Recap of preliminary hearing

[Transcript] Hello, I’ve finished observing today’s preliminary hearing for Mavrick Fisher’s murder case. It was about four hours total of court proceedings, not including breaks. So it took up the day. I’ve filmed all of it and it will require a lot of editing so I don’t want to rush and release a subpar video tonight as I want to show everything, so I’m moving it to tomorrow, Thursday. The video will show inside of the courtroom. I will go ahead and explain a recap the important things so you have an update.

Firstly, the District Attorney Susan Krones is the prosecutor. Mavrick has a defense attorney, Thomas Feimer.

The judge was a different one from the last time. It’s not clear why the change. It was also a different courtroom. But the case is still the same, nothing was thrown out. The charges are the same.

There were six interpreters today, not like the last time when there was just one. Three of them were CDIs and three were hearing. There were interpreters for Mavrick on the table and interpreters for the floor. The amount of interpreters seems to be more appropriate. Mavrick’s table was still blocked by a barrier, but the judge said it would not be necessary for future court dates.

Those in the audience who supported Mavrick was his mother and grandmother. On Grant’s side, nobody from his family came, but Grant’s ex-girlfriend Paige and two of her friends showed up. So there were five people in the audience and myself.

The DA brought four charges. The first is murder. The second is assault with a deadly weapon — a rock — and a special allegation of great bodily harm because Grant’s body was severely injured from the rock. The third charge said Mavrick took a valuable item, a car, from a dead body. That is considered a crime, a felony. The fourth charge is taking a car with a value of more than $950. The third and fourth charges look the same, but the third is different because it has to do with a dead body. Those are the four charges.

The DA called three witnesses, but the fourth one did not show up. She had a conflict or couldn’t make it. The first two witnesses are both police officers. The first one explained what he saw — he was one of the first officers who went to Grant’s — when he died, his body was put in the car, which was moved away and abandoned near a Dollar General store. But Grant’s body was placed at Lee McCarrell’s ranch. I’ve already explained this in the past and I will explain more tomorrow.

The car that was abandoned — the officer who located it — he explained what he saw in the car. He saw blood, maggots, and flies flying around. I will show his remarks tomorrow.

The second witness is a detective who did an interview with Mavrick after he was detained in Mexico and brought to San Diego. The detective flew there from Lake County and when Mavrick was extradited to the Lake County jail, the detective did a second interview. He explained what Mavrick told him in the interview. I will show you this tomorrow.

The third witness didn’t show up.

Back to the detective — he said that Mavrick said he did kill Grant with a rock, but that it was because Grant tried to stab him with a knife. Mavrick said he grabbed Grant’s hand and had a struggle that led to the rock strikes. That’s what the detective said.

Mavrick’s attorney was strong in saying that Mavrick acted in self defense. The DA disagreed and said it was not self defense because of the use of the rock, his moving the car, fleeing to Mexico, and that Mavrick’s remarks to other people did not match up. The two sides had a back and forth.

So that’s my condensed version. I have more and will show you tomorrow.

At the end, the four charges were examined. The first charge of murder was approved to go into a trial at a later date. The second charge of using a rock to inflict great bodily harm was approved as there was enough evidence for this. The third charge of taking a car from a dead body was a complicated issue that had arguments from both sides. The defense said this was not a malicious removal from a dead body but that Mavrick used the car to transport the body and then left behind the car and communicated with other about where the car was. The DA said the car was maliciously removed from the body. The judge decided to hold off on this for more discussions in the future. So the third charge was “not approved” yet. For the fourth charge of taking a car with a value of over $950, it was approved as there was evidence for it.

The next date will be on November 5th. I saw that it was an arraignment hearing again, like the previous one with the plea of guilty or not guilty. It’ll happen again on November 5th. I don’t understand why and I will ask experts for clarifications. My quick assumption is that the previous arraignment hearing was more about stating Mavrick’s charges and that the defense indicated their direction on pleading guilty or not guilty but that it was not a formal entry. The next date on November 5th I assume will be a more formal entry of a “not guilty” plea, so it can set things in motion for a future trial.

There was no discussion on when the trial would start and the jury selection. But the judge did make remarks about the barrier behind Mavrick (he said it had to be taken down) and spoke about interpreters for the trial and making sure that Mavrick would get a fair trial. The word “trial” was said again and again so it means there will be a trial.

November 5th is the arraignment, so it means the trial could be in December or January or February. The trial seems like it will happen next year. That’s my assumption.

That’s my recap for today. Tomorrow we’ll have a more extensive video with a timeline, what the officers said, what the defense said, and what the DA said.

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