TS Gallegos: Retrial will 'likely' delay Moore decision 07/13/2007

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos said Thursday that it's “highly likely” the retrial he's currently picking a jury for will further delay a decision on whether to file criminal charges against the Eureka Police officers who shot and killed a woman during a standoff in 2006.

Last month, Gallegos told the Times-Standard he wouldn't be pressured into a decision regarding the April 14, 2006, shooting but that he wanted to come to a conclusion before the end of the retrial -- now projected to last into October.

Cheri Lyn Moore, 48, had a known history of mental illness when police stormed her Eureka apartment during a two-hour standoff in which she was seen brandishing a flare gun. It was the first in a series of police involved shootings.

Gallegos has blamed a “bottleneck” in his office for the lack of a decision in the Moore case.

”Again, it's very frustrating,” said Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen, who was hired after the shooting. “It's an open wound on the department and the community.”

Nielsen said he couldn't understand the delay and that there has been sufficient time to make a decision.

”It's certainly as important as anything else on his desk,” Nielsen said.

The attorney representing Moore's family, W. Gordon Kaupp, said in an e-mail that a delay in the criminal decision will delay action on the civil suit filed in late May against the city, the Eureka Police Department and individual officers.

”Although the depositions in the federal civil rights action will likely not take place sooner than three months, if he continues to keep the decision regarding the criminal case in limbo it will cause great disruption to the civil case,” Kaupp said.

“There is no reason for not being able to come to a decision about this in one year. I can think of no other murder that took a district attorney's office so long to make a decision about filing charges, convening a grand jury, or announcing that no charges will be brought,” he said.

Jury selection began this week in the retrial of the 1991 homicide case Gallegos is prosecuting. The trial is estimated to last three months.

Chris Durant/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 07/13/2007 04:28:09 AM