Court shorts

By WILLIAM SNOWDEN

wsnowden@thewakullanews.net

The First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee didn't take long to consider the appeal of accused killer Daniel Chavez, whose defense attorneys had claimed the judge in the case was biased against them.

After just a couple of weeks, the appeal court upheld the trial court, finding there was no bias. It was a remarkably short turnaround for the appeals court.

Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber filed the appeal claiming comments made by Wakulla Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls at a pre-trial hearing in April were evidence of his animosity against her or her client. She asked Judge Sauls to recuse himself; he refused.

Some of the statements by the judge at the hearing appeared to be intended as humorous, as when Sauls referred to Suber's "entourage" – at the defense table for the hearing, along with Suber and Chavez, was co-counsel Nicole Jameson, an interpreter for Chavez, and several investigators and interns.

The motion on appeal claimed that Suber and members of the defense team were intimidated by the judge's comments. The appeal was filed on May 3 and a decision handed down on May 20.

Chavez had been found guilty of stabbing his wife to death in a trial two years ago, but the appeal court reversed the conviction after finding it was an error for the trial court to have allowed in statements made by Kathy Partida Chavez before her death that she feared her husband. Friends of the couple were allowed to testify that Kathy Chavez had told them of threats Daniel Chavez had made that, if he couldn't have her, nobody would.

The case was sent back for re-trial and, on April 19, the day of jury selection, the defense indicated it intended to appeal the judge's decision not to disqualify himself. Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell agreed to continue the trial, saying he did not want to subject the victim's family to another possible re-trial.

According to court testimony at the previous trial, in September 2005, Kathy Chavez had moved out of the couple's home in Gadsden County and was staying with a friend in Medart. Daniel Chavez showed up at the home on a Sunday morning as his wife prepared to go to church. Kathy Chavez walked outside the home to talk to her estranged husband as the friend called 911 and Chavez pulled out a knife and stabbed her twice in the heart.

Chavez testified at the trial that he pulled a knife intending to kill himself but that his wife tried to grab the knife away from him and was stabbed accidentally.

He did have some superficial knife wounds that were self-inflicted, according to the police report at the time.

• A Newport man, who was a suspect in several Tallahassee shootings, had a GPS device attached to his car so his movements could be trailed. At a motion hearing on May 12, Wakulla Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls found that placement of the device was a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Defense attorney Steven Glazer hailed the decision as a victory, but it was not immediately clear what the practical effect of the ruling would be on his client's pending cases.

Assistant State Attorney Sean Desmond, who is prosecuting Glazer's client, Gary Kent, on Wakulla County charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, said the judge's ruling had no effect on that case.

"We are proceeding to trial," Desmond said after the hearing.

Kent is charged with the December shooting into the Tallahassee office of his psychiatrist. No one was injured in the late-night drive-by shooting. He had been under surveillance by federal officers with Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for some time. In fact, ATF had approached the Leon County Sheriff's Office about placing a GPS on Kent's truck, and a detective attached it was parked at Lake Ella in Tallahassee.

At a motion to suppress, the ATF officer and Tallahassee police detective who worked the shooting testified that they looked at video from a surveillance camera at a McDonald's near the doctor's office. They saw a truck like Kent's, and a man who resembled Kent driving. But it was the GPS that tracked Kent's vehicle that made the identification sure, they said.

Officers got a search warrant for Kent's home in Newport, but did not mention the GPS. A search of Kent's home found a .32-caliber handgun that matched the caliber of bullet in the doctor's office, and prompted the Wakulla charges, which are separate from the charges Kent faces in Leon County.

Usually with a motion to suppress, evidence obtained under a search determined to be illegal would be thrown out. But the GPS wasn't mentioned in the search warrant that was signed by a judge – and the court ruling that the GPS should have had court approval has no effect on the Wakulla case.

Glazer doesn't represent Kent on the Leon cases, and it wasn't clear if a Leon circuit judge would adopt Judge Sauls' ruling on the GPS – or what effect it would have on those charges.

Still, Glazer was adamant that it was a victory for civil rights, commenting that it sent a message to law enforcement officers that they need a warrant before they use some intrusive technologies to monitor people they suspect of crimes.

• A woman who attacked a neighbor shortly after being released from jail for beating up her mother and cut off part of her tongue before deputies could subdue her, was in felony court on May 12 with the state and defense agreeing to a stipulation that she is not guilty by reason of insanity.

The woman, Teresa Thornton, was to be placed in the custody of state Children and Family Services because she meets the conditions for hospitalization.

Thornton went off her psychotropic medications when she became pregnant more than two years ago. She decompensated without the medicine and severely attacked her mother. When deputies arrived, Thornton locked herself in a bathroom and used scissors to cut off part of her tongue.

She was placed in Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee and gave birth there. Her mental condition was later stabilized and she entered a plea that basically put her on probation and required her to take her meds – in exchange for giving up the child for adoption.

Within a week of her release from jail, Thornton attacked a neighbor who was trying to help her after she had reportedly locked herself out of her home. She hit the man in the back of the head with a rock as he tried to open a door.

Thornton was in court for the stipulated agreement with her attorney, Regional Conflict Counsel Daren Shippy.