really believe that our community needs to know what happened in on August 3rd… The only way the community is going to have the opportunity to really begin to heal and really begin to understand is if we go through a trial. I’ve worked very hard to put us in a position to be able to go to trial. I’m very honored by the faith that there’s been placed in me by the community and by the families. I can only hope that I have the ability to see this case through.”
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