A hearing with potentially significant implications for the prosecution of the 2019 Walmart mass shooting and the upcoming district attorney election will take place as scheduled next week, a judge ruled Thursday.
Sam Medrano, judge of the 409th District Court, denied a motion from the District Attorney’s Office for a 30-day delay of the hearing so they could review whether the judge and the defense engaged in improper ex parte court orders that excluded the prosecution.
Medrano said the prosecution’s motion suggested large numbers of records might need to be made available to them. But he said their legal challenges only applied to a small number of records, which he said would be made available to them.
“I don’t even think there’s a need to argue. The state’s motion for continuance is denied,” he said.
The judge’s ruling cleared the way for a hearing scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 31, and Friday, Nov. 1, into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct raised by lawyers for accused gunman Patrick Crusius.
The defense allegations, which stretch back more than four years and cover the administration of three district attorneys, accuse prosecutors of violating Crusius’ right to a fair trial by obtaining recordings of his conversations with his attorneys, and acquiring records of his visits with his attorneys and mental health professionals.
At a brief news conference after Thursday’s hearing, District Attorney Bill Hicks called the misconduct allegations “ridiculous and false.”
The Sept. 9 motion from the defense said Medrano should consider dismissing the charges against Crusius, or remove the death penalty as a punishment, if he finds that the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated.
A key witness at next week’s hearing could be Loretta Hewitt, who was a prosecutor on the Walmart mass shooting case from January to November 2023. In an exit interview with county human resources officials following her resignation, she said she was told after being hired that “every decision regarding the Walmart case would be done to get Mr. Hicks reelected to positively affect his reelection campaign.”
Hicks has denied Hewitt’s allegations. She was subpoenaed to testify at next week’s hearing by Crusius’ lawyers.
Judge Sam Medrano of the 409th District Court is presiding over the Walmart mass shooting trial. (Ruben R. Ramirez/El Paso Inc)
The hearing starts five days before the Nov. 5 election where Hicks, a Republican appointed in 2022 by Gov. Greg Abbott, is being challenged by Democrat James Montoya.
The subpoena for Hewitt doesn’t say what information the defense is seeking from her. But the defense team’s Sept. 9 motion included several allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that occurred when Hewitt was the lead assistant district attorney on the case.
On Wednesday, the District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to quash the subpoena for Hewitt, saying defense attorneys have not met the legal standard for obtaining her testimony. The motion accused the defense team of using the subpoena to obtain privileged information from Hewitt.
Medrano has not yet ruled on the prosecution’s motion to quash Hewitt’s subpoena, and the issue wasn’t raised at Thursday’s hearing.
The focus of Thursday’s hearing was whether some orders proposed by the defense and issued by Medrano – without being shared with the prosecution – were proper under a February 2023 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in a Lubbock case that placed new limits on such actions, which are called ex parte orders.
The prosecution’s motion sought to have an independent party review hundreds of sealed motions in the case to determine whether any of them were improper ex parte orders under the standard set by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Assistant District Attorney John Davis said at Thursday’s hearing that Medrano could conduct such a review himself.
Prosecutors also sought a one-month delay of next week’s hearing for the review.
Prosecutors said in the motion that they learned of the existence of possible ex parte orders from the defense’s Sept. 9 motion outlining its prosecutorial misconduct allegations.
Two of those orders were in 2021 and instructed the El Paso County jail to preserve any videos of Crusius’ housing conditions. The other ex parte order raised by prosecutors was made April 18, 2023, and limited the ability of mental health and medical professionals to contact Crusius.
Defense lawyers said in their Sept. 9 motion that jailers had violated all three of the orders.
Accused Walmart mass shooter Patrick Crusius, center, listens to a hearing in 409th District Court on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. He his flanked by defense lawyers Felix Valenzuela, left, and Mark Stevens. (Ruben R. Ramirez/El Paso Inc)
At Thursday’s hearing, defense attorney Felix Valenzuela said the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling in the Lubbock case impacted only ex parte orders issued after that decision, and not orders made before the ruling. Davis said all ex parte orders issued in the case should be made available to prosecutors if they’re not permitted by current court interpretations of the law.
Defense lawyers said they had requested only four ex parte motions from Medrano after February 2023, and those were the only orders he addressed in his ruling from the bench on Thursday.
The four ex parte motions listed in a defense filing Wednesday were issued in 2023 and involved two orders to the jail to allow Crusius a writing instrument and eyeglasses; another order for the jail to take him to have an eye evaluation; and an order to transcribe a law enforcement interrogation.
Medrano said from the bench that he would order those four motions unsealed so prosecutors could see them. He also granted a prosecution motion that only ex parte orders authorized by law will be granted going forward. “The court will continue to comply with all the law,” he said.
The defense list of ex parte motions issued after the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling did not include the April 2023 order limiting visits to Crusius by mental health and medical providers, which they had listed in their Sept. 9 motion. Medrano’s decision to unseal some ex parte orders did not address the April 2023 order.
Crusius, 26, is charged in state court with 23 counts of capital murder, which could carry the death penalty, 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart.
He pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to seek the death penalty in that case. Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison.
In his guilty plea, he acknowledged that he drove 10 hours from North Texas to El Paso with the intent to shoot Hispanics. He wrote in a screed that he posted online just before the shooting that his purpose was “to stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
No trial date has been set on the state charges, but a scheduling order from Medrano indicates a trial could begin in mid-2026.
Crusius was present at Thursday’s hearing, and Medrano is requiring him to attend all future hearings in the case.
The post Judge clears way for potentially significant hearing next week in Walmart shooting case appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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