What a trial looks like in post-Arias era
Court date pushed for accused Street Shooter
Aaron Saucedo, the suspected Serial Street Shooter, had a date in court Aug. 17, but it was put off without explanation until mid September.
Saucedo, 23, is charged with nine murders over the course of 12 shootings between August 2015 and July 2016, mostly in the Maryvale neighborhood of west Phoenix, though some of the events took place in east-central Phoenix.
The court docket shows Saucedo is undergoing psychological evaluation.
A police spokesman referred to him as a “troubled young man,” and Maryvale residents familiar with Saucedo described him to the Arizona Republic as unstable.
Saucedo would not have been in court anyway. His attorneys have consistently waived his presence to keep him away from television and newspaper cameras.
Criminal cases once progressed in their own due course. But this is the postJodi Arias Era, when high-profile murder trials have become a macabre form of reality-show mass entertainment.
Arias, who killed her on-again, offagain boyfriend in 2008, became an international obsession, thanks to live-feed video. During her first trial in 2013, TV cameras placed behind the judge’s bench focused on Arias and her lawyers and on the defense table and the families in the gallery. Compulsive trial followers watched her every move and tried to become involved. As a result, witnesses in the trial were hounded electronically and in person, and Arias’ name practically became synonymous with evil.
Her first trial ended in a hung jury at the penalty stage, but when it came time to seat a jury for her retrial, nearly a quarter of the prospective jurors said they could not be impartial in a new trial because of their familiarity with the case.
There were no cameras allowed in the second trial in 2015. It did not quell the trial watchers, but the trial also ended in a hung jury.
Arias was guilty. She admitted killing Travis Alexander, though she claimed it was self defense. And in the end, the only question was whether she should be sentenced to life or death. She got life.
But her case changed the way trials are covered, and the courts, the prosecutors and the defense attorneys are trying to undo the damage. Defense attorneys increasingly try to block camera coverage. Prosecutors increasingly try to block release of video in evidence. Judges are increasingly wary of the media.
Cameras have never been allowed in federal courts in Arizona. But Arizona state court rules are more liberal. Personal and smart-phone cameras are not allowed, but media can get permission to bring in one pool video camera and one carefully placed still camera on a tripod in most court events. In Flagstaff, judges allow multiple, hand-held cameras. No one can photograph jurors, and judges often block filming of certain victims or other witnesses.
During trial, defendants dress in street clothes, because case law says jurors might be prejudiced against them if they saw them in shackles and jail clothes. Defendants are often brought to preliminary hearings that way, and photographs during those hearings could potentially taint a future jury.
And then there is the question of identity.
In 2006, when an earlier serial killer named Mark Goudeau was arrested and accused of being the Baseline Killer, who murdered nine people over 13 months, his photo was flashed everywhere His victims were able to go into court and identify him. And whether they recognized him from the attacks or from the media exposure is uncertain.
But the Serial Street Shooter is more of an unknown, less readily identifiable because he struck at night, allegedly shooting from the window of a car, and in most instances with no surviving eyewitnesses.
After Saucedo’s arrest, The Arizona Republic showed his photo to one of the surviving victims. The victim responded that it was not the photo he had picked out of a police photo lineup. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery directed outrage at reporters afterward, because a victim’s identity misgivings could create an obstacle to prosecution, one that defense attorneys are likely to exploit. But that is what a fair trial is all about. Similarly, prosecutors increasingly balk at releasing videos and documents that could sway public opinion. The Republic frequently files public-record requests under state law to compel Montgomery’s office to release information about criminal cases.
But murder trials move very slowly. The prosecution has not yet decided whether to file a notice to seek the death penalty against Saucedo. If Saucedo is found competent to stand trial, it seems a no-brainer, given nine dead and other serious assaults.
“Competent,” by the way, does not mean “sane.” It means that the defendant is aware of what is happening and is capable of assisting his attorneys in his own defense. A mentally ill defendant, on the other hand, in the perverse new world of trial watching, could up the entertainment value.
At present, the charges against Saucedo are listed on three separate case numbers, some of them redundant. It is not a given that all the murders will be tried at once. Prosecution and defense alike could find good reason to sever some of the charges.
If his cases proceed like most complex multi-murder cases, it will be five or six years until a jury is picked.
Saucedo’s trial has a common denominator with Arias’ in prosecutor Juan Martinez, whose showmanship during the latter fanned the flames of the killer’s notoriety. His tour de force performance earned him a national fan base and a lucrative book deal (complete with tour) from a midtown Manhattan publisher.
As a further complication to Saucedo’s trial progressing quickly, Martinez’s license to practice law is under attack from many sides, largely because of his actions in the Arias case.
Over the years, the veteran prosecutor has fended off enough accusations of impropriety and unethical behavior that he is jokingly referred to in the legal community as “Teflon Juan.”
Several complaints about his behavior in the Arias trial already have been dismissedby the State Bar of Arizona, a quasi-governmental licensing and disciplining organization for attorneys.
However, the Bar found probable cause to admonish Martinez based on a complaint detailing allegations of unethical behavior over a decade’s worth of cases, and offered him probation. Martinez instead asked for a hearing before the presiding lawyer disciplinary judge of the Arizona Supreme Court to defend himself against the allegations. A hearing has been scheduled for early September. It could clear him or result in more serious sanctions.
But another complaint against Martinez is working its way through the Bar’s probable cause committee, alleging that during the Arias trial, Martinez engaged in a close relationship with a blogger covering the trial and leaked information to her, including the identity of the sole juror who blocked the death sentence for Arias.
After she was outed, the juror was harassed and threatened by angry trial watchers to the point that she needed police protection.
Moments after the Arias mistrial was declared, the blogger was seen in a room in the Maricopa County Superior Court Complex showing the Facebook page of the holdout juror to other journalists, claiming it had been sent to her by an unknown source.
In the months after the trial, The Republic came into possession of a series of text messages between the blogger and a woman she carpooled with, purportedly discussing the trial, her relationship with Martinez, and the claim that she had assisted Martinez with research in the final days of the trial, when Martinez was trying to get the holdout removed from the jury.
The Republic did not publish a story about the texts because they could not be authenticated. They were later obtained by the attorney representing the holdout juror, and apparently found their way into the pending bar complaint.
Were Martinez to be suspended or disbarred for those complaints, the case would be delayed further.
In the meantime, the press and public are clamoring for details about Aaron Saucedo and the case against him. They will have to wait. And details will be harder and harder to squeeze out of the legal system in the future.