Results tagged “Craig Hum” from Crime & Courts

Part II

Part III

• At the top of the cliff, there was no evidence of slipping, sliding or disturbance in the dirt.
• During Brown's interview with Leslie, he never used Lauren's name.
• When Leslie asked him about his lack of emotion, he noted how he cried during the 911 call.
• Brown's friend, Jon Hans (who had contacted prosecutors after he tried to get a letter of support he had written for Brown's Web site taken down), testified he called Brown a week later to offer his condolences. Brown got on the phone and said, "Hey dude, what's up?" He told Hans, "I can't dwell on it, I have to move on, I can't let this ruin my life." Hum said: "It's as if nothing happened."
• A former girlfriend said Brown called her and cried about getting someone else pregnant. Hum said this shows that Brown is, indeed, capable of showing emotion.
• Friends and co-workers testified he got angry (more emotion) over "nothing."
• Another former girlfriend (the one who he had the abortion) said Brown was very emotional over the pregnancy and abortion. She said he "stalked" her, he got mad about her going out with her friends and threw her belongings over a cliff. He smashed her parked car with his, and his mother paid for the damages. She said he broke into her apartment and wrote "bitch" all over the place. Hum said Brown was retaliating because he was angry.
• In response to the defense assertion that those acts were a long time ago, 1987, Hum noted that it was only 13 years before Lauren's death and eight or nine years before his negative treatment of Key-Marer.

Continued from Part I

• Key-Marer sought child support from Brown through the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He ended up paying approximately $1,000 per month for "a child he didn't want." "And $1,000 a month is a lot of money to a guy like the defendant," who was working as a baggage handler, living on a boat, surfing, skiing and "having a great time."
• Brown told a friend he wanted to get the support reduced by asking for more visitation with Lauren. He askes for joint legal custody with 32 percent visitation - about four months per year. At that point, he still had not met Lauren. "How would he know what's in Lauren's best interests? He's never even met her." "We all know the reason he's doing this is to cut his child support and that's what he cares about - himself - and that's all he cares about." "It's all about the money."
• The initial visits with Lauren go OK until Brown begins telling Lauren that his own mother is an evil, bad person (Key-Marer had begun visiting Lynn Brown with Key-Marer and allowing the two to foster a grandmother-granddaughter relationship).
• Then, Key-Marer offers to have her new husband adopt Lauren, and Brown agrees. "Why would Sarah lie about that?" Brown tells his friend he's "happy" to give Lauren up for adoption because he and his fiancee, Patti, are planning to move to Utah. Brown insists the adoption goes through right away, and gives Key-Marer 30 days or "things are gonna get ugly." This was approximately one month before Brown got married.
• But, Patti wants a family and she is 47, so can't have kids. "There is no way she will give up Lauren; she wants her for herself." Brown didn't want that, so he knows he needs to finalize the adoption before he gets married.
• But when Key-Marer puts in court documents that Brown agreed to the adoption, he gets angry because everyone finds out. Brown threatened Key-Marer: "I'm gonna get you for this" and "what goes around comes around." "He sure made good on those promises, didn't he?" Brown is "vindictive, angry" because there is no way now he will get what he wants, so he becomes "despiteful, nasty."
• "He'll pay her back for this." "Clearly the defendant is using Lauren as a tool to punish Sarah."
• Meanwhile, Lauren refuses to talk about what happens during her visits with "Papa Cam." (that was the nickname Key-Marer made for him). She does, however, come home and say: "Papa Cam is gonna put you in jail for stealing my money" and "you're a bad mommy."
• Brown made "false accusations" of child abuse against Key-Marer in court documents. He lied and told a neutral court mediator that Lauren told him Key-Marer kicked her, threw down in the kitchen and grabbed her face with her fingers. "The defendant is using Lauren to hurt Sarah." "And the defendant also does things to try to torment Sarah through Lauren."
• (in response to the defense argument that some of the things Brown did was bad parenting - like trying to put her on his motorcylce without a helmet, throwing her in a pool when she can't swim, having her ride in the front seat - and without a car seat and telling her to get her suitcase from the middle of the street): "That's not bad parenting skills" but "designed to get back at Sarah." "It's calculated to terrorize Sarah when Lauren was out of her sight." It shows the lengths to which the defendant will go to hurt Sarah, and how much he hated her and how vindictive he was. "It's payback for messing up his life."
• (at this point, Key-Marer appears to be crying while sitting in the audience listening). "She was the perfect tool the defendant could use to hurt Sarah."

One of the most frustrating things about being a court reporter is that, more often than not, I can't possibly come close to including in my story all the things that are said in court about a case. Space, and readers' attention spans, just don't make it prudent. Thus, it's safe to say that on days like yesterday, where I listened to two attorney speaks for about five hours, there is more that didn't make it into my 25-inch story than did. And that's not even including the hour or so of prosecution rebuttal I missed at the end of the day in order to make my deadline.

This is even more frustrating when we're talking about a mostly circumstantial evidence case, like the one against Cameron Brown. So, here's what I'm gonna do - I'm going to try to dump here tid-bits, comments, slices of evidence and other information that didn't find a home in today's newspaper story. Also, if you have a question about something related to this case - the evidence, why or why not somebody did or didn't do or say something, etc., I will try to answer it. I can't promise I'll know all the answers, but I'll give it a shot.

Just don't ask me what I think about anything. I'm not going to tell you.

From Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum's closing argument:

• The jury has two duties: Decide the facts from the evidence, exhibits and site visit, then apply the facts to the law decide between guilty and not guilty. "You have to decide what happened on Nov. 8, 2000."
• Brown is charged with one count of first-degree murder plus special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and killing for financial gain. For first-degree murder, jury must find that the killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated and done with malice, which can be expressed or implied. Here, there is both. Under express malice, the question is: "Did the defendant intend to kill Lauren when he threw her off a 120-foot cliff into the ocean? Of course he did. There 's not other reasonable explanation." Under implied malice, the jury has to find the defendant knew throwing Lauren off a cliff would be dangerous, but did it anyway. "It really is that simple and straightforward."

While on the 9th Floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center downtown today for closing arguments in the Miguel Magallon death penalty trial, I popped into the Cameron Brown murder retrial to see what's been going on.

I had apparently just missed a bit of drama. According to Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum, proceedings were postponed for about an hour because Brown, 47, refused to come out of his jail cell. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor was set to sign an extraction order that would give deputies permission to physically extract him when Brown came out on his own.

Then, defense attorney Pat Harris asked that 4-year-old victim Lauren Sarene Key's mother, Sarah Key-Marer, who has watched the entire trial, be excluded from the courtroom because her presence was jeopardizing his client's right to a fair trial. Hum argued against it, and Key-Marer addressed the judge, asking that she be allowed to remain - as she's been looking for answers for nine years. In the end, Pastor allowed her to stay.

In the two weeks since the trial began, jurors have heard from Key-Marer, witnesses who were around Inspiration Point on Nov. 8, 2000, the first emergency responders to the scene, Lauren's pre-school teachers, a pediatrician and direct questioning of the investigating officer, Jeff Leslie, who is expected to undergo cross examination for much of the remainder of the week.

Soon after Joe Nino and Miguel Torres were convicted - for the second time - in May, Nino's former girlfriend sent a letter to Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum claiming she was with Nino on Dec. 2, 2001 - the night Juan Vasquez was shot and killed execution style in a drainage ditch by a Rolling Hills school.

Why the Arizona prison guard waited nearly eight years and two trials to present herself as an alibi is not known. Nino's attorney, Jeff Gray, told Torrance Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor he investigated the claim and believes she is one of several reasons why his client should have a new trial.

However, Miguel Torres' attorneys - Jaclin Awad, who was in court, and Matthew Fletcher, who was not - asked for more time to prepare. Gray didn't want to put off arguing his new trial motion, but his client did. Because Hum will be involved in another murder trial downtown for a couple months, Nino and Torres will return for their motion and sentencing hearing on Oct. 1.

Outside of court, Hum called the former girlfriend's statement "interesting," especially since Nino gave a statement to police about his activities that night and nothing he said mentioned her. She was also interviewed by police back then, but only said Nino's car didn't have an alarm (neighbors near the crime scene reported hearing a car alarm).

Meanwhile, on our last story about the trial, the user comments are quite heated - both from those who know the parties involved and those who don't.

Previously:

Tight security and tense emotions during Rolling Hills murder verdict

It's been nearly three years since a Torrance jury couldn't agree on what crime to convict Cameron Brown with. Now, the case is poised once again for trial - this time in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Brown is charged with murder for the Nov. 8, 2000, death of his 4-year-old daughter, Lauren Sarene Key, who died after going over a 120-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes. Prosecutors believe Brown, 48, threw the girl to avoid paying child support. He's also facing the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and killing for financial gain. He is facing the possibility of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum, who handled the first 2006 trial, said today that there will be some pretrial motions in the case's new home before Judge Michael Pastor on Thursday. Specifically, Pastor will decide if the jurors in the second trial, like those in the first, will take a field trip to Inspiration Point. Jury selection is expected to begin July 9. Trial should go through mid-September.

Our story on the first mistrial is after the jump.

Previously:

Question: Cameron Brown retrial?

Update: Cameron Brown RPV cliff-death case

Cameron Brown shank case dismissed

Following a night of packing, drinking and drugs, Jesus Payan, 38, ended up bound and dead on a Palos Verdes Drive South turnout in Rancho Palos Verdes. His two friends, cousins Rudy Tafoya, 21, and Daniel Nunez, 27, were ordered today to stand trial following a preliminary hearing.

The only witness to testify, Sheriff Detective Dameron Peyton, didn't answer any questions about possible motives for the January 31, 2007, slaying. After the hearing, Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum said the motive issue remains unresolved, but said authorities suspect drugs played a part. Hum is becoming quite the cliff-related death expert - he is also the prosecutor on the Cameron Brown  and Brandon Manai cases.

Tafoya and Nunez will return to court June 3. We'll have a full report on the preliminary hearing in tomorrow's Daily Breeze.