LAKEPORT — Closing arguments began Thursday in the toddler-killing trial of Paul William Braden and Orlando Joseph Lopez Jr.
Braden, 22, and Lopez, 24, face 15 felonies (including one murder count and five counts of attempted murder) and nearly three dozen special allegations in connection to a fatal shooting in Clearlake late last spring.
Authorities allege the two Clearlake Oaks residents fired shotguns at a group of people gathered for a late-night party on June 18, killing Skylar Rapp, 4, and injuring five others.
Braden and Lopez, who pleaded not guilty to the counts and denied the special allegations, are standing trial in the same courtroom but have different attorneys and separate juries.
The trial has faced numerous delays and spanned nearly the entire calendar year. Jury selection began in January and the trial got under way at the end of February.
The Lopez jury heard closing arguments Thursday, while the Braden jury will hear closing arguments today, just days before the one year anniversary of the shooting.
District Attorney Don Anderson laid out the case against Lopez during the morning session.
Anderson said his task was to show the jury three things: what the law is regarding the case, the evidence in the case and how the case evidence applies to the law.
He first described the charges against Lopez and how the laws are to be interpreted by the jury.
Anderson then described the events that led up to the shooting that night, including how Braden was overheard arguing on the phone at a party earlier that day at the residence of Janet Leonor in Clearlake, where Lopez”s brother Leonardo was living with his then-girlfriend Ashley Athas, Leonor”s granddaughter.
Numerous witnesses testified during the trial that Braden was arguing with Ross Sparks on the phone, who was in a relationship with Rapp”s mother, Desiree Kirby.
Witness testimony also showed Lopez was making phone calls to set up a fight with Josh Gamble to settle a dispute that occurred between Gamble and Lopez”s brother a few days earlier.
Anderson said the two men left the party around 4:30 p.m. and returned a short while later with Braden holding a shotgun wrapped up in a shirt. Witnesses testified Braden asked Leonardo Lopez if he could saw the butt off the shotgun in Leonor”s garage. It is alleged Lopez went into the garage with Braden, who sawed the end of the shotgun off with a saw belonging to Leonor, according to witness testimony.
Anderson said many witnesses described Braden brandishing the weapon, playing around with shotgun shells, putting them in the gun and ejecting them, as well as saying he wanted to “shoot someone.”
He said Lopez was still trying to set up the fight with Gamble. Lopez testified that he thought Braden was being sadistic and joking when talking about shooting someone, according to Anderson.
He said Lopez later called Kevin Stone, a former co-defendant who reached a plea agreement and became a prosecution witness, and told Stone he was planning to rob someone with guns.
Stone testified when he picked up the two men, they both had shotguns. Stone picked up a .22-caliber rifle from his girlfriend”s house and the men drove over to an apartment complex where Sparks was having a party.
Anderson said Lopez led the men to a fence near the party area. Witnesses at this party testified shots were fired into a courtyard from a spot above the fence and between a hole in the fence, making two distinctly different sounds. Stone said he never saw Lopez fire a shot but did see Braden fire at least three times into the crowd.
Anderson said the two different gunfire sounds and different locations of the shots from witness testimony proved that Lopez and Braden both fired shots into the crowd, despite Stone”s testimony otherwise. After the shooting, all three men ran back to the car and fled the scene, splitting up after Stone crashed the car.
Anderson said Lopez was present when Braden fired shots and was a second shooter, which would make him guilty. But he also told the jury that if they didn”t find enough evidence to convict Lopez of being the second shooter, Lopez was guilty of aiding and abetting Braden in committing the murder, of which Lopez should also be found guilty.
Lopez”s attorney, Stephen Carter, objected five times during Anderson”s closing argument for bringing up evidence regarding Braden that was not relevant to the Lopez jury. Anderson said he misspoke.
During his closing argument, Carter said Lopez was trying to set up a fist fight with Gamble and didn”t discuss bringing guns to the fight, which never occurred. Carter said no one that testified said Lopez had a gun except Stone.
Carter brought up a Clearlake Police interview with Lopez that occurred 10 days after the shooting, in which Lopez places guns in Stone and Braden”s possession, but not his own. In the interview, Lopez said he went along with Braden because he feared Braden, but thought he was making sadistic jokes when Braden was discussing shooting people.
Carter said Stone initially told police that Lopez did not have a gun at the scene and later changed his story after he reached a plea agreement, though Stone did not change his story about not seeing Lopez fire a shot at the scene.
Carter said Anderson wanted to convict Lopez of either being a perpetrator in the crime or aiding and abetting Braden. He said this could not be proven because Lopez believed that Braden was joking until it was too late.
Carter said reasonable doubt came into play for both aiding and abetting and being the second shooter because there wasn”t enough evidence to show Lopez fired a weapon or that he knew Braden”s true intentions.
Anderson said during the prosecution”s rebuttal that Stone never changed his story about Lopez having a gun, but was vague during his initial police interview. Anderson said there is no direct evidence that shows Lopez fired a gun at the scene, but circumstantial evidence showed there was a second shooter, which the prosecution believes to be Lopez.
Anderson said that if there is not enough evidence to convict Lopez of being the second shooter, that there is enough to convict him of aiding and abetting Braden in the commission of the crimes, which makes Lopez guilty of those crimes as well.
At the conclusion of the arguments, Judge Doris L. Shockley gave the Lopez jury instructions on how to deliberate the charges against Lopez. The Lopez jury will deliberate today in a jury room while the closing arguments are heard before the Braden jury.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14. Follow on Twitter: @KevinNHume.
