The prosecution asked a judge to dismiss the case against two Torrance police officers indicted for voluntary manslaughter in the 2018 shooting death of a Black man, but a judge refused Friday to immediately rule on the request.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta cited a pending appeal before the California Supreme Court by one of the defendants, saying he thought it would be inappropriate to rule on the request involving the case against Officer Matthew Concannon and former Officer Anthony Chavez while the case involving Concannon is before the state's highest court.
"The case is really not with me right now," the judge said.
One of Matthew Concannon's attorneys, Matt Murphy, told the judge that the defense was going to file paperwork to withdraw the petition before the state Supreme Court.
But the judge noted that he still wanted time to review the prosecution's request to dismiss the case and a similar request by the defense even if the petition was withdrawn, noting at one point that he wanted to hear what the state Supreme Court thought about the case.
Attorneys are scheduled to talk again with the judge next Tuesday.
Concannon and Chavez were indicted by a grand jury in March 2023 on the voluntary manslaughter charge sought by then-Special Prosecutor Lawrence Middleton during District Attorney George Gascón's administration in connection with the Dec. 9, 2018, killing of 23-year-old Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, who was shot while sitting inside a black Honda Civic that had been reported stolen.
At a news conference Friday morning, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his new special prosecutor, Michael Gennaco, concluded that the prosecution "cannot prove its case of voluntary manslaughter against these two officers beyond a reasonable doubt."
The district attorney said the case came down to a thorough analysis of the 12-second encounter.
"What (we've) spent the hundreds of hours trying to figure out, is did these officers have a reasonable belief that they ere in imminent peril by Mr. Mitchell at the moment he's lowering his hands towards the weapon, where he could have then grabbed the weapon and shot them?" Hochman said. "This is a split-second decision. While the entire event is 12 seconds, the decision that they are making is taking place over one or two or three seconds. And it's not just that we have to prove it, we have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard in the system."
The district attorney said he has spoken to Mitchell's mother, and while he didn't give specifics about her reaction to the decision, he said, "What would you expect a mother in such a situation to express?"
"These are the most difficult cases that come before a district attorney and this whole team to evaluate, which is why we've methodically gone over those 12 seconds from every single angle to see whether or not there was any theory or attack or legal strategy where we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these two officers committed the crime of voluntary manslaughter at that moment in time knowing we cannot prove involuntary manslaughter -- that has been taken away from us by the original prosecutor's timing and we're lacking all the additional evidence he had relied on -- so after an extensive analysis we determined no, we cannot prove this beyond a reasonable doubt," Hochman said.
The district attorney said he has "absolutely no problem bringing a righteous case against police officers that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt."
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"But where we don't have that evidence, we're not going to just kick that can to a jury or kick that can to a judge, we're going to do our job. Our job is to fairly evaluate that evidence and where we don't have it, we have to say that. And a motion to dismiss in that case is our saying that. So while this has been an extremely difficult decision impacting so many different lives, it is we believe the right decision to make at this time, and we have (to) make it."
The judge noted during Friday's hearing that the case "has been politicized to some degree."
In a memo to the district attorney, Gennaco wrote that "the history and origins of this prosecution will present significant challenges were the matter still to proceed to trial."
"Since candidate Gascón had already opined about this particular case as needing a second look prior to even having access to the complete file, defendants will argue that the return of the indictment was foreordained by the public comments that Gascón had issued about the case."
The two could face up to 11 years in state prison if convicted as charged, Gascón said shortly after the indictment was unsealed.
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