By Ethan Fry,
MILFORD — Manslaughter and assault charges filed against Raul Valle in the stabbing death of Fairfield Prep student James McGrath at a Shelton house party should be dropped because of the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy and other grounds, his lawyer argued in a new motion filed in the case.
Valle, whom a jury acquitted of murder during a trial last year in McGrath’s 2022 death, still faces charges including reckless manslaughter after the 12-member panel deadlocked on lesser charges.
An 18-page motion Valle’s attorney, Darnell Crosland, text messaged to reporters late Sunday night argued that “there is only one rational basis on which the jury could have returned four unanimous acquittals: it found that the State failed to disprove self-defense.”
“No other theory explains the acquittals,” Crosland wrote in the motion, arguing the not guilty verdicts mean the case should be thrown out.
“You cannot simultaneously hold that Mr. Valle acted in justified self-defense — as the acquittals necessarily establish — and that he acted with criminally unjustified recklessness, as conviction on the pending charges would require,” the motion, which also cites the legal principles of collateral estoppel and the right to a speedy trial, reads.
In an interview following the trial, the jury’s foreman said the issue of self-defense never came up during deliberations since the panel acquitted on murder and intentional manslaughter, but ended deadlocked on the charge of reckless manslaughter, with 11 of the jurors voting to convict and one holdout.
In a statement, Crosland said Valle “acted in lawful self-defense when surrounded and fighting for his life.”
“Those acquittals are final and untouchable,” he said, calling the continued prosecution of his client “prosecutorial harassment.”
“The jury has spoken,” he said. “The law is clear. The court must dismiss these charges with prejudice — immediately.”
In a statement Monday, Michael Rosnick, an attorney representing McGrath’s family in lawsuits filed against Valle and others, said that the McGraths have faith Valle will be convicted in the case.
“The McGraths still believe in the criminal justice process and are confident that there will be justice for Jimmy,” Rosnick said.
The defense motion anticipates prosecutors will argue that “a hung jury on the lesser counts permits retrial without double jeopardy implications,” but said a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case “forecloses that argument.”
“The deadlock on the lesser counts tells us nothing about the jury’s reasoning, cannot retroactively alter what the acquittals established, and cannot be used to circumvent the constitutional bar to retrial,” the motion says.
In addition, the motion says that “retrial on the pending charges is barred because the reckless offenses are lesser-included offenses of the intentional offenses of which Mr. Valle was acquitted,” and that a new trial “cannot proceed without relitigation of facts that were necessarily decided in Mr. Valle’s favor.”
“The extraordinary circumstances of this case compel dismissal,” the motion says. “Raul Valle was sixteen years old at the time of this incident. He has been on a $2,000,000 bond since his arrest in May 2022 — nearly four years. He endured a full jury trial on charges including murder and walked out of that courtroom with four unanimous acquittals in his favor. The jury spoke.”
The motion is dated April 15. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Marc Durso, who is leading Valle’s prosecution, did not respond to a message seeking comment, but in a reply memorandum filed Monday, said the defense’s citations of prior cases is “misplaced” and their arguments about self-defense are incorrect.
“The defendant is mistaken because self-defense is a justification defense, not an essential element of any of the charged offenses, and a decision on the issue of self-defense favorable to the defendant necessarily is not embodied in the verdicts of acquittal,” he wrote.
While Valle was acquitted of all the charges in the formal information filed in the case before the trial — murder and three counts of intentional first-degree assault — the jury did not arrive at verdicts on lesser-included charges including manslaughter and reckless first-degree assault. Prosecutors filed new charges immediately charging him with reckless first-degree manslaughter in the death of McGrath.
“The fact that the jury acquitted the defendant of murder, intentional manslaughter and intentional assaults, but could not reach a unanimous verdict as to the reckless charges, demonstrates only that the jury must have reached the conclusion that the defendant lacked the specific intent to either kill or to cause serious physical injury,” Durso wrote.
“Had the jury actually reached the question of self-defense and unanimously concluded that the state failed to disprove self-defense, the jury would have reached a unanimous verdict on all charges because they were informed that self-defense was a complete defense to all charged crimes,” the prosecutor’s memorandum said. “In light of the verdict actually rendered, the defendant cannot demonstrate that the jury “necessarily” concluded that he acted in self-defense.”
Durso also wrote that Crosland’s invocation of Valle’s right to a speedy trial was “devoid of any legal support or meaningful substantive analysis,” which prevented the state from responding intelligently.
Valle is also charged with two counts of reckless first-degree assault in the stabbings of Ryan Heinz and Thomas Connery Jr., and one count of reckless second-degree assault in the stabbing of Faison Teele.
During the trial, Valle took the stand in his own defense and recounted the stabbings on the night of May 14, 2022, that left McGrath, a Fairfield Prep student, dead and Heinz, Connery and Teele injured, claiming he was acting in self-defense.
The fight stemmed from an an earlier altercation between Shelton High and St. Joseph High School teens at a different house party.
Witnesses said Valle and other teens later showed up in a car at the house party in Shelton. A crowd of party-goers mobbed the vehicle, witnesses said. When Valle and another teen went back to confront the crowd, another fight broke out during which Valle stabbed the four victims.
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