Retired judge is caught on tape saying it would be 'great' if 2 murder defendants are convicted
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Four men convicted in the death of a vanished 74-year-old socialite are seeking to overturn their convictions based on secretly recorded comments by the California trial judge who oversaw their cases.
Judge David Downing of Riverside County called two of the murder defendants “assholes” and “clowns,” and declared that he would not grant them separate trials, even though a single trial would be improper, the Desert Sun reports. Downing’s comments to staff were recorded on a laptop of one of the defendants during a trial break.
A combined trial for the defendants, Kaushal Niroula and Daniel Garcia, is “every prosecutor’s dream,” Downing said on the 2012 recording. One defendant will “take the stand and say, it wasn’t me. It was him. The other one will take the stand and say it wasn’t me, it was him. Then the jury convicts them both. That’s great. That’s why I won’t sever anything. Screw that.”
Niroula had sought the severance because sheriff’s deputies had taped his attorney-client conversations and turned the recordings over to prosecutors. The prosecution had claimed the recordings were a mistake and gave copies to both Niroula and Garcia.
The comments by the now retired judge were revealed by a transcript of the recordings supplied by the public defender’s office, according to the Desert Sun. Downing had sealed the recordings, which are kept in a locked evidence vault.
Previous allegations about Downing’s remarks had been made by the defendants themselves. Niroula has previously alleged Downing said he feared catching HIV from envelopes containing Niroula’s pro se motions because he had licked them closed.
“Oh gross, and he is HIV positive. God knows where his tongue has been,” Downing said on the recording.
An appeals court ruled in Niroula’s appeal last year. The court remanded the case and told Riverside County prosecutors to show cause why Niroula shouldn’t get a new trial. Prosecutors have not yet decided how to respond.
The defendants were accused of fatally stabbing Clifford Lambert in his kitchen, stealing his identity and draining his bank accounts.
Downing did not comment when contacted by the Desert Sun.
