The following is a copy of the transcript of the court issuing its ruling in the 2017 preliminary hearing for murder charges against Kyle Zoellner. This ruling dismissed the murder case against Zoellner, but left open the opportunity for future prosecution if new evidence or testimony became available. This provides a condensed summary of the witness testimony and evidence that existed at the time of the hearing and explains the reasoning behind the judge's decision to dismiss the case.
This is a written record of what was said in court and the text is exactly as it was recorded by the court reporter during the proceedings.
Transcripts and documents from the murder case, including transcripts from witness testimony, are available here.
This document has been obtained through public court records.
The Court: Thank you for your patience to allow me an opportunity to review all the evidence in this matter.
Just so we know where we start out from, a preliminary hearing is a probable cause hearing, and the test that is applied by the Court is stated various ways, but it's essentially there has to be evidence that establishes sufficient cause to believe that the defendant committed each element of the offense. And sufficient cause is -- is defined as: Such state of the facts that would lead a person of ordinary caution or prudence to believe and conscientiously entertain a strong suspicion of the guilt of the accused. And as, actually, Mr. Rees pointed out earlier in the argument, it's a standard of proof less than a preponderance of the evidence that's required in a civil case. But that's the standard we're talking about.
And I have reviewed the evidence that has been submitted. I think large -- for anybody who's been here and listened to it all, I think it has been somewhat confusing, somewhat contradictory. And I think that's -- frankly, can be explained by the fact that this event took place April 15th, 2017, which is approximately 16 days ago. I don't think there's been -- I would assume there has not been adequate time to -- to have testing of all the evidence -- all the physical evidence. Certainly of the hundred or so, or plus or minus, people that were there, only a handful really have been interviewed as to what occurred.
And as I go through and just -- I'm not gonna discuss in a great deal of detail the evidence, as I think counsel both this morning discussed it. But as I go through it, I'm not suggesting that -- for the most part, that I find that anybody's not being truthful. I think the confusing and contradictory evidence that we received is a product in part of, you know, a party, lots and lots of people there. Very emotional and very traumatic events, various states of sobriety. And people see different things. And for anybody that's been on a jury before, jurors are told at the beginning of the case that two people may see the same event, but -- but hear or see it differently and recall it differently. So I'm not suggesting that anybody is -- for the most part, is intentionally not being forthright in what they've told us.
But when you go through and look at the evidence, just -- and I'm gonna concentrate more on what happened after -- we have the testimony concerning the first -- first confrontation. We know that concluded. I think the bulk of the evidence -- or certainly a substantial part of the evidence suggests that there were blows struck by both the defendant and some of the folks that were on the porch coming out of the house. It sounded like the defendant got the worst of it. And as the people withdrew from the first altercation, he's -- he's either against the car or on the ground near the car, which I presume is one of the cars that were in the driveway.
When we come back to the second event, that seems to be triggered by the -- and I forget the names all, but the girlfriend of Mr. Lawson going back to confront or discuss with the folks how the pepper spray, or whatever, was sprayed.
I think the testimony particularly from Ms. Gleaton -- she -- her observation was that the defendant was trying to pull Mr. Lawson's girlfriend off of his girlfriend. That Mr. Lawson -- there was some -- by the time Mr. Lawson got back there, there might have been some confrontation between the defendant and Mr. Lawson. But Ms. Gleason (phon.), at least as I understood her testimony, said that she recalls the people -- the defendant and whoever was involved in that incident being -- immediately going over to the area of the tree and grassy area on the left. The -- concerning what was going on at that point, first Ms. Gleas- -- Ms. Gleaton indicated she did not see any knife or any suggestion that a knife was used.
Mr. Wright -- Mr. Wright's testimony is --it's hard to put in time sequence, but Mr. Wright says that he follows Mr. Lawson back up to the area where the confrontation initially took place. When he gets there -- and as I understand it, he's only seconds behind him -- he sees the defendant -- or Mr. Lawson having the defendant in a headlock on the grassy area to the -- to the left of the house. Not all the way to the tree, but in the area of the tree. He breaks up the — or attempts to break up the confrontation and -- because he's afraid that Mr. -- the complaining -- that Mr. Lawson is going to strangle the defendant. And he breaks it up. He also testifies he saw no knife and saw no one else in the area. And after he separates them, he indicates that he strikes Mr. -- the defendant a couple of times.
Mr. Martinez testified that he observes -- during the same timeframe, he observes two people in the grassy area talking to each other. He -- I believe he said it was -- he believed it was the defendant and Mr. Lawson. They were talking to each other. They were in a confrontational stance. That he saw the defendant make some gestures with his hand towards Mr. Lawson. And then he saw Mr. Lawson run from that area across the cul-de-sac and into the grassy area where he eventually landed. He does not see a knife. He doesn't see any other persons in the area. And then he goes up to -- to console Mr. Lawson's girlfriend and eventually goes over to where Mr. Lawson ended up on the other side of the cul-de-sac, where he said Mr. Chandler was already there assisting, rendering first aid. He also -- no knife, no other people in the area.
And it seems to me that those two versions of what happened are diametrically opposed. Because the one person who attributes any sort of gesture to the defendant that might be consistent with jabbing somebody with a knife is Mr. Martinez. But Mr. Martinez has that happening and then the defendant -- or the victim, Mr. Lawson, immediately running across the cul-de-sac over to the brushy area. Doesn't see anybody else there. That's inconsistent with the observations of -- of Mr. Wright.
Mr. Clark comes out from behind the -- behind the house. He sees -- he testifies, as I understand it -- he sees the defendant and Mr. Wright, Paris, in a combative stance. He does not see Mr. Lawson in the area. That Paris then hits the defendant, knocks him to the ground, and ten other people come out of the house, approximately, and begin kicking and hitting the defendant.
And Mr. Chandler says he is in the backyard. He comes -- he comes out of the backyard into the area in front of the house. He sees Mr. Paris (sic) standing near the tree, the defendant attempting to move out of the area. And he sees -- he says he sees something in the defendant's right hand. Mr. Paris (sic) knocks him to the ground, and he falls to the ground, and whatever he has in his hand drops out on the ground.
So — but all of those — all of those folks, everybody who’s testified thus far, has not testified that anybody had a knife and certainly didn't say that the defendant had a knife. And Mr. Paris didn't -- or Mr. Wright -- I'm sorry -- didn't testify that when -- if anything fell out of Mr. Zoellner's hand, that it was a knife or that he, in fact, even saw anything fall out of his hand.
So again, I'm not suggesting anybody's not truthful. I just think everything's happening so quickly, there are various things happening, people are seeing things differently. But I have to weigh that evidence in terms of whether there's reasonable cause to believe that Mr. Zoellner, in fact, stabbed and killed Mr. Lawson.
The physical evidence, when you -- when you take the physical evidence along with the -- what I find to be confusing evidence as to what actually happened, you have a pool of blood in the driveway of the -- of the -- approaching the house. And you have both Detective Losey and Officer Arminio saying that the pool of blood is located there. Then there's drippings or droppings that are going to the location -- or towards the location which Mr. Lawson was ultimately found, and that there's another pool of blood there. There's no evidence -- no testimony, at least, concerning any blood located in the grass area where most people say these his hand drops out on the ground. So -- but all of those -- all those folks, who's testified thus far, has not testified fights were taking place.
The parties have stipulated that the analysis of the evidence conducted thus far -- there's a fingerprint found on the knife and that the fingerprint is excluded as being the defendant's fingerprint. There are fibers found on the knife, and, at least at this stage of the proceedings, those fibers have been determined to be dissimilar from clothing that was worn by the defendant that evening.
There’s no testimony or no evidence to suggest that the knife that was found was a knife that was owned by the defendant. In fact, the testimony is contrary, that the type of knives that the defendant had that he used for his employment -- his employer came in and testified that the knife that was observed -- or photographed as an exhibit in this case was not a knife he'd seen before, not a knife that's been used by the defendant at his place of employment, nor was it one that he would expect to be used in a -- in a catering or restaurant business. That's the evidence before us. There's no contrary evidence to that. Maybe there will be developed some time in the future, but at this point, there is not.
And then one of the problems I think we have is -- or one of the issues I think we have is the fact, as I indicated, we're 16 days after the incident occurred. Other than cause of death, there's no testimony from an autopsy surgeon, testimony that you might expect in a case such as this such as to the -- the exact location and nature of the wounds, the size of the wounds, the type of instrument that may have inflicted the wounds, whether the knife located at the scene of the incident is of the size and shape that would've inflicted those sorts of wounds. We don't have any blood analysis as to blood on the -- particularly on the defendant, whose blood it was if it wasn't his.
So it seems to me that we're in a situation where, ultimately -- and I think this is the -- for me at least, this is the difficult part of the case, at least at this beginning, is that the only people - based on what we know, based on the evidence presented, the only persons or group that might have a motive to inflict this type of injury upon Mr. Lawson would be -- at least the way I view the evidence, would be the folks who they had a confrontation with, the defendant and the people that were with them. On the other hand, the analysis -- the evidence -- the physical evidence doesn't have anyone -- of all the people there, no one sees a knife. No one sees the defendant with a knife. No one sees any kind of confrontation between the defendant and the -- Mr. Lawson that would suggest any kind of instrument was being used, other than Mr. Gonzalez (sic), whose testimony is completely contrary to what other folks say. And it's hard to even fit it into the time sequence to -- so it's just -- it's a very difficult, confusing factual situation that at this point I don't believe has been sufficiently developed to really be able to establish that the defendant is the person who inflicted the injuries.
And again, the physical evidence, the location of the pools of blood, the knife -- there's no proof that this was, in fact, even the knife that was used. There's no proof as to ownership of the knife. The knife has fibers and fingerprints not associated with the defendant. There's -- I guess there's all kinds of speculation we can enter into, but how the knife, assuming it was used by somebody in the confrontation, would've gotten to the -- underneath the car in such a short period of time, particularly with Mr. Paris' (sic) testimony, if it's accepted, that Mr. Lawson had the defendant in a -- in a headlock and a body lock with his arms.
You know, obviously -- I don't mean this in any way facetiously. Obviously, we know Mr. Lawson was killed. We know he was killed by a knife. And we know somebody at that party did it. But at this point, I don't believe that the evidence is sufficient to establish reasonable cause to believe that the defendant is the person who did it at this point. And I -- we’re 16 days after the incident took place. I assume evidence is gonna be continued to be pursued, analyzed. Witnesses will be -- be questioned. But at this point, if you really step back and look at the evidence, no one sees a knife. No one sees the knife used. The only person who sees any gesture that can be associated with a jabbing-type situation is Mr. Gonzalez (sic). Ms. -- Mr. Lawson's girlfriend has some sort of puncture wound on her wrist. We don't have any explanation how that occurred or how that might have been put on her.
I just don't believe that -- under the evidence that's presented 16 days after the incident and the test that the Court has to apply, that the evidence meets the requirement. Again, that requirement is that: Such a state of the evidence that would lead a person of ordinary caution or prudence to believe or conscientiously entertain a strong suspicion of the guilt of the accused. And at this point, I don't find the evidence is sufficient to make that finding. That is not to say that evidence may be developed in the future that may very well suggest to the contrary or may very well identify someone else who may have done this. Because that's the one thing we're certain about. It happened. Mr. Lawson was stabbed to death at a party with lots and lots of people there. And none of those people seem to have seen it happen, which is somewhat difficult to believe.
But anyway, based upon the evidence that's been presented thus far -- the other thing I'd like to say -- I think -- I think both counsel commented upon this. I'm very impressed -- given the emotional nature of this case, the obvious trauma that everybody suffered, that it would've been so easy for someone to say, "Yeah, I saw this guy had a knife in his hand." That's all it would've taken, and then Mr. Zoellner would've been held to answer. But to the credit of the people who testified, no one said that. And it would've been easy to do if they wanted to just lay this on him. And it didn't happen, so -- to that -- and everybody that's testified that he was basically -- that the defendant was not argumentative, not trying to create a situation. And so I think that's to the credit of the witnesses who testified, too, given the emotions and given the factions that are involved. So -- but for all those reasons, I find that, at this point at least, there's not sufficient evidence to hold Mr. Zoellner to answer to the charge and dismiss the complaint.