Lawyers accuse DPS of bullying witness in Phoenix freeway-shootings case

A new court motion filed by defense attorneys in the Phoenix freeway-shootings case alleges that law enforcement misled a grand jury and bullied a key witness, all in an effort to make sure charges against Leslie Merritt Jr. stuck, according to court documents.

Merritt., 21, of Glendale, was arrested and charged in connection with the first four shootings in a string of incidents along Valley freeways in late August. He has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to charges in early October.

Several vehicles were struck by bullets or other projectiles, mostly along Interstate 10, but no one was seriously injured in the attacks.

On Friday, Merritt's attorneys filed a motion in Maricopa County Superior Court accusing state Department of Public Safety officials of bullying his fiancee and withholding key information from the grand jury during a hearing in late September. The lawyers are asking court officials to return the case to a grand jury for a review of charges.

"The sum total of the misconduct by the state, including and by and through its agents, is virtually astonishing," wrote Jason D. Lamm and Ulises Ferragut. "Its result was the infection of the grand jury process and the judicial system as a whole in that the grand jurors were deprived of the opportunity to hear all of the evidence that police had uncovered, and not just the evidence that would make the charges stick."

Merritt was indicted on 16 felony charges in four incidents, two of which occurred around 11 a.m. Aug. 29 and one that occurred around 10 p.m. that night, according to the most-up-to-date timeline from the DPS. Officials said the fourth confirmed shooting occurred around 9:45 p.m. Aug. 30.

Within a few hours of Merritt's arrest Sept. 18 outside a Glendale Walmart, Merritt's fiancee was brought in for questioning, the motion said. The questions focused on Merritt's whereabouts during the three separate Aug. 29 shootings.

His fiancee told investigators she was with him all day Aug. 29, the motion said, an alibi repeated by Merritt via his attorneys during a motion filed in mid-October. However, she recanted her statements after detectives bullied her by threatening to charge her and her family with domestic terrorism, the defense attorneys allege.

According to a transcript in the motion, the following conversation occurred during the interview:

Investigator: "OK. Right now, listen up. There's a thing called a  domestic terrorism charge.

Fiancee: Yeah.

I: OK? That's what you're looking at. OK? That kind of includes the whole family. OK? If you have knowledge of what's going on, I strongly suggest that you tell us right ...

F: I don't know what's going on.

I: Because you will be included.

Merritt's fiancee then told investigators she wasn't with him Aug. 29, according to the transcript.

"The foregoing excerpts represent just some of the investigators' attempts to bully, intimidate and threaten the witness into recanting the alibi she gave the defendant," the attorneys wrote in the motion. "The same excerpts make clear that no matter what the witness said to make clear that she was with the defendant on August 29th, investigators wanted to hear none of it as, in their minds, they already had their man."

The attorneys also accused DPS investigators of lying to Merritt's fiancee by telling her they had video of Merritt committing the shootings, when they in fact did not, the motion said. They acknowledged a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Frazier vs. Cupp that permits police to use deception during interrogations but called the DPS' tactics "bullying," "misleading" and "shameless."

"While the Supreme Court has held that it is generally permissible for law enforcement to lie to a suspect being interviewed, this rule most certainly cannot be applied to a witness in the instant case," the lawyers wrote.

Later in the motion, the attorneys accused the state of not presenting all the facts in the case to the grand jury. They said the state presented cell-site analysis of Merritt's "Obama-phone," a government-subsidized cellular phone that provides users with a limited number of minutes per month, but did not provide jurors with analysis from a Verizon phone provided to Merritt by a family member of his fiancee.

Merritt and his fiancee used the Verizon phone when they were together, the lawyers said in the motion. Cellphone analysis from the Verizon phone placed the defendant at or near his Glendale home at the time of at least two of the incidents, the defense lawyers maintain.

The lawyers are asking the judge in the case to take up the motion and send the case back to the grand jury.

"The defense believes that following such a course will provide an open and transparent inquiry that will result in a finding that, once and for all, the defendant is not the I-10 Freeway Shooter," the lawyers wrote.

Attorneys on either side of the case and the DPS cannot comment on the case because they are under a gag order.

Merritt is still being held in jail on the charges. A judge decided to lower his bond from $1 million to $250,000 during a hearing in mid-November, citing the defendant's lack of criminal history and negative drug-test results.

He is next scheduled to appear in court Dec. 16.