Finally. The commencement of the trials for Deangelo Carroll, 27, Kenneth Counts, 32, Luis Hidalgo III, 26, and Anabel Espindola, 35, in connection with the murder of Palomino strip club employee Timothy Hadland. A murder which occurred more than two years ago.
It was to start today. Thursday. August 16. In the courtroom of District Judge Valerie Adair. Where she was to hear both trials: first for Carroll, who was allegedly hired by Hidalgo and Espindola to kill Hadland, only to turn around and hire Counts to pull the trigger; and then for Counts, Hidalgo and Espindola.
The courtroom was packed and warm with body heat. Folks fanned themselves with makeshift fans. Everyone grew quiet when case 212667, defendant Deangelo Carroll, was called and Carroll stood: black, bald, built like a defensive lineman, with a thin chinstrap beard and dark black shadows encircling his eyes. Then his lawyer, court-appointed public defender Dayvid Figler, said he needed more time. He and his team were not ready to go to trial.
District Attorney Marc Digiacomo had already grown impatient with Figler before he even stepped in Judge Adair’s courtroom on Tuesday. And that’s because Figler’s client, like the other defendants Digiacomo is seeking to prosecute in the murder of Hadland, has been in jail since May 2005, and the state has been ready to proceed with trial since District Judge Donald Mosley first ordered it, for the day of August 29, 2005. And yet, on account of myriad delays and continuances, here he was today, still waiting for the trial to commence.
“Here’s the deal,” he told the court: “It’s time to do the trial!”
Figler threw everything he had at the court to prevent it from ordering the trial to start. We’re waiting for a Supreme Court precedent. There’re holes in the state’s case. I’m unprepared.
“C’mon,” said Judge Adair, a former state prosecutor. “You should be prepared: You’ve had ample time.”
Figler said: “It’s not like this case has been sitting dormant until today. This is not a case sitting in a box somewhere the past two years. The case has had a drastic turn.”
It’s true. His client had originally been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with a potential sentence of 14 years to life; and then, this past May, Digiacomo made it a capital case. Figler’s client is facing the death penalty, just like Counts, Hidalgo and Espindola.
Adair and Digiacomo went on to chastise Figler for what Digiacomo called a “strategic decision” to delay the case to no end, and what Adair called a “courtroom tactic” to put the court in a catch-22: If Carroll is found guilty, his case, being a capital case and so prone to heightened scrutiny, will be sent back for retrial on account of inadequate representation, to which Figler had admitted on the record today.
On May 19, 2005, Carroll, according to what he himself told detectives, was instructed by Hidalgo, the son of the owner of the Palomino, and Espindola, the Palomino’s key employee, to kill his buddy Hadland, who had been badmouthing both the club and its ownership to the city’s cabdrivers, costing the strip club thousands of dollars per week in lost customers.
Digiacomo said Carroll picked up Counts to carry out the work, because “Carroll didn’t have the gumption to do it himself.”
Offering marijuana, Carroll told detectives, he then lured Hadland out to a dark street near Lake Mead, where Counts shot Hadland, twice, in the head.
Carroll and Counts drove back to the Palomino, where Counts received $6,000 and Carroll, $1,400 and a bottle of Tanqueray gin.
“The state has reserved the death penalty for the worst of the worst,” said Figler. “If the district attorney can artfully apply it to the three non-shooters in this case, including Mr. Carroll, it’ll make a joke of the death penalty in this state.”
Figler then went on to make a speech in which he said if he and his abilities as a lawyer were attacked that was fine, because he had tough skin, but it wasn’t his life on the line, it was Deangelo Carroll’s, and as Carroll’s lawyer he will do anything he can to defend him, above all against death, and Figler argued with so much desperation and fervor it was as if he were indeed fighting for a man’s life.
Carroll sat in his blue CCDC jumpsuit watching under the dark shadows encircling his eyes. Adair sat in silence, contemplating. “I’m not sure what to do,” she said, no doubt distressed. “I need more time.”
As of yet, no date has been rescheduled for the trial’s commencement.