"I do not want to speak to whether the victim has been traumatized or not, but there are two sides to a story", date set for case of former Miss Hoopa charged with alleged sexual abuse of a female minor

Today Visiting Judge Arnold Rosenfeld, who is subbing in for Judge John Feeney this week in Courtroom 1 heard a motion to continue from the defense in the Kayla Brown case.  I spoke briefly with Ms. Rebecca Linkous, who is co-counsel on this case. She said the defense is requesting a continuance due to the large amount of discovery they have received and this case "potentially have a serious impact on the life of a very young person," referring to the defendant.

Neither the family of the victim nor the defendant's family was in court this afternoon.

Ms. Linkous made that request in court citing they had just received discovery. And referred to the written motion. The defense was requesting August 12 as the new preliminary hearing date.

Deputy District Attorney Brie Bennett said that "the People oppose the motion to continue." She added that while the People are aware that the defendant had previous counsel, the case has been continued a few times, "every time it gets continued, it is traumatic for the victim."

Ms. Linkous responded, "I do not want to speak to whether the victim has been traumatized or not, but there are two sides to a story."

Judge Rosenfeld granted the continuance with "the condition that there be no further continuances."

Intervention is set for August 17 at 2 p.m. and the Preliminary hearing is set for August 26 at 8:30 a.m.


June 24 post:

Mr. Ben McLaughlin confirmed as counsel for Kayla Brown this afternoon. Rebecca Linkous, also appeared for Brown as co-counsel. Mr. McLaughlin not in court and Ms. Linkous appeared "generally" on his behalf.

Kayla Brown is the former Miss Hoopa charged with alleged sexual abuse of a female minor.

Her preliminary hearing has been on hold since Mr. Jeffrey Schwartz declared conflict. Then her family paid Mr. McLaughlin for two special appearances. 

Victim's family was in court. Brown's family was not in court this afternoon, most likely due to Ms. Linkous stating that  Kayla Brown was "under doctor's care of with a serious condition" and after Judge John Feeney denied the defense request for a 30 day trial setting, she said that they may need to continue preliminary because Brown may not be available for the preliminary hearing. Defense plans to hire an investigator and said they wanted 30 days for trial setting due to more discovery they anticipate from the People.

"Due to no fault of yours," Judge Feeney said to Ms. Linkous, "the case has been continued quite a few times."

Defense request for trial setting was denied after DDA Brie Bennett said that the victim's family was getting frustrated with case being continued. The People objected to the trial setting date in 30 days and instead asked that dates be set for a Preliminary hearing. 

Preliminary hearing on August 12.Intervention on July 22. 

Discovery issues were cited by defense. Ms. Bennett said the People plan to meet with the defense before intervention to make sure discovery is complete and to make sure they received all the discovery that the People had given Mr. Schwartz.

Previous post (with two previous posts and links to all other coverage):

http://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2015/06/miss-hoopa-charged-with-alleged-sexual.html