00:00I determined that they were not discoverable.
00:01That doesn't mean that the prosecution gets to decide if it's exculpatory or not.
00:05When this prosecutor withheld evidence because he believed it was not discoverable,
00:09the judge found the information should have been turned over
00:11and imposed sanctions for the discovery violations.
00:14People versus David Arellano.
00:15He indicated to me he believed the statements she had made were not discoverable
00:19unless they were exculpatory.
00:21The fact that she said at times certain things that made them not want to proceed on this case
00:25potentially certainly seems exculpatory to me.
00:27And so those have not been disclosed to us.
00:30Ms. Gillespie says this was just a big misunderstanding.
00:32She's asking about getting the charges dropped against Mr. Arellano.
00:35She's asking if she can file a motion to quash the warrant on his behalf.
00:39I'm not making an argument one way or the other as to whether I will or will not disclose these
00:43emails
00:43if they exist and if I get them.
00:45But that's the people's, that's my interpretation of the rule.
00:48IT performed the search and located zero emails received by Deputy Mitchell from Gillespie.
00:52Therefore, no emails were sent by Gillespie to Deputy Mitchell.
00:55So at the very least, no conclusion can be drawn as to whether or not these emails existed
00:59because I have Deputy Mitchell on his body worn camera saying, I got your email.
01:03She has another email address, JazzItUp93.
01:06They didn't search for JazzItUp93.
01:08They searched for the Mama G email address.
01:11So there's no way to actually say these emails don't exist because they didn't search for all of the email
01:15addresses
01:16that Ms. Gillespie could have used.
01:17And quite frankly, it is really scary that criminal defendants are going into trial,
01:21getting convicted of felonies when we don't even know if they have all of their discovery
01:25because we have to dig so hard for it.
01:27When the defense is the only side ensuring that there is adequate discovery
01:31and that all of the discovery is disclosed, the system doesn't work
01:33and people get convicted of crimes that they're not guilty of.
01:36And that's why this is a big problem.
01:37These are people's lives.
01:38This isn't a game where the prosecution can say, I think I can get out of disclosing this.
01:43So I'm going to try as long as I can to not disclose it.
01:45I did the analysis. I looked at the communications.
01:48I determined that they were not discoverable.
01:50I will concede that we should have disclosed to the defense
01:54that we moved to quash Ms. Gillespie's warrants.
01:57The reason we did that is because she would not meet with our investigator
02:01for us to serve a subpoena on her.
02:02It frustrates me to no end to have to be here and make that concession.
02:06That should have gone out.
02:07Absolutely. We should have disclosed that to the defense.
02:09And I understand the defense is saying, well, it's a victim.
02:12The complaining victim is saying she doesn't want to prosecute the case anymore.
02:16But that's the people's job is to prosecute the case.
02:18And ultimately, our job is to get the victim here and put on evidence.
02:22That doesn't mean that the prosecution gets to decide if it's exculpatory or not.
02:25It's a question for the jury and potentially a question for the court.
02:29I am not making any finding that the DA did this for any nefarious means.
02:33The DA didn't turn these things over.
02:36And when asked to do so, said that they weren't discoverable.
02:39Well, they were.
02:40So the court finds that there are discovery violations on all four of the things that I've talked about here.
02:45I'm not going to dismiss the case.
02:46I think what the proper sanction here and what the court is going to order is I'm going to dismiss
02:50count number three,
02:51which is the felony habitual DB charge in this matter.
02:54That still allows this case to go forward, but there still is a sanction for the DA.
