By Naomi Cherone
RIVERSIDE—The court’s acceptance of a defendant’s time waiver led to a hearing going awry, being that the defendant, Daniel Carlos Garcia, claimed that he had never in fact inquired about a time waiver, nor denied his right to a speedy trial.
Historically, time waivers have been known to be requested on behalf of defendants to allot more time for their lawyers to collect evidence, find witnesses, or even to ensure that the counsel, defendant and judge would be able to attend the same court date. This is a waiver that can only be submitted with the consent of the defendant; Garcia was well aware of this, and made sure to reiterate it multiple times to the court during his hearing.
Garcia faced 10 charges, consisting of murder, robbery, multiple burglary counts, identity theft and property theft—thus finding himself searching for every and any opportunity that he could in order to prevent his incrimination.
Garcia began his defense by pointing to several legal precedents, and even to a recent Supreme Court case—Garcia v. Supreme Court—in which Daniel Carlos Garcia stated that a time waiver had also been denied to the defendant, resulting in the dropping of his less serious charges. Daniel Carlos Garcia remained adamant about having his case go down that same route. 
When Judge Anthony Villalobos put into question Garcia’s claims of never having inquired about his denial or acceptance of the time waiver, Garcia was quick to offer his rebuttal.
“Look at the transcripts on page fifty… there was no advisement of the time waiver,” responded Garcia.
Judge Villalobos responded to Garcia’s claims by stating that “there was no need to discuss the speedy trial because they had been over that, at that time,” as the 60 days had already been violated, based on a previous time waiver that Garcia had submitted.
“[The time waivers] were violated, the court’s computer did not keep accurate dates… There must be a personal time waiver after a triggering event,” stated Garcia, without directly addressing his previously submitted time waiver.
Garcia then went on to state that the adding of an additional 10 charges onto his record was considered to be a “triggering event,” thus meriting the allocation of an additional time waiver.
The prosecutor left no time before bringing up the People’s concerns on trying to double up on time waivers, as this was said to not only infringe upon the law, but also seemed like an attempt at playing the system at defendant Garcia’s convenience.
Garcia then evaded the prosecution’s claims, and continued to elaborate on how the denial of the time waiver increased his time to 25 years to life in prison.
“He had already been charged with murder, so to say that this change caused a major change is extreme,” responded the prosecution.
“To sit here and say it changed the whole case is disingenuous… he is trying to find a loophole… he has played with time waivers this whole time… fired one attorney and hired another attorney and asked for more time… the court can see what is going on here, and we ask to dismiss the motion,” said the prosecutor.
“The court has to look at if all of the right steps were taken… this does not have to do with me being litigious… I am fighting for my life, your Honor… I have done a lot of research into understanding the law, doing comparisons of other cases,” responded Garcia after the prosecutor’s statement.
“If it is not granted I will take this to a writ… if these charges were so insignificant, I am perplexed as to why they are pursuing them,” added Garcia.
The court did not relent to Garcia’s claims, and continued staying on the side of the People and the precedent; Garcia was not entitled to a time waiver because he had already submitted one, and the court was not going to drop all of Garcia’s added charges, as he had been asking for.
“Whether the courts are going to like it or not… whether these people are going to huff and puff, it’s the precedent,” said Garcia, as he tried to make his last lowball attempt at dropping a few of his many charges.
“We are very clear in our theory on murder charges… It is not a substantial change [in terms of Garcia’s charges]… it appears that there were waivers, valid waivers… and it was not a triggering event… this motion is denied,” said the judge, as Garcia tried interrupting.
Garcia is expected to soon present himself at his arraignment, and will plead guilty or not guilty to the 10 charges that have been added to his record.
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