SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Ignoring defense pleas for another year to prepare for the Golden State Killer case, a Sacramento judge Wednesday ordered a preliminary hearing for Joseph James DeAngelo to commence on May 12, more than two years after his arrest.
"This is not an easy call," Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White said after hearing arguments from both sides in a 25-minute hearing.
But, he added, he had to take into account the fact that witnesses and victims in the decades-old case are growing older and may not be available when the case finally gets to trial. DeAngelo also is accused of being the East Area Rapist.
"I wish to make the case that there cannot be a case that's too big to go to trial," the veteran judge added.
The gallery in the courtroom inside the Sacramento County Jail, which included victims from the East Area Rapist case, broke into applause when White ordered the hearing date set. Earlier, during arguments when a prosecutor said aging rape victims deserve to see the case move forward, one man in the audience yelled, "Amen!"
White's order came despite a plea from DeAngelo's public defenders that they are swamped with more than 250,000 pieces of evidence turned over by prosecutors and that they needed at least until the end of the year to properly prepare for a preliminary hearing, which will determine whether there is enough evidence to take DeAngelo to trial.
"Given the number of charges in this case, the amount of discovery is extraordinary," supervising public defenders Alice Michel and Joseph Cress wrote in a motion seeking a delay. "If forced to set a preliminary hearing date at this time, the defense will be unable to provide competent and effective representation for Mr. DeAngelo."
Prosecutors Thien Ho and Amy Holliday opposed a delay, and Ho made an impassioned plea to the judge that the complexity of the case stems from the number and nature of crimes DeAngelo is charged with.
"It was the defendant who decided to embark upon a crime spree that spanned 10 counties," Ho argued, adding that it was "ironic" that DeAngelo wants a delay now "because he happened to be a prolific criminal."
Ho also noted that some witnesses are in their 80s and 90s, and that a detective who investigated Santa Barbara murders in the case had recently died from cancer in his 70s.
The prosecutor also gave the first glimpse of the massive scope of the preliminary hearing, saying prosecutors plan to call 150 witnesses over eight to 10 weeks.
Defense attorneys say a delay is critical in a case that is expected to be one of the largest and most complex murder trials in California history, and noted that no other counties are offering help from their public defenders' offices while prosecutors from Sacramento and five other counties are pooling resources.
"The defense has not had adequate time to review the discovery received to date and is not prepared to set a preliminary hearing date," they wrote in court filings. "To insist on a preliminary hearing date will deprive Mr. DeAngelo of his right to effective assistance of counsel."
DeAngelo, 74, faces 13 murder counts and 13 additional charges of kidnap for robbery that were filed in connection with a series of rapes he is believed to have committed during a crime spree that ran the length of California from 1974 through mid-1986.
The former Auburn police officer faces the possibility of a death sentence in connection with 12 slayings that began in Sacramento County with the Feb. 2, 1978, shooting deaths of Katie and Brian Maggiore, a young couple killed while walking their dog in a Rancho Cordova neighborhood.
He also faces the possibility of a death sentence if convicted of four slayings in Orange County, four in Santa Barbara County and two in Ventura County.
A 13th slaying in Tulare County in 1975 is not being prosecuted as a capital crime because the death penalty was in limbo at the time over legal challenges.
California currently does not execute condemned inmates because of a March 2019 executive order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that granted reprieves to inmates on Death Row and dismantled the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
But prosecutors continue to file some cases as death penalty trials because Newsom's order lasts only as long as he is in office.
DeAngelo, who will be tried in Sacramento with prosecutors from all affected counties assisting, also faces 13 kidnap for robbery charges associated with nine rapes in Sacramento and four in Contra Costa County.
DeAngelo, who is believed to have committed at least 51 sexual assaults during his alleged crime spree, was arrested in April 2018 at his Citrus Heights home after DNA evidence from decades-old crime scenes linked him to the cases, which originally had been attributed to a series of different attackers with nicknames ranging from the Visalia Ransacker to Original Night Stalker to Diamond Knot Killer.
