Preliminary hearing for Ricardo Juarez set

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A preliminary hearing for Ricardo “Ricky” Juarez was scheduled yesterday by Superior Court Judge Brian Hill to begin on August 6.
Hill’s decision comes after several delays, the most recent of which occurred on June 14 at the prompting of Juarez’s Public Defender Karen Atkins.
Juarez, 14, has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of 15-year-old Luis Angel Linares, who was killed during a large gang melee on March 14 on State and Carrillo Streets in downtown Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara County District Attorney Chrstie Stanley elected to try Juarez as an adult -- a decision that has evoked considerable discussion among community groups and residents.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Hilary Dozer, the prosecutor in the case, said the need for an expeditious process in such sensitive case is extremely important.


“I’m very pleased to finally get a date set for a preliminary hearing,” Dozer said. “I think it’s important to put a case on sometime before everyone’s memory fades and I think it’s also important for the community to know that the courts can process a case of some substance in an expeditious manner.”
When Hill asked Atkins for a estimate on how long she anticipates the preliminary hearing to last, she told the court seven to 10 days.
Both Hill and Dozer said this amount of time for a preliminary hearing is longer than they anticipated.
“Ten days for a preliminary hearing in terms of the potential time frame would make this a very, very long preliminary hearing and it would be typical in a case of this kind to take maybe two to three days for presentation of the evidence, which is necessary to prove a strong suspicion that a defendant [committed] a crime,” Dozer told reporters after yesterday’s hearing.
The role of a preliminary hearing is for a presiding judge to find sufficient evidence to send the case to a trial. Dozer said the defense typically doesn’t call many witnesses, but that if Atkins’ time prediction holds true, this case might be an exception.
“Typically defense counsel puts on very few witnesses if any, but they’re talking about 7 to ten days of preliminary hearing. I’m not putting on seven to 10 days of preliminary hearing so they must have something planned to fill the time. I can only speculate on what that might be,” Dozer said. “That tends to indicate to me that the defense is planning on putting on a much more detailed presentation at the preliminary hearing that I anticipated and if that occurs, then frankly I’m looking forward to it.”
The early delays that prevented the preliminary hearing from being set stemmed from evidence which had not yet been processed by either the Department of Justice or the Santa Barbara Police Department.
Dozer said nearly all of the evidence has now been processed.
“There’s still evidence being evaluated by various diagnostic entities, but the bulk of the forensic analyses has been done and to the extent that it’s not currently done, I suspect most of it, if not all of it will be done by the date expected,” Dozer said.
Atkins said she didn’t think commenting on this case with the Daily Sound would be in the best interest of her client [Juarez], but did say, “I’m looking forward to litigating this case.”
During the hearing, Hill said if a trial does occur, it’s unlikely it will happen during 2007.
Dozer said trials in murder cases often aren’t held until a year after the crime occurs and said he would like to see a trial begin in February.
Also discussed at the hearing were subpoenas issued to the Daily Sound over the past two weeks by Atkins. The subpoenas ordered the paper turn over all of its unpublished photographs from the March 14 brawl.
A request by Atkins that a protective order, or gag order be issued to the attorneys and all investigating law enforcement in the case also came to light at the hearing. These stories can be found on page one of today’s Daily Sound.