Jury Misconduct Leads to Possible New Trial For Convicted Sex Offender

By Kaiti Curry

Kevin Ellis, who was found guilty of molesting two young boys and failing to register as a sex offender in October, may be in luck.  The 55-year-old man could have been sentenced to multiple life imprisonment sentences by Judge Mock on November 22, but instead the case has been continued while a mistrial issue is being investigated.

One of the jurors allegedly spoke to his or her neighbor about the case while actively involved in Ellis’s trial.  This is unfortunate, and is grounds for a mistrial.

Currently, Deputy Public Defender Joseph Gocke and Deputy District Attorney Robert Gordon are investigating the matter. A police officer will be sent to the juror’s house to gather information but, at this time, Judge Mock has ruled that there is insufficient proof for an evidentiary hearing.  The matter will be attended to again in court on December 6th to set a date for a hearing.

On October 18, after nearly two weeks of emotional, highly-sensitive testimonies and grueling questions to hash out the details of the allegations, the twelve-member jury found the defendant, Kevin Ellis, guilty of molesting two young boys over a five-month period. After several hours of deliberation, the jury found the 55-year-old man from Dixon, California, guilty on eight of nine counts as they delivered the highly-anticipated verdicts.

Counts 1 through 6 involved lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under fourteen years old, Count 7 regarded the defendant’s failure to register as a sex offender, and Counts 8 and 9 involved giving marijuana to a minor under fourteen years old.

Counts 1 through 3 involved sex acts with Child Doe One.  Additionally, the jury found two of the three count enhancements, for each of these three counts, to be true. The first enhancement was that the defendant was previously convicted of the same crime and the second was that “the crime was committed against more than one victim.” The jury did not, however, find the defendant guilty of administering “a controlled substance to the named victim by force, violence or fear.”

Ellis was also convicted of Counts 4 and 6, involving lewd or lascivious acts with Child Doe Two. Again, they found the defendant guilty of the same count enhancements for Counts 4 and 6 as they did for the first three counts. Count 5 resulted in a mistrial because the jurors were hung 11-1.

Additionally, the jury found the defendant guilty of Count 7, for failing to register as a sex offender after he was convicted of sex crimes against two teenage girls in 1995. Furthermore, Ellis was found guilty of Counts 8 and 9, giving marijuana to a minor, the final counts against Mr.Ellis.

Moreover, the jury found Mr. Ellis guilty of two case enhancements, Enhancements A and B, alleging that he was a prior offender. The jury found the allegation that Ellis was a prior offender true twice.

Case to Jury in Church Burglary

By Kaiti Curry and Dan Williams

It will be a long weekend for Shone Christopher Lacey as he waits for a verdict to be delivered on Monday, November 25. Juror 9 was taken to the hospital Friday morning for shortness of breath, leaving the rest of the jury unable to deliberate and come to a verdict. According to Judge Mock, if Juror 9 is unable to come to court Monday, he will declare a mistrial.

This case was tried once before in September of 2013. The jury found Mr. Lacey guilty of count two, burglary, a felony charge, but was hung on count one. Count one, also a felony charge, involves robbery in the 2nd degree. In addition Lacey faces multiple enhancements; one for a prior conviction, another for being a habitual criminal, and a third for prior prison.

According to Melvin Ross, the victim and key witness in this case, he was notified by the alarm company that the West Sacramento Community Church had been broken into.  Ross testified that, upon this notification, he drove to the church, parked around the back and went into the building where he saw a man in a hoodie and dark clothes.

He had not expected to find anyone in the building and was surprised, he explained. He ran after the burglar, following him out of the building into a small clearing.  Once out of the building, Ross saw the burglar leaning over a small, 38-inch wall, separating the church property from the property of Sylvey’s Motel next door.

Mr. Ross testified that when he yelled, “Hey!” the burglar turned and moved toward Mr. Ross with his right hand up in the air as if he were going to hit Mr. Ross.  Ross testified that, out of self-defense, he swung a small, roughly 3-foot board around Mr. Lacey and hit him in the back of the head. The board broke and Lacey stumbled to the ground. As he lay unconscious, a pool of blood began to form next to Lacey’s head.

Mr. Ross testified that he grabbed the man’s wallet and attempted to pull Lacey’s pants down around his ankles so he could not run away if he woke up.  Lacey awoke beforehand, however, so Ross pushed him back on the ground with his foot and told him not to move. The police were on their way, he explained.

Mr. Ross was able to contact the police when someone from Sylvey’s next door came out to see what all the commotion was about.  According to Ross, the police arrived about 20 minutes after the altercation.  Lacey was taken away in an ambulance to address his head injury.

After the police arrived, church property was found over the 38-inch wall where Lacey was leaning, stashed behind a dumpster. Behind the dumpster were two large, white trash bins with several items such as toilet paper from the church.  Additionally, a computer from the church had been placed behind the dumpster in the Sylvey’s parking lot.  A number of items belonging to the church were also found in a black leather, cross-body messenger bag. However, Ross testified that he did not see the defendant with a bag in the church or when he was leaning over the wall.

On re-direct, Ross explained that a box cutter, Android cell phone, and a double A battery charger were found in the black bag.  A drill and drill charger were found on the ground and had likely fallen out of the bag. Additionally, green and beige gardening gloves were found with the bag but were not, according to Ross, church property.

Other than the few people that Ross spoke with at Sylvey’s, he did not see anyone else around the church on the morning of the incident.

With Ross’s testimony, the People rested their case. Following, the defense called Aaron Bohrer[1] , the chief investigator for the Yolo County Public Defender’s office.  He worked the Lacey case and took photos of the items at the church for evidence.

There are six elements involving robbery in the second degree. First, the defendant must have taken property that did not belong to him. Second, the owner must have had possession of the property (can be figuratively). Third, the defendant must have taken property from the owner’s possession. Fourth, the property was moved. Five, he used force or fear to keep the property from the victim. Finally, there was intent to deprive the victim of property permanently.

In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Jennifer McHugh argued that element five does not need to be successful. One just has to have attempted force. In Mr. Lacey’s case, she said, element five is fulfilled because he approached the victim with his arm raised as if he were going to punch Mr. Ross. Additionally, she pointed out that the defendant had the correct tool to unscrew the bolts to the window, successfully removed church property, and hid the items.  Upon being caught by Mr. Ross, he attempted to use force to get away.  According to McHugh, Lacey did not “forget” what was in the bag, he was not just trying to get away, he was trying to get away with property.

Deputy Public Defender Teal Dixon, for the defense, began her closing argument explaining that the jury only needs to wonder if there is any reasonable doubt. Second, she questioned how long the alarm was going off.  Dixon pointed out that the alarm company called Mr. Ross’s wife and the police before reaching the victim. Plus, she said, it took the victim another fifteen minutes to reach the church.

Then she noted that the victim was sprinting through the hallway and outside the church when the confrontation happened. The victim said that the defendant’s back was to him, and the defendant was in a crouching position getting stuff from the bag or the bag itself when the defendant turned to the victim with what was supposedly a right-hand punch. This would be a counter-clockwise turn, exposing only the left back, the left, and the left front of the defendant’s head.

The injury from the plank was on the right back of his head, which would have been next to impossible to hit, considering the positioning the victim described. In addition to this, if the defendant were at a standstill, and standing up when he got knocked out, his ragdolling body would not have moved with any sort of momentum.

But somehow the victim ended up 10 to 15 feet in the direction away from the church, without having any momentum from a run. The defendant’s counsel went on to say that she believed that the victim of the crime was angry that his stuff got stolen, ran out with a weapon to exact justice, and as the defendant was running away knowing he’d been caught, the victim chased him down about five feet outside the church door and smacked him on the back side of the head.

Dixon went on to make some halfhearted defenses about the possibility that, since the victim did not say he saw dreadlocks, an entirely different person may have sacked the church and the defendant was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She also pointed out that there is no evidence of ownership of the bag. The prosecution countered rightfully, saying “It’s a little crazy that somebody took all the stuff from the church, put it in a bag, and left it there for somebody else to grab.”

However, when the prosecution took the podium for rebuttal, she never mentioned anything about the location of the injury, or the location of where the defendant went down. Instead, Mrs. McHugh argued that the the witness must have lied.

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