Appellate court orders hearing on whether Hispanic jurors were improperly excluded
Attorneys for a Beach Park man convicted of beating his wife and stepson to death with a baseball bat will return to court to argue that Lake County prosecutors improperly excluded potential Hispanic jurors during his 2019 murder trial.
Last week, an appeals court ordered a "limited remand" to the circuit court to decide whether objections to jury challenges during the initial trial of Armando Trejo received a proper hearing.
Trejo, 53, formerly of Beach Park, is serving a life sentence for the 2015 killings of Lailani Uy Trejo, 43, and 14-year-old Patrick K. Cruz Uy.
During jury selection for Trejo's 2019 trial, prosecutors used three peremptory challenges against Hispanic prospective jurors. After the third juror was challenged, a defense attorney for Trejo objected and the judge then asked prosecutors whether there was an ethnicity or background or race-neutral reason they had challenged the third juror.
Prosecutors cited the third juror's statement about being the victim of domestic violence by a former spouse.
Then the defense attorneys asked to hear why prosecutors had dismissed the other two Hispanic prospective jurors. The judge said they could not "go back" and "establish the reason" for those challenges.
The appellate court ruled last week that the judge should have allowed the defense's objections to the first two Hispanic prospective jurors to happen. The appellate court ordered that a new hearing to hear the defense's objections be held before Oct. 27.
Trejo is scheduled back in court for a status hearing Thursday morning.
Trejo admitted during his 2019 trial that he used an aluminum bat to bludgeon his wife and stepson to death. However, defense lawyers Michael Ettinger and Stephen Simonian argued that the Beach Park man reacted with "sudden and intense passion" after seeing his wife sexually abuse his stepson. That should have led to a second-degree murder charge carrying a sentence of four to 20 years in prison, defense attorneys argued.
It took jurors less than an hour to reject that claim and find Trejo guilty of the more serious charges at the conclusion of the eight-day trial.
Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said he can comment on the case more once details are established at the upcoming hearings.
"Our office is committed to ensuring fair trials for all defendants. In this case, our prosecutors followed the Constitution and there was, in fact, a racially balanced jury," Rinehart said.