Coronavirus affects investigation and leads to continuance in Rio Dell homicide case, is also a factor whether Ahumadamendoza will be released

Demetrius Coleman and Alma Ahumadamendoza had a preliminary hearing rescheduled for April 1.  For many reasons, all impacted by the coronavirus, the preliminary was continued to July 28. There is a status of preliminary hearing scheduled for June 23.

Coleman  is  charged with murder and special allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm which caused great bodily injury or death to Johnny Renfro. Ahumadamendoza is charged as an accessory after the fact.

Coleman's attorney Ms. Andrea Sullivan made a motion to continue the preliminary hearing. Deputy Public Defender David Celli represents Ahumadamendoza and he did not object to the continuance. Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Schaffer did not object either and said Ms. Sullivan had good reasons to request the continuance.

Judge Kaleb Cockrum granted the motion to continue.

Ms. Sullivan met with Coleman last week. She said due to the coronavirus, Coleman could not personally appear in court, she had difficulty with getting investigation done and there was outstanding discovery.

Mr. Celli told Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis during the initial call for the preliminary hearing calendar that he wanted to address Ahumadamendoza's "custodial status." This is Mr. Celli's third attempt. Judge Kaleb Cockrum officially called the case and he denied release for Ahumadamendoza today.

On March 14, Judge Lawrence Killoran denied supervised release for Ahumadamendoza. On February 13, supervised release was denied for Ahumadamendoza.

Mr. Celli repeated the reasons he mentioned at the last hearing and I covered those, on detail. That post is linked below. Mr. Celli addressed the flight risk issue again today. He said no warrant had been issued when Ahumadamendoza fled from Humboldt County. She tried but couldn't surrender before she was arrested. Mr. Celli mentioned Ahumadamendoza's "medical state" and that she has no prior criminal record.

Ms. Schaffer said that it was not appropriate to rule on Mr. Celli's request without further referral for supervised release. "While I do agree with counsel that circumstances have changed," she said that the jail was in a better position to evaluate the risk to Ahumadamendoza.

"The Court is concerned," said Judge Cockrum stating the charges are serious. He denied release and that "medical neccesity requires a different type of motion."

Mr. Celli is filing a motion to address Ahumadamendoza's bail.

Coleman and Ahumadamendoza's cases were called separately. Both Coleman and Ahumadamendoza entered a general time waiver today.

The hearing was interrupted due to audio and visual issues and,it was very hard to hear dates and Judge Cockrum. Coleman even mentioned that during the hearing. Tech issues could be due to several outages being reported, including Zoom.

Previous post:
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2020/03/pregnant-with-her-co-defendants-child.html?m=1#more
(with links to previous coverage on this case)