Opinion ID: 2567623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Larry Montez

Text: Larry Montez's August 30, 2002, declaration was jointly submitted to the referee. In 1980, Montez was in custody and housed in the cell next to Saucedo. Saucedo described to Montez how he had stabbed a Black drug dealer. Montez wrote what Saucedo had told him in a letter (the Montez letter) and notified police about what Saucedo had told him and about the letter. When police detectives talked to him, Montez signed the letter, which accurately describes what Saucedo told me. After he was released from custody, Montez met with one of the detectives at a restaurant in the City of Wilmington, where he talked further about Saucedo and his killing of the Black guy. In 1994, Montez found himself again in jail with Saucedo, and he got to talking with Saucedo because I was cutting his hair. Saucedo told me again that he killed the Black guy and said, `at least I know I got away with something.' As far as Adam Miranda goes, Saucedo said, `fuck that guy, he can go eat fish.' During the time petitioner and Saucedo were jointly charged with the Hosey murder, Montez was offered a deal by then Deputy District Attorney Ito in exchange for his testimony against Saucedo. On November 20, 1980, Ito wrote a letter to Deputy Los Angeles City Attorney Timothy Hogan confirming a telephone conversation in which Ito had informed Hogan that Mr. Montez has agreed to testify as a witness for the People at both preliminary hearing and trial for an early release from the County Jail sentence he is serving on an unrelated matter. Ito's letter also confirmed Hogan's agreement that given the severity of the murder cases and the materiality of Mr. Montez's information and testimony, [Hogan] would not oppose a request by the District Attorney's Office to modify Mr. Montez's sentence as outlined in the letter. Notwithstanding these arrangements, Montez ultimately was not asked to testify at any trial. If Adam Miranda's lawyers had asked me to testify at his trial, he declared, I would have been willing to testify about what Joe Saucedo told me. I would have testified that Joe Saucedo admitted to me that he killed the Black guy and that what Joe Saucedo told me I wrote down in the [Montez letter].