Judge to hear arguments on what evidence should be allowed in Yanez case
Attorneys for St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez are expected to make arguments about several requests they made in court filings last week during a pre-trial hearing set for Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.
Yanez faces one second-degree manslaughter charge and two felony firearms charges for shooting Philando Castile during a traffic stop last July.
Yanez's attorneys, Tom Kelly, Earl Gray and Paul Engh, have asked to present as evidence Castile's permit to carry application, driving record and information about his marijuana use. They argue that Castile wouldn't have been granted a permit to carry a gun had he "told the truth" about using marijuana.
But the prosecutors, Richard Dusterhoft, Clayton Robinson and Jeffrey Paulsen, are pushing back against allowing any evidence that could be used to "try to attack Castile's character."
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In a court filing last week, the prosecution said Yanez didn't know any of that information the defense wants to include at the time of the shooting, and that it's all irrelevant to the case.
Defense attorneys are asking the court to increase the number of jurors they can strike from the case without cause from five to 30. And they want Yanez to be able to re-enact what happened during the traffic stop, and for jurors to see Castile's Oldsmobile — the car in which he was shot — in person.
Ramsey County District Judge William Leary III is expected to hear the arguments Tuesday.
Yanez's trial is set for May 30. Meanwhile, Yanez's attorneys have asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to move the trial out of Ramsey County. The state's high court hasn't yet issued a decision on that request.
Castile's death was live-streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds who was sitting in the passenger seat.
Yanez shot Castile seven times. Castile was declared dead at Hennepin County Medical Center a half-hour later.
When Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced charges in November, he said "no reasonable officer, knowing, seeing and hearing what officer Yanez did at the time, would have used deadly force."