Judge Refuses to Punish Prosecutors : Ayala Brothers’ Murder Trial to Proceed

A Superior Court judge declined Friday to dismiss murder charges against Hector and Reynaldo Ayala, despite a defense request that San Diego police and prosecutors be sanctioned for allegedly withholding evidence favorable to the accused brothers.

Defense lawyers had sought to prove during several days of hearings that members of a special San Diego Police Department anti-drug task force wrongfully failed to disclose exculpatory information during the brothers’ preliminary hearing on charges of slaying three men execution-style at a San Diego auto-body shop in April, 1985.

The lawyers contended, too, that homicide investigators and prosecutors in the case knew about the evidence but failed to reveal it.

The district attorney’s office insisted that it turned the evidence over to defense lawyers as soon as prosecutors learned of it--in July, six months after the preliminary hearing.

In refusing to throw out the charges, Superior Court Judge Napoleon A. Jones Jr. said that the officers alleged to have withheld information were not part of the team of police and prosecutors who investigated the killings. As a result, he said, there was no legal basis for punishing the prosecution by dismissing the charges.

Attorneys for the brothers contend that, if they had obtained the disputed evidence earlier, they could have used it to challenge the testimony of Pedro Castillo, who survived the body-shop shootings to become the key witness against the Ayalas. The information also suggested that others may have been responsible for the killings, according to the defense.

Elisabeth Semel, who represents Reynaldo Ayala, argued that failing to impose sanctions on the district attorney’s office would free police and prosecutors to hide evidence in other cases.

Earlier this week, Superior Court Judge David M. Gill took under submission a claim by prosecutors that Gill and the Ayalas’ defense team had engaged in misconduct by holding a secret hearing from which the district attorney’s office was barred.

Gill said he was confident that the prosecution’s interests and ability to prepare for trial had not been jeopardized by the hearing, which also was closed to the public.

The subject of the Sept. 15 hearing has remained secret. The city attorney’s office--which presumably represented the police department during the hearing--has appealed a ruling by Gill to the 4th District Court of Appeal.