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It sure looks like Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. is being
railroaded by the Arizona DPS!!!
Sadly it happens all the time and most cases are not as obvious.
I-10 shooting suspect: 'I just want to go home and be with my kids' Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com 6:54 a.m. MST April 20, 2016 In the seven months Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. has spent in custody, his message to those who accused him of a string of Interstate 10 shootings hasn't wavered. "I told you guys when I first got arrested I didn't do it. I'm telling you now that I'm going home, I didn't do it," he told the swarm of reporters who rushed him after he emerged from Lower Buckeye Jail in Phoenix on Tuesday evening. "Right now I just want to go home and be with my kids." “I told you guys when I first got arrested I didn't do it. I'm telling you now that I'm going home I didn't do it.” Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. Merritt, the lone suspect in the Valley's high-profile "Freeway Shooter" case, was beaming as he walked out of jail at 6 p.m., hours after a judge ordered his release. Dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, Merritt hugged and chatted briefly with his attorneys immediately after stepping outside. None of the supporters who regularly attend his hearings were waiting outside the doorstep, though one woman was seen earlier outside the jail, talking to his lawyers. It was Merritt’s defense attorney, Jason Lamm, who whisked him away after giving a few statements to the media. The state's case against Merritt appeared to have been thrown into turmoil after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville's ruling in a Tuesday morning hearing. The judge acted to modify Merritt's release conditions after a defense motion that called into question the ballistics evidence that prosecutors say links Merritt to the crimes. Granville found that there was a “material fact” not presented earlier in the case. Granville ordered Merritt's bond be modified to zero from $150,000 but required Merritt to wear an electronic monitor while on pretrial release. Merritt’s release doesn’t bring an end to his case. As of Tuesday, he still faces 15 felony charges, including drive-by shooting and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. There have been no other arrests related to the shootings. At the hearing, Maricopa County prosecutor Edward Leiter acknowledged that the motion was in part based on the findings of a ballistics expert hired by the state. Leiter did not explicitly object to Merritt’s release and said he would defer to Granville’s decision. Strength of case called into question The defense’s motion to modify release conditions was sealed from public viewing, although both prosecuting and defense attorneys alluded to its contents in open court. Legal experts say it’s too soon to predict whether a case dismissal would follow, but they acknowledged that Granville’s move was dramatic. The ruling signals an erosion in the judge’s confidence in the state’s case, said Terry Goddard, a former Arizona attorney general. “It’s not definitive, and it’s not determinate, but it certainly shows that, in the judge’s opinion, it’s not as strong of a case as it appeared when the defendant was arraigned initially,” he said. Defense attorney Jason Lamm offered a blunt assessment of how a recent independent ballistics analysis had affected his client’s case. “There’s no evidence against him. He’s no more the I-10 shooter than you are.” Jason Lamm, defense attorney “There’s no evidence against him,” Lamm told Granville. “He’s no more the I-10 shooter than you are.” The case against Merritt hinges on ballistics evidence. In the Sept. 18 announcement of his arrest, Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Col. Frank Milstead said lab results tied Merritt's gun to four of the 11 incidents. Merritt's alibis neither exonerate nor definitively place him at the scenes of any of the shootings. Public records released last month shed light on investigative details that promised to complicate the state's case. Notably, they showed how Merritt's gun was under lock and key at a pawn shop by the evening of Aug. 30, when one of the victims first noticed something was amiss with his tire. A bullet was later found inside of it. DPS officials later said this was a result of a "run-flat" tire, explaining that its durability would make it possible for the shooting to have occurred days earlier. They adjusted their timeline accordingly, saying that what was believed to be the last shooting was actually the first, occurring on Aug. 27. Witness interviews on the matter, however, provided Merritt's attorneys a ready-made defense. The victim said he was sure he had no issues with his tire when he parked it at the airport Aug. 27. And a service technician said the car's pressure warning would have activated “within a mile” of where the puncture occurred. It is unclear how Tuesday’s events will affect the $10 million wrongful-arrest claim Merritt filed against Arizona officials. Attorneys on Tuesday did not elaborate on details of the independent ballistics analysis, except that it was conducted by local criminologist Lucien Haag. Haag has been previously tapped as an expert witness by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. In 2013, he testified on behalf of prosecutors in the case of Richard Chrisman, the former Phoenix police officer convicted in relation to a fatal on-duty shooting. Haag declined to comment on the Merritt case when reached by phone Tuesday, saying he was bound by a confidentiality agreement. He said it was too early to tell whether he would be deposed in the case. DPS spokesman Bart Graves declined to comment on the decision, citing a gag order imposed by the judge. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are also barred from publicly speaking about the details of the case. Lamm reiterated this directive Tuesday evening outside of the jail as reporters pressed his client for more comments. The attorney promised, however, that there would be “a lot more to talk about” when the case was over. “The guy’s been in a box for seven months, 23 hours a day,” Lamm said. “Let’s let him go home, hug his family, take a hot shower, get to bed. … This isn’t over yet.” More articles about how Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is framing Leslie Allen Merritt Jr.
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