Mayor Explains Hard Decision on Rejecting $750,000 Settlement

Thursday night Mayor Lee Leffingwell and the Austin city council, in a 4-3 vote, rejected a settlement proposal for $750,000 with the family of a man slain by Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana.  The shooting, which happened in May 2009 outside of an east Austin apartment complex, killed Nathaniel Sanders and injured Sir Lawrence Smith.  Officer Quintana approached a vehicle occupied by Sanders and Smith, and it was believed Sanders was sleeping.  But as Quintana got closer to the vehicle, the officer believed Sanders to have woken and that he was reaching for a gun.  That's when Quintana fired the shots that killed Sanders.

The event sparked outrage and a continuing heated relationship between members of the community and the Austin Police Department.  Earlier this summer, a settlement proposal reached the desks of the Austin legal department.  The terms of the settlement would give the Sanders family money in exchange for the family to drop the city and Quintana from a lawsuit.  Thursday, Leffingwell expressed his opposition to the settlement, but acknowledged several city council members supported the settlement.

The council eventually rejected the proposal, but by a very narrow margin.  Friday, Leffingwell released a statement explaining his decision and why he wants the case to be decided by a Travis County jury.  Here is Leffingwell's response to the community (photo from Statesman.com).

Last night the Austin City Council voted 4-3 to allow the legal case surrounding the death of Nathaniel Sanders II to proceed to trial.  I joined the majority in voting against the proposed settlement.

This was perhaps the most difficult decision that this Council has faced over the past year, and it’s easy for me to see how reasonable people would disagree about the best path forward.   I don’t condemn anyone's point of view, or their vote.

This was a tragedy for the Sanders family, and a tragedy for Austin as a whole. Unfortunately, nothing that we do is going to change that.   That much is simple.

But the facts of the case are complex, as evidenced by the different conclusions that different people and groups have reached after reviewing the facts as we know them.

I think it was reasonable, from the taxpayer's perspective, for the city’s legal team to have recommended a settlement that they believed could be less than the possible cost to taxpayers to move forward with litigating the case.  I understood the business case.

I also understood the emotional appeal of settling.  Some have argued passionately that this settlement would have helped to heal the Sanders family, and I do not discount the importance of that.   My heart goes out to this family.  If there was something meaningful that I could do to make this situation better for them, I would do it.

But ultimately, after thinking and talking about it for many months, I believe that what's most important in all of this is to understand as best we can exactly what happened that night, so that we can then do everything possible to prevent it from happening again.

It would be a huge failure on our part not to learn from this tragedy.  That should begin with determining, as completely and as impartially as possible, exactly what happened.  I believe the most appropriate place to do that is in the courtroom, in front of a jury.

I’m fully aware that my decision was hurtful to some in the community, and I regret that.  I would like to have been able to make a decision last night that would have perhaps provided some immediate relief to people who I know are suffering. 

But I believe that our larger and longer-term responsibility – as difficult as it may be emotionally – is to make a full, fair and final determination about exactly what happened, so that we can then get on to the work of trying to keep it from happening again.

Mayor Pro Tem Discusses Terms of Possible Shooting Settlement

Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez spoke candidly to AM 590 KLBJ talk show host Jeff Ward Tuesday about the possible settlement between the city of Austin and the Sanders family.  The city is proposing a sum of $750,000 to settle with the Sanders family, who lost their son, Nathaniel, after Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana shot and killed him outside of an east Austin apartment complex.

Martinez, who says he was on vacation at the time the city reached a potential settlement agreement, returned to learn about the situation.  After numerous discussions with city officials, Martinez said he reached his own decision, opposing the settlement and asking for the case to be tried before a judge and jury.

"I can assure you and the citizens," Martinez told Ward, "that it's not just $750,000 in the settlement agreement.  There are going to be provisions in the settlement agreement that stipulate that we can't discuss this moving forward; that we can't bring out conversations that were had in mediation; that we can't bring out information that was shared in the negotiated process.  That to me is inappropriate."

On the show, Martinez defended his position and his belief the city council will decide the right course of action.  "My decision... is based on what I believe is best for this entire community.  We can't move forward... if we don't fully vet this out," said Martinez.

Martinez told Ward the city is hiring an attorney to defend Quintana, who fired the fatal shots that killed Sanders.  Martinez points out the eventual termination of Quintana from the Austin Police Department because of a DWI charge, cannot be used in the trial, according to a judge's ruling.

Click the play button above to listen to the Martinez interview, conducted by Jeff Ward on the Jeff Ward Show, heard on AM 590 KLBJ Tuesday, July 20, 2010.  Content is edited.

Jury Doubles Convicted Woman's Prison Sentence

A week-long sentencing retrial for a woman previously convicted of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension in a 2005 murder case did not end the way she expected. The jury slapped 26 year old Laura Hall with the maximum sentence possible under the law: 10 years in prison for the tampering with evidence charge, and one year for hindering apprehension.

In 2007, Hall was found guilty of mutilating the body of Jennifer Cave, after Colton Pitonyak shot and killed the 21 year old woman. On a separate charge, the jury also found that she helped Pitonyak run away to Mexico, avoiding a call to authorities after seeing Cave's lifeless body on the bathroom floor of his apartment. Six days later, police caught up with the couple across the border.

But because prosecutors in the trial withheld evidence, an appellate court threw out the five year sentence originally given to Hall. Her conviction, however, stuck.

Monday, a jury selection process, which started with 120 people on the panel, weeded the pool down to nine men and three woman. Prosecutors, led by Travis County Assistant District Attorney Allison Wetzel, began presenting witnesses on Tuesday, including some of Hall's former cell mates.

"She [Cave] was just a dancer. That bitch deserved to die," said one of Hall's former cell mates recalling what Hall said about Cave in a conversation. Later in the week, Wetzel told the jury the witness had nothing to gain from testifying.

The state presented brand new evidence in court also - 19 phone calls Hall made from jail following her first sentence. The calls allowed the jury to hear Hall's frustration from being in jail, threats she made on Cave's family and her own parents, and, according to the state, the excitement she felt over violence. In one call to an unidentified man in 2008, Hall became fascinated about a story of a man jumping from a ledge at a mall several stories high. The unidentified man told Hall how the person almost landed on children which could have killed them. Hall became fascinated by the story, heard in her voice.

Defense attorney Joe James Sawyer began calling witnesses to the stand late Thursday, shortly after prosecutors rested their case. Loren Hall, Laura's father, talked about his daughter and maintained her innocence. During cross examination, Wetzel became frustrated with him for pronouncing his personal beliefs over his daughter's innocence. Wetzel firmly argued with him this trial is about punishment, not guilt or innocence.

The defense's tactic failed to work, however. Sawyer's focus remained on Colton Pitonyak, hoping the jury would find him responsible for the entire murder and mutilation. Sawyer continued to claim Pitonyak had control over Hall and that she was scared for her life. That's the reason, he says, she drove him to Mexico.

"You tell me if you believe for one second he ever listened to anyone tell him anything to do; that he didn't exist as the center of his universe and use others," Sawyer said in closing statements.

A DNA lab technician told the jury Hall's DNA can be excluded from some of the tools used in the mutilation of Cave. However, Hall's DNA was found on the pistol believed to have been the murder weapon, as well as several other objects in the apartment. That, said the state, confirms Laura Hall was in the apartment the morning of Cave's murder August 17, 2005, and that she participated in the mutilation.

"Make no mistake, we want it all," said prosecutor Christopher Baugh, an Assistant District Attorney.

For the Cave family, who watched the trial without speaking to the media, the sentence is a bittersweet victory. "How can you be satisfied when your child is gone?" asked Sharon Sedwick, Cave's mother. "There is no satisfaction. Do I feel like justice has been done, do I feel like justice has worked? Yes."

This was the Sedwicks third trial. They were in the courtroom during Pitonyak's trial and when the jury handed him a 55 year sentence for their daughter's murder. They were also in the courtroom during Hall's first trial. Asked if a sentencing retrial made him angry, Jim Sedwick, Cave's stepfather, said no.

"The system worked as it's supposed to work," he said. "Laura Hall, through the system, was entitled a new trial. The system worked as it was supposed to have worked."

The Hall family left the courtroom shortly after the verdict was read. In the hall, Loren told reporters he felt like his daughter did not receive a fair shake in the courtroom and stands by Laura. Hall's attorneys could not be reached for comment. An appeal is planned.

Hall's sentences will run concurrently. She also must pay $14,000 in fines - $10,000 on the charge of tampering with evidence and $4,000 for hindering apprehension.