Evidence Sought in Murder Case

With the preliminary hearing of accused killer Michael Johnson less than two weeks away, attorneys spent much of Wednesday afternoon asking a Ventura County judge to order evidence turned over to prosecutors and the defense.

Attorneys on both sides asked Superior Court Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. to force the other side to turn over evidence they said could prove crucial to the case.

A former drug counselor charged with killing Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter J. Aguirre, Johnson, 49, faces a Nov. 4 hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

He is accused of killing Aguirre in a Meiners Oaks shootout last summer.

A special kidnapping allegation makes Johnson eligible for the death penalty if convicted on all counts, but prosecutors have not said whether they will seek it.

Deputy Public Defender Todd Howeth won a motion to compel Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley to release information gathered by county investigators about the suspect’s history.

“I haven’t seen any reports on that, some months after the incident,” Howeth told O’Neill.

But Frawley won a motion of his own that calls for Howeth to turn over to prosecutors in a timely manner reports from a psychologist hired by the defense.

Howeth said he will not argue at trial that Johnson did not shoot Aguirre on July 19, but that his client was mentally ill at the time.

The give-and-take Wednesday is a common part of pretrial activity called discovery, a legal term meaning that both the prosecution and defense in a criminal case are provided the same material.