Paul Flores requests a new trial days before his sentencing for Kristin Smart’s murder
After nine unsuccessful requests for a mistrial, Paul Flores was convicted of murdering Kristin Smart in October. Now, Flores’ attorney is asking to restart legal proceedings for the 10th time.
The motion for a new trial was filed Friday in tandem with a motion for a judgment of acquittal, which asked the judge to overturn Flores’ October conviction by a Monterey County jury because the trial evidence did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury found Flores guilty of first-degree murder in October after hearing evidence for three months, while a separate jury acquitted his father, Ruben Flores, of helping his son conceal the crime.
Paul Flores faces 25 years to life or life without parole.
Robert Sanger, Flores’ attorney, made similar arguments to what he made throughout the trial in his own arguments in front of the jury, his cross-examinations and court hearings where the jury was not present.
The motions will be heard March 10. If denied, Flores’ sentencing will take place immediately after.
Defense: Prosecutor made ‘egregious errors’
Sanger claims that Chris Peuvrelle, who prosecuted the case as a deputy district attorney for the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, made several prosecutorial errors during his opening and closing arguments.
Peuvrelle’s “blatant mischaracterization of the burden of proof” was one of the “most egregious errors,” Sanger said in the motion, particularly in his rebuttal statement that responded to Sanger’s closing arguments.
In his closing arguments, Sanger called the prosecution’s case a conspiracy theory, to which Peuvrelle replied in his rebuttal that it was “absurd” for more than 50 witnesses, six cadaver dogs and the media to be in on a grand conspiracy theory.
“(Sanger) has presented you a binary choice. Is this a conspiracy theory? Is that the truth? Or is it true that Paul Flores is guilty of first-degree murder?” Peuvrelle told jurors in the rebuttal.
Sanger called this statement a “prosecutorial error on its face,” because the way Peuvrelle framed it makes it seem like the defense has to prove Flores didn’t kill Smart, when in actuality the burden of proof falls on the prosecution regardless of whether the defense decides to present a case.
“While the prosecution’s error, standing alone, requires that the verdict be set aside, it was compounded by the deliberate manipulation and misstatement of the defense argument,” the motion added.
Sanger’s argument was an analogy that said the prosecution’s case was equivalent to a conspiracy theory — not that it was one, the motion said.
“It was patently false that the defense argued that there was actually a conspiracy, let alone that the jury had to believe that the 50 witnesses and six dogs had conspired,” the motion said. “This aggravated the prosecutorial error in suggesting that there was a binary choice presented by the defense that the jury accept that there was a conspiracy of all these witnesses and dogs.”
All of the defense’s arguments were based on evidence presented to the jury, the motion said, and the people’s evidence was “severely flawed.”
But there isn’t ever a binary choice for jurors between the prosecution theory and defense theory, the motion said, because only the prosecution has to prove whether the crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt.
The other “blatant” error by Peuvrelle, who is now a supervising attorney for Monterey County, occurred when he asked jurors in his rebuttal argument if it looked like the woman in the graphic ball gag photo was having fun, the motion said.
The photo was admitted into court only to corroborate statements from the two women who testified that Flores raped them. The two women both said they were ball-gagged, and the photo was shown only for the limited purpose of proving that Flores owned a ball gag that looked similar to the one described by the women.
According to the motion, Peuvrelle argued in chambers the judge did not need to give the limiting instruction to jurors because “he was a ‘professional’ and could be trusted” to only portray the photo for the purpose of showing that Flores owned a ball gag.
But in his rebuttal argument, Peuvrelle referred to the photograph and asked jurors, “Did it look like that woman was having fun?”
The defense cannot be heard after the prosecution’s rebuttal argument.
“This was not only a violation of the court’s ruling but also extremely prejudicial,” the motion said. “This was inflammatory and designed to evoke passion and prejudice on the part of the jury.”
Sanger said there was no opportunity to address the unlawful use of the photo during the trial and because of the limited purpose it was admitted under, it couldn’t be addressed during testimony or during the defense’s closing arguments.
“Defense counsel was powerless to address this highly inflammatory and improper use of the photograph since the prosecutor used it to sandbag the defense in rebuttal,” the motion said.
Sanger did briefly address these issues in a motion for a mistrial directly after Peuvrelle’s rebuttal, but the judge denied the motion.
The motion also claims Peuvrelle made several factual errors in his opening statements, where he summarized soon-to-be-heard witness testimony to the jury.
Prosecution ‘overreached’ with its experts, defense said
Sanger reiterated arguments he made during pretrial motions about the forensic evidence the prosecution presented to trial, claiming the prosecution ”overreached.”
He said the prosecution’s expert witnesses were not experts and testified authoritatively without a scientific basis.
“As it played out in the trial, this prosecutorial overreach resulted in dramatic testimony, some of which caused emotional outbursts among the jurors, while ending up not establishing proof based on anything but unfounded, yet impressive-sounding, opinion,” the motion said.
All forensic evidence the prosecution showed jurors was “junk science,” and challenges to prosecution experts are virtually never successful, the motion said.
“The court now has to honestly evaluate the effect of this junk science as it played out in front of the jury. There is no question that during this trial junk science of the worst kind was used by the prosecution in the worst way,” the motion said. “The prosecution capitalized on (junk science) in an emotional appeal to sway jurors by passion and not fact.”
Archaeologist Cindy Arrington’s testimony was “guesswork,” the motion said, and her claim that the bathtub ring found under Ruben Flores’ deck was created by blood did not have a scientific foundation and was based on false information.
“Nevertheless, this had the dramatic effect of causing an emotional breakdown on the jury and causing the juror to say that this was the first evidence she saw that indicated the defendant was guilty,” the motion said.
The motion also argues that the cadaver dog alerts should not have been admissible because there is no precedent for it in California, maintaining that a dog alert is supposed to lead to evidence, not be evidence itself.
Sanger’s arguments for the other forensic evidence were similar to what he argued throughout the trial, noting that there is not a validation study for testing for human blood in soil after 25 years, no blood was found on the mattress cover or in the van, and that the little DNA evidence found was “uninformative.”
Prosecution illegally ‘concealed’ alleged rape victim went to Cal Poly, defense claims
In the motion, Sanger claims several of the prosecution’s witnesses gave testimonies that were “false or reasonably known to be false,” alleging at least one committed perjury.
He said Jennifer Hudson, who testified that Flores admitted to her he killed Smart in 1996, perjured herself on the stand, and he alleged the prosecution allowed it, even though detectives failed to corroborate her story.
The motion argues many of the witnesses were influenced by Chris Lambert’s “Your Own Backyard” podcast, or the podcaster himself.
Sanger also claimed the prosecution “concealed” the fact that one of the women who testified she was raped by Flores, Rhonda Doe, went to Cal Poly in 1996, “during the drama and accusations against the defendant.”
This alleged concealment is a violation of 1963 landmark Supreme Court ruling Brady v. Maryland, which ruled that the prosecution has to turn over all evidence that could exonerate a defendant, the motion claims.
Sanger said this alleged concealment was “intentional” and shows a “grossly negligent failure to be candid with the court and counsel,” the motion said.
Rhonda Doe and Sarah Doe, the other woman who said Flores raped her, also should not have testified to begin with, the motion said.
In order for their testimonies to be admitted, the charged act had to involve a sex offense. The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office charged Flores with murder in the commission of a rape or attempted rape, but failed to prove that Smart was raped at all, the motion said.
“There was no evidence of a sex offense at all and no evidence of a murder,” the motion said.
Sanger also claimed the judge “erroneously excluded” defense evidence, including a man who claimed Smart was stalking him, one of Smart’s ex-boyfriends and another man who claimed Smart told him she was pregnant with his child. Smart’s psychological report was also not admitted into the trial but should have been, the motion said.
This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 9:04 PM with the headline "Paul Flores requests a new trial days before his sentencing for Kristin Smart’s murder."
