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Larissa Schuster's attorney requests new trial
Larissa Schuster's defense attorney has filed a motion for a new trial, claiming the judge who presided over Schuster's trial did not provide jurors with important instructions that could have led to an acquittal and improperly removed a juror.
Attorney Roger Nuttall's legal motion, filed late Friday, may be his final chance to raise questions about whether the trial was conducted properly before Schuster is sentenced. Over the past four months, he has filed motions with the Fresno County Superior Court and the California 5th District Court of Appeal that delayed Schuster's sentencing. But it appears that the sentencing will go forward May 16 unless Nuttall's motion is granted.
Motions for a new trial are routine and often denied by judges, but Nuttall has said that his arguments carry significant weight. He already has won a few legal battles since Schuster was convicted in December.
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Schuster to call Fagone a killer
VAN NUYS -- When Larissa Schuster takes the witness stand later this week to defend herself against the charge of murdering her husband, she will point an accusing finger at a man already convicted for the crime -- James Fagone, a 25-year-old former employee at Schuster's research lab.
Schuster, a 47-year-old former biochemist from Clovis, will say that on July 12, 2003 -- two days after her estranged husband went missing -- Fagone confessed to her that he killed Timothy Schuster, according to a motion filed Monday by Larissa Schuster's defense attorney, Roger Nuttall, in the Los Angeles County courthouse where the trial is being held.
Fagone was convicted last December of first-degree murder after admitting he played a role in the killing.
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Fagone may not testify
One man says he saw it all. James Fagone says he saw Larissa Schuster knock her husband out, put him in a barrel and pour hydrochloric acid over his body.
But Fagone, who is locked up in state prison serving a life sentence for his role in Timothy Schuster's death, is not expected to testify in Larissa Schuster's murder trial, which will begin with the prosecution's opening statements Monday.
Fagone, who is appealing his conviction, doesn't have to testify because the Fifth Amendment protects him from self-incrimination.
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Judge moves Fresno acid murder trial to Van Nuys
The trial of Fresno biochemist Larissa Schuster, accused of murdering, kidnapping and torturing her husband, will be held in Van Nuys, a Fresno County Superior Court judge decided Thursday.
Schuster, 46, of Clovis, was charged with co-defendant James Fagone in the murder of her husband, Timothy, whose acid-drenched remains were found in a locked storage unit five days after he disappeared from his home.
With intense media coverage of the case from the first day, defense attorneys immediately asked for a change of venue when Schuster and Fagone were initially charged. The request was denied at the time.
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Judge refuses to move trials in acid-barrel case
The "acid lady case" as it has become known won't be tried out of town. For now, at least.
That is the decision Fresno County Superior Court Judge Wayne Ellison made Tuesday after attorneys for Larissa Schuster and James Fagone argued for a day and a half that their clients couldn't get a fair trial here.
The attorneys said the whirl of media attention over the 2003 death of Timothy Schuster whose acid-drenched remains were found in a storage unit that his wife had rented tainted any potential jurors.
The trial of a Clovis biochemist accused of killing her husband and pouring acid on his body is scheduled to begin Oct. 15 in a Los Angeles County courtroom, more than four years after she was arrested.
On Monday, prosecutors, defense attorneys and a Fresno County Superior Court judge began what likely will be a week's worth of discussions on the ground rules for the upcoming trial.
Roger Nuttall, defense attorney for Larissa Schuster, said Monday that the pretrial motions will "help shape the course of the trial."
Schuster, 46, is accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing her husband, Timothy Schuster. The two were in the middle of a bitter divorce when his remains were found in a barrel of acid in Larissa Schuster's rented storage unit in July 2003.
Last month, Judge Wayne Ellison granted a motion to move the trial out of Fresno County because the murder trial of Schuster's co-defendant, James Fagone, had received intense media coverage.
In December, a Fresno County jury found Fagone guilty of murder, rejecting his argument that he was intimidated into joining the gruesome murder plot.
Ellison on Monday said the trial will start Oct. 15 in Department 114 of the Van Nuys West courthouse in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.
This week, both sides are taking up various motions associated with the trial, which cover everything from media coverage to whether certain potential witnesses will be allowed to remain in the courtroom when they are not on the stand.
One part of Monday's hearing dealt with Timothy Schuster's employment records from Saint Agnes Medical Center.
Nuttall wants them as evidence for the trial. In court, he said he may have an expert testify on "battered person syndrome," and he commented that the evidence request pertains to Larissa Schuster's emotional state during the couple's divorce proceedings.
Ellison made no decision on whether the records will be part of the trial.
The jury pool will be 150, which both Nuttall and prosecutor Dennis Peterson said was sufficient.
On Oct. 15 jurors will fill out questionnaires. By midweek, jurors will come into court for individual questioning, and Ellison hopes to have jurors seated by the end of Oct. 18. Opening arguments would then start the following Monday.
It appears that Fagone will not be called as a witness by either side in the trial, but Nuttall said afterward that he expects Schuster to take the stand in her own defense.
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