Walmart shooting defense lawyers subpoena former prosecutor for upcoming hearing
by Robert Moore, El Paso Matters
October 14, 2024
A former top prosecutor in the Walmart mass shooting case who has criticized District Attorney Bill Hicks has been subpoenaed by the defense to testify at a hearing into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.
Defense lawyers for mass murder suspect Patrick Crusius issued a subpoena on Oct. 3 to Loretta Hewitt, who worked under Hicks in 2023. She has been ordered to appear at an Oct. 31 hearing before 409th District Court Judge Sam Medrano.
The subpoena does not specify what information Hewitt is asked to provide, and doesn’t require her to produce any specific documents. When contacted by El Paso Matters about the subpoena, Hewitt said: “I’m not able to speak about the matter.”
Hicks also declined comment to El Paso Matters, saying “it will reveal our strategy on how we intend to deal with the likely use of the information that they apparently are intending to bring to court with them on the 31st.”
Defense attorney Joe Spencer also declined to comment, citing a gag order issued by Medrano in the Walmart shooting case.
Hewitt was mentioned in one of the prosecutorial misconduct allegations raised in a defense motion last month. The motion said Hewitt, then an assistant district attorney, issued a subpoena on May 1, 2023, to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office for records of visits to Crusius by defense psychological professionals, “to include the doctor’s name, notes, findings, diagnosis, prescriptions and dates and times of the visits.”
The records were released to the DA’s Office two days later. Defense attorneys said prosecutors violated Crusius’ 6th Amendment rights to a fair trial by obtaining records of his interactions with defense psychological professionals, as well as separate efforts to obtain records of visits to Crusius by his legal team.
Defense lawyers have said Medrano should consider dismissing the charges against Crusius or removing the death penalty as a possible punishment. Medrano scheduled the Oct. 31 hearing to explore the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, which Hicks has denied.
Crusius, now 26, faces 23 counts of capital murder and 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in an Aug. 23, 2019, shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart. Crusius pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges and was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison, which carries no possibility of parole.
In his guilty plea, Crusius acknowledged that he authored an online screed shortly before the shooting that said he was acting to “stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
He pleaded guilty to the federal charges after the U.S. Justice Department decided against seeking the death penalty. The government has refused to explain its reasons for that decision, but at his guilty plea, prosecutors highlighted that he had been diagnosed with serious mental illness.
The prosecution of the state charges was delayed until the federal case concluded, and was plagued by problems under former District Attorney Yvonne Rosales. She resigned in December 2022 as she faced a trial that could have led to her removal from office for incompetence.
Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Hicks, a Republican, to replace Rosales, who was a Democrat. Hicks is seeking a four-year term as district attorney in the Nov. 5 election and is being challenged by Democrat James Montoya, who is a former prosecutor on the Walmart case.
Most of the prosecutorial misconduct allegations made by the defense involve Rosales’ term in office, but some include actions during Hicks’ tenure. One allegation – that prosecutors obtained recordings of phone calls between Crusius and his attorneys – included a period in 2020 when Montoya was on the case.
Hewitt resigned as assistant district attorney in November 2023 after less than a year on the job. In an exit interview with the county obtained by El Paso Matters under open records laws, Hewitt criticized Hicks for politicizing the Walmart mass shooting case and not providing her with resources necessary to prepare the case for trial.
“I was told shortly after being hired that every decision regarding the Walmart case would be done to get Mr. Hicks reelected to positively affect his reelection campaign,” Hewitt wrote in her exit interview.
Hicks denied the accusations and said it was “a cynical, horrible thing to say.”
At the time of her resignation, the District Attorney’s Office described Hewitt as the “number one attorney in charge of organizing the case, preparing the witnesses and disclosing the discovery to the defense,” but also said Hicks was the “first chair” in the state case against Crusius.
Hewitt now works as a defense attorney in El Paso, according to State Bar records.
Crusius’ attorneys issued two other subpoenas on Oct. 3, both to Channel 7-KVIA seeking unedited video of a press conference Hicks gave on Sept. 12 following the most recent hearing in the case.
KVIA news director Sean Flanagan declined comment on the subpoena.
Several news stations recorded the press conference, which Spencer and other defense lawyers watched from a few feet away.
Spencer declined comment to El Paso Matters on why he sent a subpoena to KVIA and not other news stations. He also declined to comment on whether defense lawyers complied with a Texas law that prohibits subpoenas of journalists and news organizations for unpublished material unless “all reasonable efforts have been exhausted to obtain the information from alternative sources.”
