ALAMOSA — Proceedings began Monday morning in the case of a then 15-year-old Alamosa juvenile who has been accused in the Oct. 27, 2022, shooting of Alamosa Police Department Officer Mollee Heeney and Alamosa resident Ricardo Rangel.

The case, heard by 12^th Judicial District Judge Crista Newmyer-Olsen, consists of two hearings: a preliminary hearing to determine if there is probable cause to bind the case over to district court for prosecution and a transfer hearing to determine if the juvenile, who was 15 at the time of the alleged incident, should be tried as an adult.

District Attorney Anne Kelly is prosecuting for the state. Attorneys Cobea Becker and Maralana Schoenfelder, both of Pueblo, are serving as counsel for the defense.

Immediately after calling the court into session, Judge Newmyer-Olsen laid out the rules of conduct, also asking if witnesses needed to be sequestered — that is, seated in another location where they couldn’t hear the testimony of other witnesses. Counsel agreed that would be preferable.

Newmyer-Olsen then stated that there is an absence of case law (often used as a precedent in filing motions) in transfer hearings and that, to the best of her knowledge, only one other transfer case has been heard in the 12th Judicial District, which was in her court in 2008. She said if either counsel had case law with which she was unfamiliar, she would ask them to present that to the court. She was also clear in stating that preliminary hearing standards apply, meaning that the standard of proof is not as high as what is required in a trial.

Kelly declined to make any opening statement but stated that she would be presenting information and calling witnesses for both the preliminary hearing and transfer hearing at the same time out of a desire for “judicial efficiency” as many of the witnesses she planned to call would be testifying in both hearings.

Becker said that Kelly would have to tell the court which witnesses were being called for which hearing, at which time Kelly said that all witnesses were testifying in both.

Becker said that any evidence related to the other offenses the juvenile has been charged with — not related to the alleged shooting — would apply to the transfer hearing only, and Newmyer-Olsen agreed.

At that time, there was no indication that the court had any problems with how Kelly planned to present her case.

From the beginning, there was an air of contention in the courtroom with the defense frequently objecting based on a lack of relevance or, what they viewed as, Kelly leading the witness. Kelly responded to each objection.

At one point, Schoenfelder objected to Kelly referring to the juvenile as “the defendant”, citing this was not a trial. Kelly apologized and said she was unaccustomed to being in juvenile court and would watch her references.

Then, when Kelly referred to the juvenile by only his last name, Schoenfelder objected again related to Kelly’s tone, reminding the court that her client is a “child”.

Kelly called APD Detective Jason Russell to the stand and began to question him about the events of that day.

Kelly questioned Russell about how the incident impacted him and made him feel, questions that are taken into account when determining if a juvenile should be tried as an adult. Russell had to pause before answering because of the anger he was feeling.

Schoenfelder repeatedly took issue with Kelly’s questions about how Russell felt, stating that questions of impact are limited to the victim. Kelly countered that the statute includes impact on a community and officers on the police force for Alamosa are certainly members of the community.

Newmyer-Olsen allowed the questions about impact to continue.

Schoenfelder then repeatedly objected to the manner of Kelly’s presentation, arguing that questioning witnesses for both the preliminary and transfer hearing is not logical as, should the case not reach the level of probable cause, no transfer hearing would be necessary.

Her objections continued, including her stating that “in all the juvenile cases I have been involved in over the state since 2010, I have never seen proceedings handled like this.”

Newmyer-Olsen said she was not interested in what other judicial districts did but in what the law states, and the law did not clearly state that the hearings had to be separated.

Schoenfelder persisted in her objections, frequently stopping Kelly’s questioning, and calling the proceedings “a mess.” She reminded the court that her young client — should the case reach the level of probable cause and the judge rule for him to be tried as an adult — could be facing 8-32 years in Department of Corrections, and, as such, he deserved for his case to be handled in the logical manner she outlined. She also stated that the evidentiary standards were different in a preliminary hearing and a transfer hearing.

Newmyer-Olsen then essentially changed her position and ruled that Kelly should present her case as strictly a preliminary hearing with the transfer hearing to be heard after the preliminary was completed and the judge had ruled on whether the case should head to district court.

Kelly, visibly frustrated, countered that she “has spent months preparing for the case”; completely changing how she will be allowed to present her witnesses when the proceedings were already two hours in put her at a distinct disadvantage.

Newmyer-Olsen said that the court would recess for 20 minutes while Kelly prepared her presentation for the preliminary.

After lunch, Newmyer-Olsen came back into the courtroom and cited child law related to transfer hearings that seemed to support, at a statutory level, the need to hold the two hearings separately.

Kelly then cited, for the record, state statute that states the evidentiary standards for both the preliminary and transfer hearings are, in fact, identical, directly refuting one of the objections made by the defense.

Repeated objections — related to relevance, leading the witness, hearsay, opinions provided by officers who are not deemed to be expert witnesses — continued to be made by both the defense and the prosecution throughout the afternoon with little witness testimony being given without frequent interruptions.

As far as the rest of the week, defense indicated that they were calling in two expert witnesses, one from Denver and another from out of state. The second expert witness would not be able to testify until Thursday morning, essentially guaranteeing that the proceedings will go through Friday.

The substance of the testimony provided by the four APD officers questioned in court along with the two remaining witnesses to be called by the prosecution will appear in the Wednesday edition of the Valley Courier along with what, based on the questions asked by attorneys on both sides of the table, appears to be the core of arguments to be made.