‘They didn’t care’: Judge criticizes Sacramento mass shooting suspects as trial date set

A Sacramento Superior Court judge determined that two men, accused in the worst mass shooting in Sacramento’s history, will head to trial after a 10-month preliminary hearing concluded Tuesday.

Attorneys painstakingly pieced together and dissected the chaotic moments after nearly 115 bullets in about a minute ricocheted through 10th and K streets through hundreds of people. Six people died and 12 were injured as clubs and bars downtown let out in the early morning of April 3, 2022.

Deputy District Attorney Brag Ng and Kristen Andersen maintained defendants Mtula Payton, 30, and Deandrae Martin, 29, associated with rival gang members who’s confrontation led to a deadly outcome. Payton and Martin face three counts of murder in the shooting deaths of innocent bystanders Yamile Martinez, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and Melinda Davis, 57.

“Both sides of men decided to look at and see who the biggest man on the corner was,” Ng said. “And the end result was that three innocent women were killed.”

Defense attorneys said there’s no evidence their clients harbored any ill-feelings toward gang members and only fired their weapons out of self-defense.

Judge Maryanne Gilliard rejected the self-defense argument, noting there was enough evidence to show opposing gangs provoked one another. The defendants will stand trial based on Gilliard ruling there’s probable cause the suspects may have committed the crime, a lower standard of proof than what’s required for jurors to consider at trial.

“They didn’t care that there were innocent bystanders out on that street,” Gilliard said, calling the shooters cavalier and callous for their brazen violence around crowds of innocent people.

Martin’s brother, Smiley Martin, 29, was also charged in the shooting but died from a methadone overdose while in custody at downtown Sacramento County Main Jail.

Prosecutors have not charged the defendants with the deaths of Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, 32; Sergio Harris, 38; and Devazia Tuner, 29, because they say all three were involved in the gunfight.

The preliminary hearing, which began in January, lasted until Tuesday due to attorneys’ hectic schedules and a voluminous amount of discovery to review and question witnesses about.

Sacramento police Detective Shaun McGovern, the lead investigator for the mass shooting, combed hundreds to thousands of hours of video footage to compile a timeline of several individual’s whereabouts that night. The prosecution’s gang expert, Lt. Zach Eaton, said a police report in the case was 1,300 pages long with a separate report on suspects’ social media accounts amounting to 40,000 pages.

The preliminary hearing wrapped up Tuesday with defense attorneys conducted their cross-examination of Eaton, which grew heated at times and resulted in Gilliard reminding the witness and attorneys to let one another finish before speaking.

Payton, a member of the G-MOBB gang in a subset called Guttah, faced off with a group that included the Martin brothers, members of the rival gang 29th Street Crips, Eaton testified previously.

It was Smiley Martin, 29, who uploaded several videos just hours before the shooting that sparked a “challenge” to rival gangs, Eaton had testified.

Smiley Martin filmed himself and several others in the 2500 block of Traction Avenue in Old North Sacramento waving handguns and talking.

Notably, Eaton testified, Smiley Martin said he was in the territory of a rival gang as a Garden Blocc Crip, a larger group that also contains the 29th Street Crips.

The Old North Sacramento area is synonymous with the Del Paso Heights Blood gangs, Eaton said, and enemies to Smiley Martin. Videos posted by Martin showed his car and gun — which Eaton said were provocations to rival gang members to confront him if they have a problem.

But Eaton said Tuesday during cross examination that he was not aware of the personal relationship between Smiley Martin and Payton and didn’t know if they talked before the shooting, according to testimony elicited from defense attorney Reid Kingsbury, who represents Payton.

There was no animosity between Payton and the Martin brothers, Kingsbury said. This is apparent because Payton was hugging Smiley Martin the first time that they met, he said.

Payton fired in only self-defense and was not the initial aggressor, Kingsbury said. His client shot his weapon for 8 seconds after two of the women had already been killed, Kingsbury said.

Sacramento police detectives have not testified about who fired the first shot in the shooting.

Linda Parisi, a defense attorney representing Martin, said Harris, who was killed in the shooting, was among those who fired the first shot because his associate got into a verbal argument.

Deandrae Martin did not fire the gun until his brother was shot several times, and only fired after two of the women were killed, Parisi said.

“We know there is a significant amount of shooting not just from these named individuals,” Parisi said, who also added it’s not certain which person wielded the gun that fired fatal shots.

Deandrae Martin is also not connected to any gangs, she said. Eaton testified under cross-examination that Deandrae Martin hasn’t had any contact with law enforcement since 2010.

The suspects will appear Nov. 4 for another arraignment. A trial was tentatively set to begin in January.

This story was originally published October 15, 2024 at 2:25 PM.