It was shocking to anyone who’s been following this case to see William Willy Quest removed so unceremoniously. When we returned to court in the late morning I again caught up with Brandon’s attorney to try to see why this was happening, and what the results might mean to his youthful and scared client.
Q: What happened in court this afternoon?
A: There’s a firm that has been retained by the McInerney family that is attempting to sub in. And we filed a motion requesting that a guardian ad litem be appointed to see if this is in the best interests for Brandon given the nature of this case, and the expenditures that are going to be required. And that I believe is going to be appointed this afternoon – a local criminal defense attorney who is experienced and knows the nature of what this type of case requires. And then we’ll go from there.
Q: If Brandon’s considered an adult why is a guardian necessary?
A: That’s a good question… He’s considered an adult only for the purposes of the criminal case. He doesn’t lose his juvenile status on anything else. It’s just the nature of the law that says if you’re fourteen we’re going to treat you as an adult, basically, to allow the DA to try this case in adult court. But it doesn’t say that if the DA does that, all of a sudden you lose your juvenile status on anything else. So, whether Brandon knowingly and voluntarily is requesting that this firm be substituted in does require, we think, a guardian ad litem.
Q: What would you say to those people who believe as long as he’s got a legal team everything’s all right?
A: Well, there’s quality of legal teams. So that’s at stake. And this case is going to require a vast amount of expenditures…for this type of case. Because this case is going to require experts, we believe heavy on experts. And experts are not cheap. They require money. And I don’t know the nature of this firm. I don’t want to insinuate anything, but I feel deeply about this case… And I don’t want to see a kid spend the rest of his life in prison. And we’re prepared to expend those resources to see… We think a jury, hopefully, will see our position. If not, then the district attorney’s office. We’re not in it for publicity. We’re in it solely for Brandon, and I can’t say that for anybody else.
Q: Would you stand by Brandon if he asked you to come back into the case?
A: I would.
Q: What is Brandon’s opinion re all this?
A: I don’t want to characterize conversations I’ve had with Brandon.
Q: What kind of resources has your office already expended on this case?
A: I’ve expended over a thousand hours on this case, drafting seven motions, with a whole host of experts, a whole host of investigation, and my investigation team has done over 400 hours. So, just cost, if you had a private firm I don’t want to even come up with the numbers of what that is. But it has been an enormous amount of expenditure. And only someone who is very wealthy or the public defender can basically do those types of expenditures.
Q: So this will save taxpayers money?
A: If that’s what you’re interested in then this is a good decision. If you’re interested in what we think is the best interests of Brandon then we’ll see.
Q: What is Mr. Wiksell supposed to do?
A: To determine whether or not this decision by Brandon’s family – that Brandon agrees to it in a knowing and voluntary manner. To do that Mr. Wiksell’s going to have to determine what this case is going to require, does he realize what this substitution is going to mean? A whole host of things that comes with substituting an attorney at this stage. Although we haven’t had the preliminary hearing there has been a vast amount of work already done on this case, relationships with witnesses. All that is going to be terminated with new counsel coming in. Especially new counsel from out of town – from LA – not familiar with Ventura, not familiar E.O. Green, not familiar with the witnesses. Now that doesn’t mean he can’t do a good job. You have a lot of out of town talent – we just want to make sure that if they’re going to take on this case, they’re going to put in the resources and not do it just for a publicity stunt
Q: Traditionally speaking, isn’t it true out of town attorneys have a tougher time dealing with criminal cases as opposed to hometown attorneys?
A: As a general matter that is typically true…because you’re familiar with both the courts and the judges and also the jurors.
Q: Who has custody of Brandon at this time?
A: My understanding is it’s Bill McInerney.
Q: So what’s going to happen this afternoon?
A: He (the judge) has appointed Mr. Wiksell. And he is going to come in at, I believe, one-fifteen to be the guardian ad litem. Mr. Wiksell is an experienced criminal defense attorney. He has knowledge of what type of case this is. He’s done death penalty cases. He has knowledge of what expenditures and what resources are required in a type of case like this.
Q: So he’s going to talk with Brandon and then make his recommendation to the judge later today?
A: I doubt it will be later today. But he’s going to make a recommendation one way or the other, at some time.
Q: But you’ve already won this motion from the judge’s ruling?
A: I think the court’s going to appoint a guardian ad litem, yes.
Q: Mr. Quest, is there a chance Mr. Wiksell will advise Brandon to keep you on the case?
A: I believe there’s a chance…
Q: What information will Mr. Wiksell have access to?
A: I anticipate that Mr. Wiksell will want outside information and we’ll be happy to provide that.
Q: So that could cause another delay?
A: It’s going to take some time…to do this job adequately. This is too serious a case with too much at stake.
Q: In a thousand hours of work how many documents have you accrued?
A: Well, the discovery from just the district attorney is close to 2,700 pages. And that’s just the discovery the DA has provided. Now there’s also over 17 CDs, DVDs, all those have interviews. We’ve listened to all of those. This is not a case you can just zip in and zip out… This is an extremely witness-intensive case. It happened at a school. There’s a lot of people there. This is a case where the backgrounds of both these individuals is very important. Because Brandon just turned fourteen. Larry King, unfortunately, was just fifteen. This is a very sad tragedy, but, as I’ve said before, I don’t believe Brandon is some crazy killer… Unfortunately, this has happened in other schools. For example, the Virginia Tech incident. There was a history here, a background that has to be gotten into. And if you’re going to represent Brandon you have to understand that in a very detailed manner.
Q: You indicated here before that you wanted to try this case before Brandon’s next birthday, early next year. You wanted to preserve Brandon’s youth for the jury. How does this affect that strategy?
A: That was my desire…
Q: What do you anticipate will happen with Mr. Wiksell?
A: We’ll still be the attorney of record. He won’t appoint this new team until there’s been a decision by Mr. Wiksell… I don’t think the judge will make a decision until he hears back from Mr. Wiksell.
Q: You were fighting some legal motions on the case, what were they about?
A: They were discovery motions. I was trying to get some information on the hate crime allegation the district attorney’s bringing in – an expert who’s a Simi Valley police officer. I wasn’t sure on what theory the district attorney was going on and I wanted information so I could prepare a defense because I was going to try to attack that significantly at the preliminary hearing, because we don’t believe at all that this was a hate crime. Or that Brandon at all had the requisite mental ability when he turned fourteen years old to have any ideology that we believe a hate crime requires. They have to prove that it was substantial motivation – that is that he had some type of bias against Larry King. That the reason he shot Larry King was because of this hatred, this bias that he had. And we think that that wasn’t the case… But there are things in mitigation that mitigates the culpability of Brandon and we don’t think at all that he had any kind of (bias) that was a substantial factor in this tragedy.
Q: One of the reasons the judge gave for denying cameras in the court was that there’s a possibility the case might go back to the juvenile court. Has that been discussed with the DA?
A: There’s ongoing talk. They’ve made a decision that it’s not but they’ve also said they can reconsider… They can always reconsider.
