A man convicted of assault may get a new trial because the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office did not turn over information about the case to the defense.
At issue is the fact that two police officers called to testify in the assault case against David Peguse were under investigation by the St. Paul Police Department’s internal affairs unit at the time for allegedly failing to intervene in a crime and then lying about it.
Officers Nicholas Grundei and Jordan Wild — who testified at Peguse’s trial — as well as three of their colleagues were fired for their alleged misconduct. They dispute the allegations and are appealing the terminations.
Peguse’s defense attorney, Catherine Turner, argued in court Wednesday that federal law obligated the state to tell her about the allegations. Turner said the information would have allowed her to cast doubt on the officers’ testimony.
SIDES HAVE THEIR SAY
Federal law — known as the Brady/Giglio law because of the two Supreme Court opinions behind it — requires prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to the defense or that could be used to impeach the credibility of state witnesses. Failure to do so violates a defendant’s due-process rights.
“My client is in custody right now, and he may never have been convicted of this had this been disclosed from the beginning,” Turner said. “There is no personal vendetta against these officers; it’s just that we have discovery rules for a reason, so let’s abide by them.”
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office disagrees with Turner’s interpretation of the law.
It maintains that prosecutors couldn’t have told the defense about the pending internal affairs investigation because they didn’t know it was underway, according to arguments Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Ryan Flynn made in court.
That’s because the policy it developed in 2013 alongside city prosecutors and the St. Paul Police Department doesn’t require law enforcement agencies to alert prosecutors of potential police misconduct until after a department completes its internal affairs investigation and substantiates the complaint.
Part of the basis for that, according to Flynn, is that the Minnesota Data Practices Act protects the police personnel data up to that point.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office adheres to the same standard, according to a spokesman for that office.
“You need to have a definitive finding of wrongdoing,” Flynn said.
He pointed out that lots of erroneous complaints get lodged against law enforcement officers. There needs to be a process in place to vet complaints before they affect court cases, he said.
Further, it’s not clear how the federal law is supposed to play out in practice, Flynn said, adding that his office does its best to comply with it.
“Every jurisdiction in the United States handles (this) differently … They haven’t given a lot of direction,” Flynn said.
JUDGE TO DECIDE
The two sides made their cases at a hearing Wednesday, and now it’s in the hands of Ramsey County District Judge Patrick Diamond to decide whether Peguse’s case should be re-tried.
The dispute delayed Peguse’s sentencing at least three times. He faces three to seven years in prison if his conviction stands.
While Diamond has yet to issue his ruling, he indicated in his remarks Wednesday that he’s skeptical of prosecutors’ assertion that information about officer misconduct can’t be used until a complaint has been substantiated.
Instead, he suggested that it seems more in the spirit of Brady/Giglio that the obligation begins whenever the state — which includes police — uncovers information that may have a bearing on a defendant’s due-process rights.
His decision will probably have a bearing on other cases that Grundei, Wild and their colleagues played a role in. It may open the door for other defense attorneys to raise similar concerns.
Ramsey County authorities say they are reviewing those cases for potential issues.
HOW WE GOT HERE
To understand how Peguse’s case arrived at this juncture, it’s important to know about the case that raised questions about Grundei’s and Wild’s conduct as officers.
The two, as well as three other St. Paul police officers, are accused of failing to intervene when they saw former St. Paul police officer Tou Mo Cha allegedly assault and seriously injure a man outside his wife’s St. Paul bar, Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, in June 2018.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office wound up charging Cha with three counts of assault last December. He has pleaded not guilty.
When it learned of the alleged misconduct of officers present at the scene, the police department conducted an internal affairs investigation. Police Chief Todd Axtell announced at a news conference in June that the officers had been fired.
That’s the first Turner or any other public defenders learned of the allegation, she said. It was the first chance she had to piece together that two witnesses who testified against her client during his May trial were under an internal affairs investigation.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office says that was the same time it learned about the incident.
A jury convicted Peguse of second-degree assault with a motor vehicle as well as two lesser charges after the two-day trial.
He was accused of hitting a man with his vehicle near Eastside Heritage Park in St. Paul one night in fall 2016 and causing him injuries that weren’t life-threatening. Peguse says the man jumped in front of his car.
The man was seeing Peguse’s ex-girlfriend at the time.
Grundei and Wild were on patrol in the area at the time, and reportedly caught at least part of the incident on their squad cameras.
Turner maintains that the footage was dark and difficult to see, so prosecutors relied on Grundei’s and Wild’s testimony. No other witnesses testified during the trial.
Prosecutors dispute Turner’s characterization of the squad footage and say the video won the case, not Grundei’s nor Wild’s testimony.
Had the complaints against Grundei and Wild been substantiated by the time Peguse’s case went to trial, it’s likely none of this would be an issue.
AN ISSUE OF TIMING?
Of note, though, at least in Diamond’s eyes, is when the state first realized the legitimacy of the allegations facing the officers.
According to both sides, while the police chief didn’t sign off on the internal affairs investigation’s findings until June, the investigation itself wrapped up in March.
That means at least the officers charged with investigating the complaint knew of the evidence against Grundei and Wild at that time and could have alerted prosecutors of it well before Peguse’s case went to trial.
Sgt. Mike Ernster, a spokesman for St. Paul police, says his department follows the agreed-upon policy in its handling of potential Brady/Giglio issues, which is to turn over information about substantiated complaints, adding that his department takes that duty seriously.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office also takes it seriously, spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said, noting that his office was one of the first to develop a formal process for how to comply with the intent of Brady/Giglio.
But it’s also bound by the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. The act limits its reach in that area, Gerhardstein continued, noting that under it “prosecutors are prohibited from receiving private personnel data on a law enforcement officer until a final disposition of discipline has been made by a law enforcement agency.”
DECISION PENDING
Whether the Ramsey County prosecutors knew about the internal affairs investigation or not, under Brady/Giglio, it should have known, and therefore it was obligated to tell the defense about it, Turner said in one of her final arguments Wednesday.
The court recently granted her access to the internal affairs investigation, and what she learned reviewing it only bolstered her conviction that her client deserves a new trial.
Of the findings within it, she said the officers reportedly lied to investigating officers about their handling of Cha’s case.
“There were multiple false statements made by these officers … (and their) testimony was critical to this case,” Turner argued. “We don’t need to show that we would have won at trial … To get a new trial, we just have to show the confidence of this verdict has been undermined … That’s what we’re saying (happened) here.”
Diamond said he would make his decision “as soon as possible.”