Simply weeks after a choose warned the Dallas County District Lawyer’s Workplace had a “widespread” problem with police departments not turning over proof till simply earlier than trials start, a homicide case in the identical choose’s courtroom was delayed as a result of Dallas police provided proof on the final minute.
Nina Marano was scheduled to face trial this week on expenses of homicide and tampering with a corpse in the 2020 slaying of Marisela Botello Valadez, who was visiting Dallas from Seattle. However Marano’s attorneys requested for a delay after prosecutor Robin Pittman knowledgeable them on Friday of extra movies and images within the case that Dallas police had not beforehand offered.
State District Decide Amber Givens granted the request to delay the case, protection lawyer Valerie Baston mentioned. A listening to to find out whether or not all of the case proof was submitted is slated for subsequent week.
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“Some [evidence] will not be helpful to us … nevertheless it makes us surprise what else is on the market that has not been turned over to the DA’s workplace,” Baston mentioned.
Dallas County District Lawyer John Creuzot declined to remark. Dallas police opened a assessment to ensure all proof within the case was turned over to attorneys, police division spokeswoman Kristin Lowman mentioned. The division’s inside affairs division will conduct an administrative investigation, she added.
Pittman notified protection attorneys on Friday afternoon that Dallas police Detective Christine Ramirez contacted her to say a physique digicam video from Marano’s arrest in Miami had not been submitted as proof, Baston mentioned. Pittman additional investigated and found extra movies and pictures that police had not given the DA’s workplace, Baston mentioned.
Givens accused the DA’s workplace in an unrelated court proceeding Jan. 6 of continuously failing to show over proof to protection attorneys in accordance with state regulation. She mentioned she wished to make sure prosecutors have been totally inquiring with police departments about proof early within the course of. On the time, she mentioned she’d scheduled “so many trials” that week however was unable to proceed on “in all probability 99% of them due to a discovery difficulty.”
Throughout that listening to, Creuzot and the chief of his appellate division, former choose Jennifer Balido, agreed a significant issue has lengthy existed with acquiring all proof from police companies however disagreed the problem was “widespread.” Creuzot pointed Givens to the Richard Miles Act, a 2021 regulation named for a Dallas man wrongfully convicted of homicide, which requires police companies to confirm they turned over all proof on the time they file instances with prosecutors. If police later uncover extra proof, they have to instantly disclose it, the regulation mandates.
Creuzot mentioned on the similar listening to that regulation enforcement companies have complied in 93-95% of instances filed after the act went into impact. Marano’s case was filed earlier than then.
Marano and two others — Lisa Dykes and Charles Beltran — are charged in Botello’s killing. Their trials are additionally pending.
Botello’s household reported her lacking Oct. 5, 2020, after she missed her flight residence from Dallas, in keeping with courtroom data. Surveillance digicam footage reveals Botello left the Deep Ellum district with Beltran and her telephone data point out she was at or close to a Mesquite residence the place Dykes and Beltran lived, in keeping with courtroom data.
Police obtained arrest warrants for the three suspects on March 22, 2021. Botello’s “stays” have been discovered March 24, 2021, in a area in Wilmer, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Dallas, in keeping with prosecutors’ paperwork. Marano was arrested two days later in Miami.
Marano and Dykes have been later launched from the Dallas County jail on bond and required to put on monitoring gadgets. In December 2021, the ladies lower their displays and fled the nation, in keeping with courtroom data. They have been arrested the following February in Cambodia and stay jailed awaiting trial.
Workers author Kelli Smith contributed to this report.
