Deportation of a Witness Could Mean Justice has Been Exiled

The California Supreme Court has ruled that the rights of a man accused of attempted murder were not violated by the deportation of a witness who was crucial to his defense.

Armando Jacinto was accused in May of attacking a man with a knife in a restaurant. The victim identified Jacinto and prosecutors then charged the Sonoma County man.

However, Jacinto's criminal defense attorneys located a witness who said Jacinto had not committed the stabbing. Instead, the witness said, it was a woman who was with Jacinto at the restaurant who stabbed the victim.

The witness was located in the Sonoma County Jail on an unrelated charge. After his release, he was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities, who deported the undocumented immigrant to Mexico.

Jacinto claimed that his constitutional rights to due process and to compel testimony of witnesses were violated by the deportation of the only witness able to testify in his defense. As the court noted in its decision, "The right of an accused to compel witnesses to come into court and give evidence in the accused's defense is a fundamental one."

The state Supreme Court rejected the argument that the deportation violated the defendant's rights, saying that prosecutors had nothing to do the expulsion of the witness.

The court upheld a lower a state appeals court ruling, stating that Jacinto had to prove that misconduct by the prosecutors led to the deportation. Instead, the court found that sheriff's employees acted on their own by turning the witness over to ICE.

The seven-justice panel also pointed out that Jacinto could have secured the witness's testimony by taking a deposition or by contacting the Sonoma County Sheriff or ICE to have the witness detained.

Jacinto's defense lawyer said that because of this decision by the California Supreme Court ruling, an innocent man may be convicted of attempted murder.