PHOENIX — Over the course of the past two weeks, the seven suspects accused of killing East Valley teen Preston Lord were indicted, arrested and made their initial appearances in court.
The suspects range in age from 17 to 20 and all are charged with first-degree murder. Lord was beaten outside of a house party on Halloween in Queen Creek. He died from his injuries two days later.
To find out what comes next, we brought questions to criminal defense attorney Jocquese Blackwell.
What are some of the complexities that come with working a case with seven co-defendants?
"It's very hard to work a case like this," Blackwell said. "When it comes to the defense, though, there's a lot of things that the defense attorney wants to know before they go to trial, or before they get a plea offer. When there's a murder case, in Maricopa County, most likely they won't get an offer up front. What happens is the attorney has to present information to the state or the prosecutor to request an offer in a case like this."
Could these defendants receive a plea offer?
"Most likely, no one, not one of these defendants is going to have a plea offer for this case, because it's a first-degree murder case," Blackwell said. "Now, if a defendant starts to speak out, and they tell their attorney, you know what, I want to speak with the prosecution or the police and give them some information they may not know, that particular person may get a better offer or an offer that the other defendants won't. I've seen that happen some of my cases."
Some defendants have hired their own private attorneys while others half public defenders. What is the difference?
“I don't think there's a real difference between public defense and private defense," Blackwell said. "I think the stigma is that when you're a public defender, you don't care about your clients, you have too many clients, you're not going to do a good job. But that stigma isn't true. It's been my experience that public defenders have a tremendous amount of experience, more so than private attorneys, because he'd been doing it for longer. And I would say public defenders most likely handle more murder cases than private attorneys as well.”
Blackwell said it is possible some defense attorneys file motions to sever. What does that mean?
“If the court rules in a particular defendant's favor and severing his case, then that client will not go to trial with everybody else. I don't know if the judge will do that. I haven't seen all the evidence. I don't know what the evidence says. But I know in cases that I have, I will file a motion to sever if I believe my client has a mutual exclusive defense," Blackwell said. "I think it's highly unlikely that the court would sever all seven of them."
Blackwell said he is surprised by the lack of gang charges in this case. Gilbert PD and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office continues to investigate a group known as the Gilbert Goons, which has been linked to several group teen assaults.
“I'll just be transparent. If these individuals were living in South Phoenix, and they looked like me or they were brown, then I most likely would see some gang charges," Blackwell said.
How difficult does jury selection become when you have a case that has been so publicized like this?
“It's gonna be hard. I could foresee some attorneys filing some type of motion to get a change of venue motion," Blackwell said.
All seven suspects are due back in court at the end of April. Blackwell said an attorney will likely file a motion to designate the case as complex, adding more time for the case to proceed to trial.
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