DA Dismisses Case Against Accused Murderer Solis

In late September into early October, a Yolo County jury hung, with seven jurors voting to acquit and five to convict Jesus Solis. Mr. Solis stood accused of shooting and killing an individual named Jesus Cortez Heredia last September outside Ortega’s West, a bar in West Sacramento.  Another individual standing beside Heredia at the time of the shooting was also hit by the flurry of bullets, following a fight in the parking lot at closing time.

Mr. Solis is now in Mexico, having been deported, but is free after facing, at one point, the death penalty in this case.  Former Deputy District Attorney James Walker had said in the original filing that this was a capital case, unless stated otherwise. Charges were refiled after the mistrial.

Now Judge Mock last week ordered Mr. Solis free and the charges against him dropped.

According to all witnesses who testified, it was at closing time at the popular bar on a Saturday night in September of 2009 when a fight broke out in the parking lot between two groups of drunk people. 

It started when Martin Ventura confronted Heredia, after Heredia had approached and made advances to Martin’s wife Rosie, who had been waiting beside a taco truck.  The two began fighting and Heredia beat up Ventura.. 

Security broke up the fight and the parties went to their cars.  Mr. Ventura and his group got into their red Ford Expedition.  That vehicle remained stationary for a minute, after which it drove towards the exit. 

Heredia taunted and shouted out to the vehicle, and removed his shirt with his arms raised.  This act may have cost him his life, because the vehicle stopped on the road outside the parking lot, reversed towards Heredia and shots were fired from within it towards Heredia. 

Mr Heredia was hit in his torso and neck, and died at the scene.

At this point, when the authorities began to reconstruct the event, the image became murky.  The biggest problem is that no one who testified actually saw the shooter or the gun.

In addition, after the shots were fired from the car, one of the security guards fired something like eleven rounds at the vehicle, hitting it a number of times.

After a lengthy trial, the jury could not reach a verdict and the DA sought to refile the case for a third time.  Mr. Solis was originally arrested on January 14, 2010, four months after the September 13, 2009 incident.  However, the case had then been  dismissed, only to be refiled on April 16, 2010.

But now, on the day before the next trial was to begin, the attorneys Deputy Disrtrict Attorney Robin Johnson and Deputy Public Defender Dean Johansson entered Judge Mock’s Chambers.  They remained there approximately fifteen minutes.

When they emerged, Mr. Johansson spoke to his client, Jesus Solis, and conveyed the DA’s new offer of 16 years in prison on the reduction of the murder and attempted murder charges to manslaughter.  After an emotional discussion with Mr. Johansson through the Spanish language interpreter,  Mr. Solis replied that he “respectfully rejects the DA’s offer.

Judge Mock gestured towards his chambers suggesting that the attorneys return there to discuss the matter further.  Mr. Johansson declined.  He told Judge Mock that he would like any discussions henceforth to be on the record. 

Deputy DA Robin Johnson appeared to be texting rapidly on her phone as Judge Mock returned to his chair.  It seemed she was communicating the latest developments to the DA’s top brass and awaiting instructions on how to proceed.

The judge then turned to the matter of the trial at hand and inquired as to the readiness of both sides.  The defense indicated they were ready to proceed and the prosecution stated that they were not. 

DDA Johnson explained that witnesses necessary for the prosecution’s case were unavailable.  Mr. Johansson turned to Ms. Johnson and in a quieter tone asked her which witnesses she was referring to. 

She replied that she was speaking of Martin and Rosie Ventura, and a man known as Lola.  The defense refused to waive the 60-day time limit for trial, so a continuance could not be given to the prosecution. 

DDA Johnson then stated, in what seemed like a recited line, words to the effect that the People cannot reasonably represent that they can prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The prosecution asked to dismiss the case, probably so they could refile it.  The judge turned to the defense to ask if they agreed to dismiss the case and Mr. Johansson unexpectedly objected to the dismissal, stating that he had his witnesses ready at the present time and might not have them available in the future. 

This scenario, where the defense did not agree to the dismissal, means that in order to refile the case for a third time, the DA has to show excusable neglect as a reason for not being ready.  Witness unavailability is not good enough. 

Judge Mock stated “I have no choice but to dismiss the case.  I order the defendant released from custody.”

Deputy DA Johnson, in effect, was attempting to bluff Mr. Solis and Mr. Johansson into taking the sixteen-year deal.  Considering the exposure, it was a reasonable offer, except for the fact that Ms. Johnson knew full well that the DA had no ability to try Mr. Solis, due to lack of witnesses.

Mr Solis has maintained from the beginning that he will not accept plea deals because he is innocent of the charges.  They offered him 16 years in jail minutes before admitting that they could not put on a trial.

The witnesses mentioned by DDA Johnson as being required for her case were not part of the previous trial, and yet their unavailability was her stance.

For all of the charades put on by the DA’s Office, the fact remained that there appeared never to be even a remote possibility that the DA could gain a conviction.

As we stated following the original trial, the DA’s Office likely accused the wrong individual of the crime.  They would have been better off trying to extradite Martin and Rosie, getting their statements and then figuring out who actually did shoot the victim.

The September/October trial was futher complicated because Martin and Rosie fled to Mexico within a few days of the incident and were unavailable to testify.  The defense would argue, with witnesses to substantiate, that Martin Ventura,  and not Mr. Solis, was the actual shooter.

A key witness in this case is Jorge Gomez, a close relative of Martin’s and a friend and colleague of Mr. Solis.  Mr. Gomez, however, was not present that night.  After a seven-hour interrogation by Detective Eugene Semeryuk of the West Sacramento Police Department, Gomez pointed to Mr. Solis as the perpetrator.

However, as Mr. Johansson pointed out, at the tail end of this seven-hour interview is a conversation between Det. Semeryuk and Gomez’s girlfriend Veronica Delgado, in which Ms. Delgado mentions to the detective that Gomez had told her it was his roommate who was the shooter.  Martin Ventura and Rosie were Jorge Gomez’ roommates, not the defendant.  That priceless snippet of information was probably recorded inadvertently at the end of the tape recording.

Mr. Johansson put this in perspective for the jury. He said, “Do you want to hear what the real crime is? The statement from Veronica Delgado that it was the “roommate” is not in any police report.  [Defense witness] Jennifer Villasenor’s statement [that Martin and Rosie told her they did it] is also not in the police report anywhere.” 

Witness Mr. Gomez has immigration problems, and needed the police to forestall an ICE hold multiple times during the investigation.  He agreed to make a pretext phone call to Mr. Solis from the police department, with Det. Semeryuk guiding him. 

That taped phonecall is ambiguous evidence, at best.  So is the lengthy videotaped interrogation of Mr. Solis, which is a good illustration as to why interrogations and confessions ought to be treated as suspect – Mr. Solis never claimed to have shot anyone, but the process clearly disoriented him.

Deputy Public Defender Dean Johansson argued in the trial that Mr. Solis was not the shooter at all, and that the shooter was Martin, who was, by that time, thought to be in Mexico.

“Mr Solis, at best, put himself right behind the driver,” Mr. Johansson argued.  Jerry Chisum, the defense’s expert witness who is a renowned crime scene reconstruction expert, stated in his testimony that the seat right behind the driver was the safest spot in the vehicle.  On January 14th, when Mr Solis was dragged out of bed by authorities, they examined him and found no recent wounds of any kind.  The search of Rosie’s residence turned up bloody t-shirts, with blood on the right side of one, in the armpit area in particular.

Mr. Johansson spoke of another witness, Elvia Salcedo:  “If you remember, here’s this lovely lady and she’s sitting there and she raises her hand.  She’s raising her hand and she wants to ask a question. ‘Where’s the shooter?’ ”  She revealed that the shooter was not in the courtroom.

Deputy DA Robin Johnson suddenly, in her closing argument, had changed her story that Mr. Solis was the shooter to Mr. Solis had aided and abetted the crime.  It was almost a ploy to hang the jury and get another shot at it.

She continued last week to maintain that Mr. Solis was the shooter.

Ms. Johnson argued in October, “If you find somehow that the defendant did not shoot…”  She said the defendant drove the vehicle around the lot, and stopped near the victim.  She said that an aider and abettor is someone who knows what the perpetrator intends to do and does something to assist him.  She said that the aider and abettor is as guilty as the perpetrator of first-degree murder and all other charges, except for the charge of personally discharging a firearm.

“The theory of the case has changed constantly.  Do you see how the rules have changed underneath us?  No longer is she [Ms. Johnson] even arguing that the defendant is the perpetrator,” Mr. Johansson had told the jury in his closing. 

For the full story of this trial, please see our article from October 4, 2010, “Murder Trial Ends With a Hung Jury.”

—David M. Greenwald reporting