Murder trial resumes without defendant

A day after man stabs attorneys with a pen in courtroom, jurors have doubts about neutrality

Just one day after a murder defendant stabbed his lawyer and attacked a prosecutor in a rare act of courtroom violence, a Contra Costa judge called the jury into his courtroom for a heart-to-heart.

“I can't ask you to erase that from your mind and unring that bell, it's impossible,” Judge John Kennedy told the 12 jurors and five alternate jurors. “But I want to ask you each to discipline yourself to decide this case fairly, only on the evidence.”

Jurors were polled individually. Three expressed doubts that they could be fair, but said they'd try. Kennedy left them on. One man — Juror #2 — said he could not.

“No, I truly don't think so,” the man replied when Kennedy asked if he could leave Monday morning's incident out of his decision-making. Kennedy excused him and replaced him with a randomly-selected alternate.

And with that, the trial was back on. Prosecutor Kevin Bell — still bearing a scratch on his hand from the Monday courtroom violence — called his final witness. Sitting a few feet away, defense lawyer Matthew Fregi prepared for cross-examination, with cuts on his head and lower chin still visible.

Noticeably absent from court was 28-year-old Ramello Randle, the defendant who allegedly grabbed Fregi's pen and used it to stab the defense lawyer twice before charging at Bell on Monday, authorities said. Randle somehow freed himself from a restraint device before the attack.

But Randle's absence was his choice, not the court's. Despite his courtroom outbursts — which include cursing out a previous judge, wishing death on Bell at a prior hearing, throwing a punch at his old lawyer before Fregi, and finally the Monday incident — he still has a Constitutional right to attend his murder trial.

Randle waived that right, Kennedy said in court Tuesday, reminding jurors that the waiver — like Randle's violence — had “nothing to do with what happened four years ago.”

Randle is accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, 24-yearold Jonaye Lahkel Bridges, amid a bitter custody dispute. Police say he equipped a tracking device to Bridges' car and followed her to a 7-Eleven in Antioch, where he allegedly opened fire into her parked vehicle.

Bridges was killed and a man she was with was wounded. Prosecutors charged Randle with murder, attempted murder, and lying in wait, and he faces life without parole if convicted.