Update: Capital murder case cleared for trial
The El Paso District Attorney’s Office confirmed with ABC-7 that the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals has issued a decision affecting the capital murder trial of Luis Solis-Gonzalez.
The appeals court has denied the assertion by the defense that all 200 pieces of evidence need to be tested for DNA evidence before proceeding to jury trial.
Read the conclusion here.
Solis-Gonzalez is facing capital murder charges and a potential death sentence for the the killing of Cassaundra Holt, 13, her mother Marysol Saldivar and Saldivar’s boyfriend, Eric Desantiago. Their bodies were found on May 31, 2012 inside a home in East El Paso.
Solis-Gonzalez was arrested the following day. He is being held without bond in the El Paso County Jail.
A law recently passed by the Texas Legislature allows for defendants to have all evidence that may contain biological substances tested before proceeding to trial. Solis-Gonzalez’s court-appointed attorney, Joe Spencer, had argued in district court in May 2015 that it was his client’s right to have all evidence tested. The motion was contested by the prosecution and was ultimately sent to the appeals court for review, further delaying the trial by almost a year.
“What would be a real tragedy is if we rushed to trial in this case and there was some procedural error, or constitutional error (and) 10 to 15 years from now we are trying this case again,” Spencer had told ABC-7 in an interview in February of this year.
Waiting nearly four years for a trial has been taking a toll on the families of the victims. Holt’s grandmother, Cassaundra Robinson, talked about the delay with ABC-7 in February.
“It’s bad enough that they’re gone and the way they left us. But to have this thing hanging over our heads — it’s almost like we’re doing the time,” said Robinson. “It’s almost like we’re imprisoned. We are. We’re in a jail that we never put ourselves in.”
An administrator in the district attorney’s office told ABC-7 the office is still waiting to hear from the judge on when the case will be set for trial.
