Judge reverses ruling on murder case
By Andy Gates - Argus Observer
Friday, June 1, 2007 12:26 PM PDT
VALE - A Malheur County Circuit Court judge reversed a ruling Wednesday that he made last week regarding scientific evidence involved in an upcoming murder trial and prosecutors confirmed the move was fairly uncommon.
The murder case involves a young mother, Marisol Sedano-Ruiz, 19, who was indicted July 7 2006 on charges of first degree murder and criminal mistreatment in connection to the death of her 3-year-old step-son. She pleaded not guilty to the alleged crimes.
The rulings by Malheur County Circuit Court Judge J. Burdette Pratt concerned motions from defense and prosecuting attorneys. The motions involved the release of evidence, which is stored at the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office, to scientific experts for the defense.
The first motion came from Sedano-Ruiz’s defense attorney, Manuel Perez, of the Ontario-based law firm Rader, Stoddard and Perez.
The motion was filled May 22, and requested that the court order the state to hand over unstained autopsy slides, which contained tissue samples taken from the body of Sedano-Ruiz’s 3-year-old stepson.
Prosecutors asked Pratt to deny the motion, because it runs against the grain of policies at the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office. However, Pratt granted Perez’s motion May 25 during a hearing on the matter, and ordered the state to produce unstained autopsy slides for the defense.
Pratt said during that motion hearing that lawyers did not provide any justifiable reasons for why the defense should not have access to the unstained slides.
The policy of the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office is not to release unstained slides, only stained slides. That is because, “. . . slides such as the ones used in this case must be stained for proper examination,” according to Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris’ response filed May 23 in Malheur County Circuit Court.
“The images in the slides can be altered or distorted if the staining process required for examination is done incorrectly or improperly,” Norris’ response stated.
Perez had said during the May 25 hearing that it was appalling that state medical examiners would not trust experts for the defense and he questioned why only the medical examiner’s determination should be considered.
After that May 25 motion hearing, Norris requested another hearing on the issue and filed a motion for Pratt to reconsider his order.
Norris asked the court to consider facts that were not known at the time of the initial hearing, and another hearing was held Wednesday, Norris said.
At that Wednesday hearing, Pratt reversed his previous order. The judge ordered that the state would not have to provide unstained slides to the defense.
Prosecutors said the defense had failed to cite statutory or constitutional authority to support their motion. Prosecutors also argued, “authority does not exist under the United States or Oregon Constitutions to order production of the slides.”
Perez did not agree with Pratt’s decision.
“I have no comment about the judge’s ruling vacating the previous order, other than I don’t agree with it,” Perez said. It will be a matter for the appeals court to decide, he said.
According to a legal memorandum filed by Norris, if time permits, the medical examiner would be willing to stain slides in the presence of experts for the defense.
The slide evidence does not make or break the case, prosecutor’s say.
“This is a tempest in a teapot,” Norris said about slide evidence.
Pretrial motions are not uncommon in any criminal case, however it is fairly uncommon for a single judge to vacate a prior order, prosecutors said.
“This was kind of unique. A motion was field by the defense two days before Judge Pratt heard it, and the state’s entitled to 10 days to respond, and so the judge made a decision before we had a chance to adequately respond,” Norris said.
At the May 25 hearing Pratt told prosecutors if they had additional information to add he would entertain a motion to reconsider, Norris said.
Law enforcement authorities assert the 3-year-old boy, Roberto Lee Ruiz, died from battered child syndrome, blunt force trauma to the back of his head, according to a June 30 arrest warrant affidavit filed in Malheur County Circuit Court.
Ruiz was taken to Holy Rosary Medical center June 27 and pronounced dead. Sedano-Ruiz and her husband, the boy’s father, Roberto Marin Ruiz, 26, transported the child to the hospital, according to the police affidavit.
Ruiz and Sedano-Ruiz allegedly told authorities the child’s injuries resulted from an ATV accident, according to the affidavit.
The state asserted Ruiz and Sedano-Ruiz withheld adequate physical care and medical attention from the boy between March 1 and June 27.
Ruiz pleaded guilty in October to a charge of first degree criminal mistreatment against his 3-year-old son.
Sedano-Ruiz has been in custody at the Malheur County Jail for almost a year, and her trial is scheduled to begin June 18.
