according to a Pew Research Center analysis<\/a>. About 9 in 10 pleaded guilty, and 8.2% had their case dismissed at some point in the judicial process, Pew found, citing data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.<\/p>\nOnly five criminal defendants were acquitted in the Central District of California in fiscal year 2024, according to statistics from the federal judiciary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcquittals anywhere are pretty rare and especially in a succession like the one we\u2019ve seen lately,\u201d Ortega said. \u201cWe do get acquittals in our office, but the difference here is that we\u2019ve never had a back-to-back string in the same general subject matter. That\u2019s unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortega said the office has more aggressively taken these cases to trial \u201cbecause we see weaknesses in how they\u2019re charged and we see defenses there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe success we\u2019re having is not random, we\u2019re all working together to figure out how to go after these cases and win them,\u201d Ortega said.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s losing streak at trial began months before Lopez found himself in a downtown courtroom.<\/p>\n
Brayan Ramos-Brito\u2019s case was the first to go to trial in September. U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino testified that he witnessed Ramos-Brito strike a Border Patrol agent during a June protest.<\/p>\n
The jury came back with an acquittal after a little over an hour of deliberations. A juror who spoke to The Times outside the courthouse said Bovino\u2019s testimony had \u201cno impact\u201d on their decision.<\/p>\n
Ortega, who cross-examined Bovino, said it was that verdict that signaled to him that something had shifted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally thought, OK, these cases are going to be difficult for the government to win, if top ICE brass is testifying and it\u2019s not credible enough for a jury,\u201d Ortega said. <\/p>\n
In the ensuing months, deputy public defenders secured an additional three acquittals for defendants charged with assaulting federal officers. Among them was the case of Alexandria Augustine, accused of assaulting a federal officer with an umbrella. An investigator for the office testified that she had to use a special scale to weigh the umbrella, because it was less than a pound.<\/p>\n
The office, which has handled every case that\u2019s gone to trial so far in the district, also secured an acquittal for a client charged with stealing government property by towing an immigration agent\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n
Last month, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said on X that recent legal defeats in Los Angeles were the result of \u201cmass judge and jury nullification, deep in blue territory, of slam-dunk assault cases against federal law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortega pushed back on the claim of jury nullification \u2014 where jurors acquit even though they think prosecutors have proved their case \u2014 pointing out that Miller \u201cwasn\u2019t sitting in the audience watching the evidence and the testimony being received.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would find it hard to square the argument that there was jury nullification with the evidence that was presented at trial, which caused the jury to find for the defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortega added that the wins have \u201csolidified a sense of community and a sense that we\u2019re all a team,\u201d and \u201cdone great things for our morale.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sense of relief you get from knowing your client\u2019s story has been vindicated, they\u2019re not looking at custody time and a conviction, that makes you feel proud and it reminds you why you wanted to be a public defender in the first place,\u201d Ortega said.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
The office\u2019s latest trial, that of Lopez, played out over several days last month.<\/p>\n
Abel, a supervising deputy public defender, and Nickell, both tasked with Lopez\u2019s defense, were no strangers to protest-related cases. Nickell handled another where the client took a plea deal; Abel won the umbrella trial and had two that resulted in guilty pleas. <\/p>\n
Many clients take pleas, Abel said, because of fear \u201cof the unknown.\u201d Some clients, she said, have family members who are undocumented \u201cand they are worried that if they don\u2019t plead guilty, it will draw unnecessary attention to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez said continuing with his case took a significant toll. He said he agreed to be laid off from his job as a metallurgical technician because of the days he would need to miss while in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a prison in a sense outside the prison,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cIt takes a toll on someone\u2019s psyche. I felt like I was under a microscope by the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he had reason to hope. His defense team was accustomed to winning at trial. Abel, who has been with the office for eight years, has lost at trial only once, in a split verdict \u2014 guilty of one charge, not guilty of the other. Nickell, who has been with the office since 2024, secured an acquittal in the first trial she handled.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Abel and Nickell introduced videos that their team had tracked down, showing the federal officer seemingly walking into Lopez\u2019s camera and then shoving it back toward him. They told jurors that the officer\u2019s \u201cexcessive force\u201d resulted in a large cut on Lopez\u2019s hand that drew blood. The defense lawyers acknowledged that Lopez pushed the officer back but argued it was in self-defense.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Atty. Rahul Hari told the jury that Lopez \u201cdid not act in reasonable self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t about protecting himself, it was about getting even,\u201d Hari said. <\/p>\n
In her closing argument, Abel said Lopez was the one attacked, not the other way around. The officer, she said, \u201ccould not stand being photographed, could not stand when someone did not immediately bend to his will.\u201d She displayed a slide to jurors that read: \u201cBully with a badge.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is what you\u2019ve seen with your own eyes in the videos the defense has shown,\u201d Abel said. \u201cWhen Mr. Lopez tried to protect himself from an advancing, angry officer, he became the one accused. The truth is, Isaias Lopez is not guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n
After hours of deliberation, and at one point requesting that testimony be played back, jurors reached their verdict on Jan. 29. Lopez, Abel and Nickell sat expressionless as the clerk read it aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot guilty.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lopez\u2019s mother, seated in the front row of the gallery, burst into tears. Lopez immediately turned and embraced his attorneys.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re free,\u201d Abel told Lopez.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m free,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As they waited for jurors to return a verdict, the lawyers were on edge. Rebecca Abel and Kyra…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":570572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[109997,1582,276,6517,15158,18741,24099,248151,13155,248152,2961,224,5337,1812,4531,142057,248153,12433,2326,1628],"class_list":["post-570571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-acquittal","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-case","tag-client","tag-defendant","tag-immigration-enforcement","tag-isaias-lopez","tag-jury","tag-l-a-public-defender","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-office","tag-officer","tag-ortega","tag-rebecca-abel","tag-trial","tag-u-s-attorney","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116023925357830972","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}