Tensions related to the prosecution of officer Jeronimo Yanez for the fatal shooting of Philando Castile continued to escalate Thursday as prosecutors filed a scathing response to defense attorneys' attempts to seek reprieve in a higher court.
Yanez's attorneys filed a writ of mandamus with the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday asking it to reverse a trial judge's refusal to grant a change of venue. The Ramsey County attorney's office pushed back Thursday against the uncommon filing, asking for a denial.
"Even putting aside his multiple mistakes and erroneous editorializing," said the first sentence of the prosecution's response, "Petitioner Jeronimo Yanez's attack on the district court's venue ruling is frivolous."
Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Thomas Ragatz, who wrote the request, immediately remarked in a footnote that the defense misspelled Castile's first name as "Philado" on the first page of their document.
Yanez, 29, a St. Anthony police officer, was charged Nov. 16 with second-degree manslaughter and two felony counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm in the killing of Castile, 32, during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights on July 6. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her then-4-year-old daughter were also in the car.
The tenor of the case was struck early when defense attorneys sought to dismiss all charges about four weeks after they were filed, delaying Yanez's pleas in the case. He pleaded not guilty to all counts on Feb. 27 after Ramsey County District Judge William H. Leary III denied the dismissal.
In March, defense attorneys filed about a half-dozen motions in five days, among them a request that Leary move the trial to Brainerd, Duluth, Hastings or St. Cloud.
Although the case received widespread media attention, Leary denied the request, but said the issue could be revisited during jury selection for Yanez's May 30 trial.
