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

2012] Los Tocayos Carlos, Part III, Chapter 11 951
spotted a man under her pick-up truck and diverted the entire search
party.
They also didn’t know that Officer Fowler had questioned a
man earlier that evening who was lurking around the Circle K and
also matched the description Baker gave of the fleeing killer. On the
contrary, the only information provided to DeLuna’s lawyers and
later to the jury about the possibility of another suspect was the
following question (by prosecutor Steven Schiwetz) and answer (by
arresting officer Mark Schauer) at the trial:
Q. Was there any other suspect seen at any other
area, so far as you know?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. Did the dispatcher disseminate any information
regarding other suspects in other areas other than the
one on Franklin?
A. No.
Before evaluating Baker’s and Aguirre’s identification of
DeLuna as the man they’d seen, the defense lawyers and jury never
heard the radio broadcasts reverberating around Baker and Aguirre
at the Sigmor, broadcasts which made clear that police were sure the
man they found under a truck was the killer, who they were bringing
“back” to the Sigmor.
Left in the dark, Lawrence asked the judge to keep the jury
from hearing about the Arsuagas selection of DeLuna from a group of
photos, and when the judge refused, Lawrence worked hard to
discredit the Arsuagas in the eyes of the jury. Lawrence didn’t ask
the judge to keep the jury from hearing about Baker and Aguirre’s
“show-up” identification.
Because he didn’t hear the manhunt tape, Lawrence had no
way of knowing that, far from hurting DeLuna, the Arsuagas actually
gave their client an alibi. Describing the well-dressed DeLuna to a T,
the Arsuagas placed him two blocks east of the Sigmor on the SPID
Frontage Road just seconds after Baker watched the killer run west
behind the gas station to Dodd Street and just as police officers were
tracking a man matching Baker’s description north on Dodd.
* * * * *
When he spoke to the out-of-town investigators in 2004, De
Peña was annoyed that he went to trial without ever hearing the
manhunt part of the tape that came after the 911 call the jury heard.
He was truly angry, however, that law enforcement had never told
him about what was recorded before the call the prosecutors had
played at trial. The first he heard about that recording was from