Jury selection continues in trial
After five court days, jury selection, drawn out by COVID-19 restrictions and protocols, will continue into next week in the Solano County Superior Court trial of a 38-year-old Fairfield man accused of a half-dozen sex assaults on a young girl.
The trial of Djuan Donavyn Hall began April 8 in Department 9 in the Justice Center in Fairfield and will resume there next week.
Deputy Public Defender Sara Johnson represents Hall, and Deputy District Attorney Kathleen McBride leads the prosecution.
The Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed its complaint against Hall on Aug. 16, 2018, according to court records. He is charged with four counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy of a child under 10, each considered a violent felony; and two counts of lewd acts with a minor under 14.
The DA’s complaint notes that the alleged assaults occurred between Feb. 19, 2009, and Feb. 19, 2010, and involved a girl who was 6 years old at the time.
Johnson filed a motion on Sept. 27, 2018, to reduce her client’s $3 million bail.
In her motion comprising some dozen pages, she argued that Hall is gainfully employed as a machine operator in Vacaville and that the accusations were filed five years after first reported to Fairfield police. Johnson also advised that Hall, a Vallejo native, is married and the father of two children. He is no threat to the community, she asserted.
She also said in the motion that the girl reportedly lodged a false prior accusation against a school janitor.
Online public records do not show that Hall’s bail was reduced, but on Sept. 17, 2020, Johnson submitted a motion to set aside all but one count.
Additionally, the District Attorney’s Office entered a motion to admit evidence of uncharged sexual acts, in accord with an Evidence Code provision.
If convicted at trial of just one of the four counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy, Hall, who remains in Solano County Jail custody, faces 25 years to life in state prison; and if found guilty of just one of the lewd acts, he faces three, six or eight years in state prison.