Wharton County jury will decide Paniagua murder case
District Judge Sklar reverses his earlier decision to support venue change and move case to Galveston
By BARRY HALVORSON halvorson@journal-spectator.com

In a reversal of a previous decision, visiting District Court Judge Daniel Sklar ruled the Guillermo Paniagua Paniagua trial will be held in Wharton County.

The former 329th District Court judge ruled in favor of District Attorney Josh McCown's motion to reverse his previous decision Tuesday morning in the Wharton County Courthouse. He initially approved a change of venue motion made by the defense team of El Campo Attorney Richard Manske and his co-counsel David Kiatta of Houston after the court was unable to seat a jury when Paniagua's trial was originally scheduled for Oct. 29.

While the defense attorneys expressed concerns about the ability of Paniagua to get a fair trial, McCown was confident that would not be a problem.

"I seem to have a higher opinion of Wharton County's citizens than they do," he said, referring to the defense.

"I am sure we can get an unbiased jury. They never change venues in Houston even for the highest profile trials. They were able to hold both the Enron trial and several high profile murder trials there without a problem. A fair juror is one that can look you in the eye and tell you they can be fair. Just because someone has been exposed to pre-trial publicity doesn't mean they can't make the state do its job and meet the burden of proof in its case."

During the hearing, Kiatta argued pre-trial publicity would prevent his client from receiving a fair hearing.

"You'll recall after the original voir dire was held that some jurors approached you (Sklar) about it being hard to get a fair trial in Wharton County. Some of the things said about getting a fair trial were not reflected on the record."

After Sklar announced his decision, both defense attorneys expressed disappointment in the judge's ruling.

"I'm disappointed because I thought he made the correct ruling by moving the trial to Galveston in the first place," Manske said. "But we'll see how it works. Part of the problem with the first jury was the pretrial publicity and that is something no one in Galveston will have heard."

To address the previous jury selection problem, the voir dire for the upcoming trial, scheduled for April 7 in the District Court Annex building courtroom, will be held at the Wharton County Civic Center.

"It will allow us to bring in a much larger jury panel," McCown said.

"Part of the problem last time was that we called 250 people and only 71 showed up."

After the various exemptions and excuses, McCown said the original pool was down to only 26 people.

"That would have left us with only four we could strike for cause and that just isn't a position I was comfortable with," he said.

At the start of the hearing, the 30-year-old Paniagua, listening through an interpreter, pleaded not guilty to a superceding indictment filed by the district attorney's office Sept. 18, charging the defendant with one count of felony murder and one count of failure to stop and render aid in the Jan. 19 traffic death of Needville ISD Police Chief Earnest Mendoza.

In the failure count, Paniagua is charged with failure of "rendering reasonable assistance to Mendoza when it was then apparent Mendoza was in need of medical treatment."

A Department of Public Safety report of the wreck states the collision took place 3.2 miles east of Wharton on FM 1301 near where it intersects with CR 113 at around 9 p.m. Paniagua's pickup reportedly crossed the center line of the roadway and impacted with Mendoza's vehicle.

Paniagua reportedly left the scene on foot and was later taken into custody at the Shell station in Boling, about 5 miles from the crash site.

District Clerk's records indicate the District Attorney's office intends to present records of prior criminal behavior, including four previous DWI convictions. Two of those offenses took place in Gainesville, Ga., on Sept. 29, 1996 and April 29, 1997 while the other two took place in Wharton County on June 6, 2001 and Feb. 15, 2002. Paniagua received probation sentences for each conviction.