Attorney argues for most Gazlay charges to be dropped

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

The attorney for alleged 311 Boyz gang member Steven Gazlay, 19, argued Friday that all but the coercion charge against his client should be dropped in the maiming of 17-year-old Stephen Tanner Hansen at a party July 18.

James "Bucky" Buchanan told District Judge Michael Cherry that the grand jury transcripts show Gazlay was hugging one of the witnesses at the time the rock went through the truck window and hit Hansen. At most, he says his client exchanged words with Hansen and sat on the tailgate of the truck he was in.

"How does sitting on the tailgate of that truck ... add up to battery and attempted murder?" Buchanan said.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Laurent maintained, as shown in the grand jury transcripts, that Gazlay was a key player in drawing the mob out to the truck and inciting the later violence against the three teens inside. Gazlay also threw a bottle at the windshield, according to the transcripts.

Buchanan also asked that the indictment be dismissed on the grounds that grand juror Ralph Smith was prejudiced against his client, having written a letter to the editor denouncing the 311 Boyz. Cherry denied this motion because Smith wrote the letter after having returned the indictments, and because there was no evidence he tainted the other members of the jury.

District Judge Valorie Vega made a similar ruling last Thursday in another pending case where Gazlay is charged with battery with a deadly weapon for allegedly burning another teen with a butter knife.

The butter knife case is set for trial in Vega's courtroom Dec. 2.

In the hearing Friday, Cherry also denied Laurent's motion to exclude writs of habeus corpus and motions of dismissal from Scott Morse and Jeff Hart because they were filed after the deadline. Cherry will hear those arguments Dec. 4. He is expected to decide on the motions for dismissal for at least seven of the 311 Boyz on Dec. 9.