Hector De Peña was the first lawyer assigned to defend Carlos ...

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2012] Los Tocayos Carlos, Part III, Chapter 11 945 DeLuna’s second handwritten document requested a delay in the start of the trial because his mother was in the hospital and couldn’t testify for him on June 20th. Judge Moore ignored DeLuna’s “Ineffective Counsel” statement and rejected his plea for a delay. On June 20th, however, the day trial was supposed to start, Moore “reset” the trial for July 5th “at request of Defense.” * * * * * Lawrence was finally able to begin investigating what happened to Wanda Lopez on Friday June 9th, the same day the judge gave him $500 for an investigator. On Tuesday July 5th, the lawyers began selecting a jury. Between those dates, Lawrence had three weeks and the July Fourth weekend to figure out what happened to Wanda Lopez and how to defend Carlos DeLuna against murder charges and the death penalty. * * * * * After quickly settling on a culprit, police and prosecutors had worked steadily from February to July to prepare a case against him. It took law enforcement only about a half hour on the evening of February 4th to decide who had killed Wanda Lopez. Everything became clear to them between 8:50 p.m., when they pulled DeLuna out from under a pick-up truck, and 9:20 p.m. or so, when they got Kevan Baker and George Aguirre to identify DeLuna in the back of the police cruiser at the gas station. Carlos DeLuna, they concluded, had robbed, knifed, and wrestled with Wanda Lopez before throwing her to the ground, rushing out of the store, and hiding in neighboring yards until he was found underneath the truck. Thirty or forty minutes later, Detective Escobedo shut down her investigation at the store and let Robert Stange wash down the crime scene. Detective Escobedo and three prosecutors—initially a man named Jack Hunter, who later turned the case over to Ken Botary and Steven Schiwetz—spent the next five months preparing witnesses, questions, and evidence to prove DeLuna’s guilt and shoot down any possible contrary theory. Assisting them were at least twenty-seven different local and state law enforcement officers and evidence technicians who helped prepare the case for trial. The process began immediately after the killing, when Escobedo showed John and Julie Arsuaga a set of photos and John identified DeLuna as the man they saw jogging near the Phase Three
946 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [43.3:711 night club. Escobedo also asked for an autopsy of Wanda Lopez by the County Medical Examiner, who collected evidence according to Escobedo’s instructions. Over the next few days, Escobedo ordered officers to get written statements and evidence from witnesses Baker, Aguirre, John and Julie Arsuaga, police dispatcher Jesse Escochea, Esther Barrera (who first spotted a man under her pick-up truck and watched him run in the direction of the truck where DeLuna was found), and Armando Garcia (whose house was on a bee-line between the trucks and found DeLuna’s shirt and shoes in his yard). Escobedo also collected written reports from police officers involved in the manhunt and arrest. There was Fowler, who was first on the scene, and also Mejia, who was second and handled the witnesses and BOLOs. Then there were Mylett and Constable Ruben Rivera who helped take DeLuna into custody, and Schauer who led the arrest and drove DeLuna to the gas station, witnessed the showup identifications, and found $149 rolled up in the suspect’s pocket. Last, there was a report from Infante, who photographed the crime scene and helped with the investigation there. On Monday, February 7, 1983, Escobedo spent the morning reviewing the police file with prosecutor Jack Hunter, who evidently discovered gaps in Escobedo’s work. Soon after the meeting, Escobedo ordered subordinates to obtain elimination fingerprints from Wanda Lopez’s body (which, however, they failed to do before Lopez was buried). She also ordered all of the officers who took part in the arrest and show-up identification to type up new, more detailed reports for the prosecutors to use to make the case against DeLuna. Using all the reports and witness statements as references, Escobedo prepared a long memo for the prosecutors, summarizing all aspects of the case against DeLuna. Escobedo also let Gilbert Garcia, DeLuna’s parole officer, interview the defendant in jail—an effort, possibly, to see if DeLuna would confess to the crime. He didn’t. The lead detective worked to get local and state scientists to identify Wanda’s blood or fingerprints on Carlos’s clothes and on the money found in his pocket. At Escobedo’s direction, other officers retrieved the audiotape that recorded 911 calls and police radio traffic. They preserved the part of the tape beginning with Wanda’s call saying there was a man in the store with a knife and ending when she screamed and her attacker hung up her phone.
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