People v. Myron Deshon Kyle
May 30, 2006OUTCOME: Not Guilty of All Charges
Mr. Kyle was charged 187 (a), Murder, with Secial Circumstances (PC 190.2 [17] and [18])of a violation of PC 206, torture, and PC 207, kidnapping. He was additionally charged PC 207(a), kidnapping; PC ... 206, Torture. The trial began on May 9, 2006 in front of the Honorable Robert A. Barclay, on assignment from the Office of the Courts, in Mariposa Superior Court. The three-week jury trial was prosecuted by Robert Brown, the Mariposa County District Attorney. The jury found Mr. Kyle not guilty of all charges and he was released from Mariposa County Jail the afternoon of the jury's verdict. Two co-defendants, who were charged seperatly from Mr. Kyle and testified against him, were sentenced to prison for their part in the killing of the victim. In Campbell v. Reed (4th Cir. 1979) 594 F.2d 4, and Wilhoite v. Vasquez (9th Cir. 1990) 921 F.2d 247, the informants were deliberately kept ignorant of what the prosecutor would actually do for them prior to testifying. The practice was condemned in both cases as a violation of the constitutional mandate of Giglio: "The fact that [the informant] was not aware of the exact terms of the plea agreement only increases the significance, for purposes of assessing credibility, of his expectation for favorable treatment ... a tentative promise of leniency might be interpreted by a witness as contingent upon the nature of his testimony. Thus, there would be a greater incentive for the witness to try to make his testimony pleasing to the prosecutor." (Campbell v. Reed, supra, at 7-8). "Prosecutors must not do indirectly what the law absolutely forbids them to do directly, i.e., dress up a witness with false indicia of credibility.
