By Matt Fountain
The Tribune
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — A voluntary manslaughter case against two former prison guards will head to trial after a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge rejected motions to dismiss the case.
Travis Woolf, 37, of San Miguel and Sergio Aranda, 36, of Salinas, former guards at Salinas Valley State Prison, are facing charges in the death of San Miguel vineyard manager Alvaro Medrano in an early-morning fight outside the Elkhorn Bar on Sept. 7, 2014.
Woolf and Aranda have pleaded not guilty, claiming that Medrano gathered a posse of up to five others to rough up the pair after a confrontation inside the bar. Woolf claims that he was punched in the head and knocked down immediately after walking out of the bar, and that he was punched and kicked by the group while on the ground before getting up and fighting back.
Defense attorneys had motioned for the judge to dismiss the case after it came to light earlier this year that a taped interview with a witness was mishandled and not presented to the defense, which claims the interview is “vital.”
Though evidence — including surveillance footage — suggests Medrano pushed for a fight, prosecutors argue Woolf delivered a final blow to the 54-year-old Medrano that sent Medrano to the ground, where he struck his head and lay unconscious while being further stomped by Aranda.
Medrano later died at a nearby hospital of blunt force trauma injuries.
Woolf and Aranda were terminated from their correctional jobs in April 2015. Court records obtained by The Tribune show that Woolf had been in at least three prior fights at separate bars and had been banned for life from one of them because of fighting.
On Tuesday, during a hearing on a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case, family, friends and colleagues of both Medrano and the guards packed the courtroom, with audience members overflowing into the lobby.
Seventeen people have submitted letters to Superior Court Judge John Trice vouching for Woolf’s character. Medrano’s family has created a “Justice for Alvaro” Facebook page. Medrano, who leaves behind five adult children, was a well-known vineyard manager at La Vista Vineyard in Paso Robles and worked as a consultant for other vineyards.
In a motion filed Jan. 20, Gerald Carrasco, Aranda’s attorney, wrote that it wasn’t until December 2015 that he was alerted by the prosecutor in the case, Deputy District Attorney Craig van Rooyen, that a witness who claimed to see the fight from down the street had been interviewed by San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s detectives.
The witness, David Duckworth, who claimed to be a friend of Medrano’s, was interviewed by sheriff’s Detective Hussein Abbas two days after Medrano’s death. However, video of that interview was misfiled by Abbas, and the defense was not made aware of the witness, his statements or the existence of the video.
Not to disclose this evidence prior to the preliminary hearing ... was bad faith. Disclosing this evidence after David Duckworth’s death is bad faith.
Ilan Funke-Bilu, Travis Woolf’s defense attorney
Duckworth died in July 2015, about eight months after a judge ruled in a preliminary hearing that charges would proceed against the guards. That’s when defense attorneys could have questioned Duckworth about the fight.
The video has not been played in open court, but in the motion, Carrasco said Duckworth’s statements in his interview were “vital” to the defense.
Carrasco wrote that Duckworth told Abbas he saw two or three people “way out-numbered” against up to seven others, and he described the two parties as “the good group” and “the bad group.” However, the motion claims that Duckworth got the groups mixed up, thinking Medrano was among the outnumbered.
Duckworth reportedly stated he saw a man being kicked on the ground, but described a member of Medrano’s group as doing the kicking. Carrasco wrote that Duckworth actually saw Woolf being kicked.
“Try as they might, the detectives were also unable to exclude the fact that two people were knocked to the ground — Woolf (by the mob) and the decedent,” the motion reads.
In the interview, Duckworth reportedly described Medrano as “liking fist fights,” saying he could “go one-on-one no problem.” Though Duckworth said he had never seen Medrano fight, he had been “shown the scars and heard the stories,” according to the filing.
Carrasco wrote that the interview and their ability to question Duckworth about his statements during the preliminary hearing was material to their case. He further argued that the government had a duty to provide that evidence and instead acted in bad faith.
Ilan Funke-Bilu, defense attorney for Woolf, filed a similar motion for his client in February.
“Not to disclose this evidence prior to the preliminary hearing, as discussed in co-defendant Aranda’s motion, was bad faith. Disclosing this evidence after David Duckworth’s death is bad faith,” Funke-Bilu’s motion reads. “It is important to note that ‘bad faith’... has nothing to do with the ‘negligence’ or ‘honest mistake’ of the police. ... (It) is an objective standard depending on knowledge of the exculpatory nature of the evidence.”
“The authorities had over nine months to provide this evidence to the defense,” Funke-Bilu wrote.
In his ruling, Trice acknowledged that the evidence was misfiled and should have been provided to the defense in 2014. However, he found that Abbas misplacing the video, while possibly negligent, was not done intentionally, which would have been grounds for the case’s dismissal.
Moreover, Trice said, Duckworth’s interview was confusing and appears to favor the prosecution’s argument more than it helps the defense. He said a jury instruction explaining that the video was originally mishandled by investigators would suffice, and he denied the motion.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin May 3. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
Copyright 2016 The Tribune