MARTINEZ — Just one day after a murder defendant stabbed his own lawyer and attacked a prosecutor in a rare act of courtroom violence, a Contra Costa judge on Tuesday called the jury into his courtroom for a heart-to-heart.
“I can’t ask you to erase that from your mind and unring that bell, it’s impossible,” Judge John Kennedy told the 12 jurors and five alternate jurors. “But I want to ask you each to discipline yourself to decide this case fairly, only on the evidence.”
Jurors were polled individually. Three expressed doubts that they could be fair, but said they’d try. Kennedy left them on. One man — Juror #2 — said he could not.
“No, I truly don’t think so,” the man replied when Kennedy asked if he could leave Monday morning’s incident out of his decision-making. Kennedy excused him and replaced him with a randomly-selected alternate.
And with that, the trial was back on. Prosecutor Kevin Bell — still bearing a scratch on his hand from the Monday courtroom violence — called his final witness. Sitting a few feet away, defense lawyer Matthew Fregi prepared for cross-examination, with cuts on his head and lower chin still visible.
Noticeably absent from court was 28-year-old Ramello Randle, the defendant who allegedly grabbed Fregi’s pen and used it to stab the defense lawyer twice before charging at Bell on Monday, authorities said. Randle somehow freed himself from a restraint device before the attack.
But Randle’s absence was his choice, not the court’s. Despite his courtroom outbursts — which include cursing out a previous judge, wishing death on Bell at a prior hearing, throwing a punch at his old lawyer before Fregi and finally the Monday incident — he still has a Constitutional right to attend his murder trial.
Randle waived that right, Kennedy said in court Tuesday, reminding jurors that the waiver — like Randle’s violence — had “nothing to do with what happened four years ago.”
Randle is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, 24-year-old Jonaye Lahkel Bridges, amid a bitter custody dispute. Police say he equipped a tracking device to Bridges’ car and followed her to a 7-Eleven in Antioch, where he allegedly opened fire into her parked vehicle.
Bridges was killed and a man she was with was wounded. Prosecutors charged Randle with murder, attempted murder, and lying in wait, and he faces life without parole if convicted.
Randle has done a lot to stall the court process. During his first trial, he served as his own lawyer, but it didn’t go well. After calling his mother as a witness, Randle exploded at Bell during cross-examination, telling the homicide prosecutor he hoped he’d die in a car wreck on the way home and telling Judge Charles “Ben” Burch, “I’m not your b—-” when Burch told him to stop.
As a result, Randle lost his ability to represent himself and a mistrial was declared. Randle then threw a punch at his next attorney, Lawrence Strauss, during a pretrial hearing in court last fall. Law enforcement sources who witnessed the incident say Randle tripped and fell during the swing and deputies arrested him.
That earned Randle his in-court restraint device, which he apparently unbuckled or cut through before the Monday stabbing frenzy. Authorities say the incident remains under investigation and no new charges have been filed as of yet against the Oakland resident.
Before Tuesday afternoon’s hearing, Fregi and Bell were both stopped outside the courtroom by well-wishers who’d heard of the incident and wanted to console them.
The trial resumes Wednesday with closing arguments.