By Roxanna Jarvis
WOODLAND – The witness box maybe got a little crazy here late last week in Yolo County Superior Court when Deputy Public Defender Daniel Hutchinson questioned the alleged victim of an assault.
“You’re not a violent man, sir, correct? You’re a peaceful man?” asked PD Hutchinson of the victim, who shot back:
“Oh yeah! How ‘bout it Paul? Everything I’ve done for you? You don’t call that nice? You don’t call that nice?” addressing the defendant, Paul Carrillo. “Every single thing that I’ve done for you, brother, and you want to attack me while I’m sleeping, and now I’m in trouble for it? Yeah, I’m upset.”
Judge David Rosenberg asked the man to stop and urged DPD Hutchinson to “wrap up” his questioning of the alleged victim. 
The preliminary hearing for Carrillo, charged with two felony counts (threatening to commit a crime resulting in death or great bodily injury, GBI, and assault by means of force likely to produce GBI) took much longer than the one hour it was predicted to be.
This, and the addition of an angry alleged victim, dragged out an already lengthy Friday.
Already upset about the incident that caused him to be in court, questioning by Hutchinson about the alleged victim’s past and credibility further fanned those flames.
In the early afternoon of December 4, 2020, the defendant, the alleged victim, and their mutual friend, “J,” had been watching television and drinking alcohol for some time before the defendant left around 4 p.m. to hang out with another friend.
Hutchinson asked the alleged victim if he and J continued to drink after Carrillo left, while also asking what he drank.
He responded, “Yes, sir. I was off duty, we were in his house, there’s nothing illegal about that … I like to drink some fireball … beer, whatever. On my time, I drink whatever I want to drink. It doesn’t give anybody the right …”
Judge Rosenberg then interrupted the man. “Please don’t argue or get upset. It’s best if you just answer the question.”
Hutchinson continued asking the man if he remembers what time he slept and how many drinks he had.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping track,” answered the alleged victim. This happened three more times as Hutchinson reframed his question trying to get an estimate—each time with the victim’s response becoming louder and more agitated.
When asked if he was intoxicated when he went to bed, the victim snapped. “What f**king—Oh my goodness! What do you mean I was intoxicated? I was asleep! I was asleep, sir.”
Due to not being sober enough to drive, the alleged victim decided to stay the night at J’s house and was sleeping when the alleged incident occurred. While both J and the victim were sleeping and sharing J’s bed, the defendant was alleged to have knocked on J’s door sometime around 12:30 a.m. on December 5.
After J told Carrillo that they were asleep, he left. But seconds later, Carrillo knocked again, telling J and the alleged victim he believes he left his phone inside.
J then walked to the kitchen, unaware of what was occurring in the other room between Carrillo and the alleged victim.
“I thought he was coming in to give me a hug … and say thank you for all the things I had done for him, but it wasn’t like that,” explained the alleged victim to the court. As the victim was sleeping in J’s bed, Carrillo jumped on his back and allegedly dug his knee just below the back of the victim’s neck.
“And he started digging his fingernails into the sides of my face,” continued the alleged victim, who said that in a position where the victim was on his stomach, it was difficult to get Carrillo off of him. The alleged victim heard the defendant repeatedly ask him, “You talking sh*t about me?”
“When I tried to pull myself off the bed, for like a whole minute, I was running out of air. I could not breathe. I was running out of air.” The victim additionally stated that he tried to tell Carrillo that he couldn’t breathe.
“I was struggling to get him off of me but it wasn’t working. It felt like my body was sinking in mud every time I tried,” he testified. It was only after J heard the commotion that Carrillo was able to be separate the two men.
From his kitchen, J could hear Carrillo saying, “What now, motherf***er?” to the alleged victim, coupled by the victim shouting “I can’t breathe” a few times.
“When I saw Mr. Carrillo on top of [the victim], with his knee on his neck, I forcefully had to pull Mr. Carrillo off of [him]…I had to grab him by his jacket and pull him off,” said J.
“It’s a good thing [J] pulled him off of me,” commented the alleged victim during his court testimony.
Afterwards, both J and the alleged victim stated that the alleged victim leaned on J’s dresser for 15-20 seconds to catch his breath before going to Carrillo and punching him in the face.
“I walked over and I gave Paul a free Botox on the house,” explained the alleged victim. “That’s what I get for helping the dude out, man. Yeah I blasted him right in his mouth. I had every right to.”
What differed between the two statements was whether Carrillo walked toward the alleged victim after “pouncing” on him. J claimed that Carrillo did not move toward the victim or say anything to him before getting punched. The alleged victim said differently.
“He started coming at me like he was going to do something … He started walking toward me as I was walking toward him. He was still on the aggressive side … he appeared belligerent—stupid,” said the alleged victim, who also claimed that the defendant was under the influence, due to his “bloodshot red eyes” and aroma of alcohol.
After being punched in the face, it was Carrillo who picked up the phone to dial 911. According to the victim, Carrillo told him, “You’re dead, man” while on the phone with 911.
Due to Carrillo allegedly digging his fingernails into the victim’s face, the victim now has scars. Carrillo, on the other hand, suffered a broken nose from the victim’s alleged punch.
According to Deputy District Attorney Preston Schaub, Carrillo has a history of DUI charges with alcohol and “a series of domestic violence arrests from 2006, 2009 and 2014.” Schaub added that in 2019, Carrillo was convicted of a felony charge of assault likely to produce GBI.
While Carrillo has a history of domestic violence charges, so does the alleged victim. Hutchinson questioned the victim about his prior charges during his testimony, and the victim said, “Yeah, many years ago in 2009. I was defending myself.”
When asked about his incidents in 2006 and 2007, the victim claimed that he did not remember. “I erased that out of my mind,” he said
For the “at least three” occasions Hutchinson said, the alleged victim “used force on people and where police have arrested [him]” the victim claimed that he was “in defense.”
Regarding the December 2020 incident with Carrillo, the alleged victim told Hutchinson, “This is the first time I have hit him in the face. He has attacked me and I have had to defend myself on three different occasions—this would be the third time.”
When continuing to question the victim, Hutchinson incorrectly referred to all three times hitting Carrillo as the victim “punching,” which upset the alleged victim.
“Why are you making stuff up?” asked the victim. “This is stupid.”
When told by Judge Rosenberg that his responses “were not helping,” the victim responded, “Well, neither is this … person making stuff up.”
Hutchinson then asked, “Sir, do you have a quick temper? Do you get angry easily?”
“I can if you’re gonna make stuff up or try to make me look like the bad guy here,” the alleged victim responded. To the question if he gets angrier when drunk, the victim denied it, adding, “If you don’t start nothing there won’t be nothing.”
In his argument to the court, DPD Hutchinson argued that the alleged victim has motive to lie in his testimony because he committed “serious bodily injury” upon defendant Carrillo.
“The court saw his temperament and the man has explosive rage problems. This was responding to an attorney asking questions when he’s reportedly sober. You can imagine how he might have reacted, when drunk, when his friend is on his back when he’s in bed,” Hutchinson argued.
He also included that “it was clear” that J exhibited signs of intoxication while giving his testimony, such as “closing his eyes, [not] following simple instructions, and [not being able] to figure out how to handle the phone.”
During prosecutor Schaub’s argument, he believed that Carrillo should not be held to answer for the charge of threatening to commit a crime resulting in death or GBI, but claimed that “the knee to the back of the neck suffocating and causing shortness of breath” meets the charge of assault with force likely to cause GBI.
Hutchinson included in his argument that he does not believe that Carrillo put his knee on the alleged victim’s neck. He stated that even if that action was accepted, Carrillo’s actions would not have resulted in GBI or death, comparing it to the death of George Floyd.
“This isn’t a man lying on asphalt with a knee on his neck for 10 minutes. This is a man lying on a bed with another man on top of a bed, and it was on his neck for probably for a matter of seconds, even if you were to accept that. That is not an act likely to result in death or great bodily injury.”
In his judgment, Judge Rosenberg agreed not to charge Carrillo for the first count of threatening to commit an act resulting in death or GBI.
For the felony charge of assault, Rosenberg acknowledged there was sufficient evidence to hold Carrillo accountable, but used his discretion to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor.
“The evidence shows kind of a weak attack from the rear. There’s some evidence of constriction of breath. I will say the credibility of the victim is in question in this case, but based on the evidence the misdemeanor is all he will be held to answer on.”
Carrillo will be held to stand trial on that single charge.
Roxanna Jarvis is a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley, currently majoring in Political Science with a minor in Public Policy. She is from Sacramento, California.
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