Trial date reset for pair accused of killing Vallejo woman in 2015

Legal proceedings against two co-defendants in a 2015 Vallejo murder case, reshuffled several times, continue in the coming months, including a jury trial rescheduled from early November 2019 to October 2020.

Richard Edward Hill III and Isaiah Demetrius McClain and their defense attorneys, who were scheduled to appear in court in early June for a trial setting,will return at 10 a.m. Sept. 2 for a trial readiness conference in Department 4 of Solano County Superior Court, Judge E. Bradley Nelson’s courtroom, in the Hall of Justice in Fairfield.

Nelson did not grant a previous request from Hill’s attorney, Vincent Maher, to sever, or separate, the trials. So the defendants, according to court records, will be tried together. Criminal defense attorney David Nelson (no relation to the judge) represents McClain.

After the readiness conference, Hill, 43, and McClain, 31, both formerly of Richmond, will return at 10 a.m. Oct. 23 for a trial management conference; and a jury trial at 10 a.m. Oct. 26.

Their latest scheduled proceedings will come 18 months after court appearance for the pair, when Maher and Nelson questioned whether there was sufficient evidence to include special circumstances against their clients, whom investigators believe were lying in wait before fatally shooting A’Tierra Westbrook on a Vallejo street.

After listening to both sides during a 30-minute court appearance, Judge Nelson ordered the defense attorneys and Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Sequiera, who is prosecuting the case, to return for more proceedings.

The judge parried the defense attorneys’ questions, saying that, ultimately, the issue of special circumstances, that is, the lying-inwait allegation, is “a question” for a jury.

Maher said the eventual outcome would be “a serious decision,” since special circumstances in this particular murder case would mean life in prison without the possibility of parole for each man, if convicted. The attorneys had earlier agreed that they would not seek the death penalty in the case.

Hill, noted Maher, was the driver of the vehicle, and, therefore, under recently enacted SB 1437, a court can no longer hold accomplices who had no intent to kill anyone during certain serious felonies accountable for a murder committed by another person.

During the proceeding,

Sequiera claimed that McClain shot Westbrook “15 to 17 times” outside her Vallejo home in midsummer 2015, calling it “a revenge killing” for the death of one of Hill’s relatives.

A Vallejo High School graduate, Westbrook was leaving for work the morning of Aug. 3, 2015, when she was gunned down in the 300 block of Benicia Road.

Hill and McClain were arrested in September 2016, more than a year after the shooting. McClain was arrested during a traffic stop Sept. 7 near Depot Street in Vacaville. Following McClain’s arrest, an arrest warrant was issued for Hill, who turned himself in to police.

Officers who arrived on the shooting scene found the victim’s vehicle partially on the sidewalk, where it appeared to have crashed into a light pole on Sperry Avenue. Westbrook was pronounced dead there.

A customer at the nearby restaurant reported at the time hearing multiple gunshots and seeing a “bluish-grey Acura” speeding down Sperry Avenue. The suspected driver of that vehicle was Hill, according to court records.

Hill and McClain remain in Solano County Jail.