Federal judge unseals dozens of files in El Paso Walmart shooting case, but others remain sealed
by Robert Moore, El Paso Matters
November 10, 2025
A federal judge has made public dozens of sealed files from the prosecution of the man who killed 23 people in a race-driven attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, but he still has to decide on a request by El Paso Matters to unseal numerous other records in the case.
U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama signed an order Oct. 30 to unseal more than 50 documents that had been filed between 2020 and 2023 in the prosecution of Patrick Crusius, who faced federal hate crimes and weapons charges in the Aug. 3, 2019, attack at the Cielo Vista Walmart store.
Guaderrama ordered the unsealing after the defense and prosecution both said they had no objection to their release. The newly public documents shed little additional light on the prosecution, other than providing details of a defense request to disqualify U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza from participating in the prosecution.
Filings in federal courts generally are open to the public, but laws allow court records to be kept from the public – an effort known as sealing – for rare and specific reasons. That includes the protection of sensitive personal information, to protect an ongoing law enforcement investigation, or to protect defense strategies from being discovered by the prosecution.
At least 90 motions, orders and documents were filed under seal in the federal case against Crusius.
Crusius was indicted on federal charges in February 2020, about seven months after he fatally wounded 23 people and injured 22 others at the Cielo Vista Walmart. He pleaded guilty to the federal charges in 2023, after the U.S. Justice Department decided not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison.
The gunman also pleaded guilty to state capital murder and aggravated assault charges in April 2025, after District Attorney James Montoya decided not to seek the death penalty. Crusius was sentenced to life without possibility of parole and is currently incarcerated at a state prison in East Texas.
In November 2023, after the federal case against Crusius was closed but while the state case was still ongoing, federal prosecutors moved to make public the documents sealed at their request in the federal case. That same month, El Paso Matters filed a motion seeking to be allowed to intervene in the case for the purpose of arguing for making public all sealed records in the case.
Guaderrama granted El Paso Matters’ request in July 2025, and began a process to review what records to unseal. He began by asking the defense and prosecution to list the documents they had no objection to unsealing.
In September, he ordered the release of several documents entered under seal by prosecutors, after Crusius’ defense attorneys and prosecutors said they had no objection.
Those documents – filed by prosecutors – dealt with the process of providing defense attorneys with evidence gathered by the prosecution, as well as an order for the El Paso County jail to release records to the prosecution about Crusius’ physical and mental health for use in determining whether to seek the death penalty.
Guaderrama’s most recent order involved motions filed by defense attorneys. Most of the records unsealed involved requests to file sealed documents. Guaderrama’s order unsealed the motions and his orders, but not the underlying material submitted under seal.
A number of the unsealed motions appear to involve a change in defense attorneys in 2020. Crusius’ original federal defense team, led by David Lane of Colorado, was replaced by a team led by Joe Spencer of El Paso, which was representing the gunman in the state prosecution.
The reasons for the change have not been made public.
One set of defense documents unsealed by Guaderrama focused on the defense team’s efforts in 2022 to disqualify Esparza, the former El Paso district attorney who was named U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, from involvement in the federal case.
Defense lawyers said Esparza should be disqualified from the federal case because his sister was present inside the Walmart at the time of the shooting.
“It is reported that, during this time, she laid on the ground and pretended to be dead, and in this way she herself avoided being wounded or killed. And she used her cell phone to call Esparza either during or immediately after the shooting,” the recently unsealed defense motion said.
The defense also said Esparza should be disqualified from the case because he had made an announcement in 2019 that he would pursue the death penalty on state capital murder charges.
The Justice Department hadn’t made a decision on seeking the death penalty on federal charges at the time Esparza became U.S. attorney. The agency decided in 2023 not to seek the death penalty, which cleared the way for Crusius to plead guilty to federal charges in February 2023, but Esparza was not involved in that decision.
Guaderrama issued an interim order Dec. 9, 2022, shortly after Esparza was confirmed by the Senate, that he not be involved in the federal prosecution until the judge had time to consider the defense motion for disqualification. That order was among the records ordered unsealed last week.
The Justice Department decided that Esparza wouldn’t be involved in the federal prosecution. The defense motion for disqualification was dismissed by Guaderrama after the guilty plea.
After Guaderrama’s rulings in September and October, at least 20 documents remain under seal in the case, according to court filings reviewed by El Paso Matters. The nature of some of the documents can’t be determined by the public because their entire contents are sealed.
Guaderrama said in his July order that he would hear arguments from the defense, prosecution and El Paso Matters on any remaining sealed records after the initial review by the defense and prosecution.
Guaderrama has not yet outlined the next steps in determining which of the remaining sealed orders could be made public.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
