Counties Split Over Fairness of Murder Case

A running battle between Ventura and Santa Barbara county authorities escalated Tuesday as lawyers for a convicted murderer accused Santa Barbara prosecutors of withholding evidence and ignoring new findings that they say prove their client is innocent.

Attorneys for Oxnard resident Efren Cruz, 26, say Santa Barbara County prosecutors failed to turn over police reports and other evidence suggesting that another man, Gerardo Reyes, was the gunman in a deadly 1997 shooting in downtown Santa Barbara.

They further allege in court papers filed Tuesday that a secretly taped confession recently obtained by the Ventura County district attorney’s office proves that Reyes, 28, is the admitted shooter.

“The people have demonstrated both prior and subsequent to the trial in this case that they had no interest in evidence which implicated anyone in the shooting other than Efren Cruz,” defense attorney Kevin DeNoce wrote.

DeNoce suggested that politically motivated prosecutors were unwilling to admit that they put the wrong man behind bars--an allegation Santa Barbara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Gerald Franklin sharply disputes.

The defense motion is the latest salvo in an increasingly tense dispute between Ventura and Santa Barbara county legal authorities over the Jan. 26, 1997, shooting.

Reyes admitted during a secretly taped jailhouse confession that he fired the deadly rounds and let his 26-year-old cousin, Cruz, take the fall. The recorded statements prompted Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa to grant a June 4 hearing, where he will consider whether to overturn Cruz’s conviction.

To bolster their position that Reyes, not Cruz, pulled the trigger, defense attorneys DeNoce and Phil Dunn recently demanded access to early investigative reports in the case.

DeNoce and Dunn are now asking Ochoa to broaden the scope of next week’s hearing so they can present additional evidence to bolster their contention that Cruz, an Army veteran, is innocent.

“It is time for Mr. Cruz to be released from custody and it is time for the Santa Barbara district attorney to admit that the real . . . shooter escaped apprehension,” DeNoce said.

But Santa Barbara County prosecutors say the defense argument is flawed.

Franklin said his office was under no legal obligation to share the Oxnard police reports about Reyes with Cruz’s trial lawyer in 1997. He plans to file a written response by the end of the week opposing DeNoce’s request to introduce such evidence at the hearing.

He added, however, that if credible evidence exists to show someone else committed the shooting, then Cruz deserves to be set free.

The defense motion comes after a May 11 court hearing in which both sides sparred over the release of other evidence in the case. DeNoce and Dunn are pushing to expand the focus of the case, while prosecutors want to limit the hearing to focus only on the credibility of Reyes’ confession.

In a recent interview with Santa Barbara police, Reyes recanted his earlier statements to the informant and denied having played any role in the shooting, which occurred after two groups of men, some linked to gangs, exchanged taunts inside a State Street bar.

The confrontation spilled into parking Lot 10 at Anacapa and Ortega streets. Shots were fired, killing Michael Torres, 23, of Santa Barbara and seriously wounding James Lee Miranda, 21, of Santa Ynez.

Police found Cruz walking in the parking structure immediately after the incident and arrested him. They reported finding gunpowder residue on his hands, and a motorist leaving the garage that night later identified him as the shooter.

In a jury trial in Santa Barbara, Cruz was found guilty of murder and attempted murder, and was sentenced to 41 years to life in prison in 1998. His appeal was rejected last summer and the California Supreme Court declined to review the case further.

While the appeal was ongoing, an imprisoned Oxnard police informant came forward in 1999 with information about the Lot 10 shootings and volunteered to wear a wire to obtain statements from Reyes, whom the informant said had solicited him to have Cruz killed in prison.

Ventura County prosecutors contacted their counterparts in the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office with the tip. But, according to a May 2000 letter, those prosecutors responded by saying they did not want to be involved in the investigation.

Six months later, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury followed up with a letter stating that his office had received credible information from a police informant that Cruz was not the shooter.

“Based on the evidence we gathered, we concluded that Gerardo Reyes, not Efren Cruz, killed Michael Torres,” Bradbury wrote. “I respectfully urge you to process this matter expeditiously.”