((HT: Dayton Daily News/Lou Grieco))Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Connie S. Price told attorneys at the Julio Castillo ((pictured, thanks Dayton Daily News/Ron Alvey)) trial that she will take matter under advisement and will issue her verdict in a written decision at a later date.
Castillo’s trial for two counts of felonious assault started Tuesday, but ended with closing arguments Thursday, July 23. Since Castillo waived his right to a jury trial, Price will decide whether prosecutors have proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Castillo, a former pitcher with the Peoria Chiefs, is on trial this week for two counts of felonious assault. The charges are second-degree felonies, punishable by up to eight years in prison, though the charges could merge for sentencing purposes should he be convicted of both.
Castillo was on the mound at Fifth Third Field on July 24, 2008, when a brawl started on the field. Castillo ran off the mound, then hurled a baseball toward the Dayton Dragons’ dugout. The ball went high and struck spectator Christopher McCarthy, 25 (sic), of Middletown, giving McCarthy a concussion.
Prosecutors contend that Castillo threw the ball at an unidentified Dragon with the intent to hurt him. Defense attorney Dennis Lieberman said Castillo aimed at netting in front of the dugout, to warn the Dragons to stay back as the two teams’ managers were pushing each other. Castillo did that because he does not speak English and had no other way to communicate, Lieberman said.
Castillo is charged under two statutory definitions of felonious assault. One requires proving that he did “serious physical harm,” the other that he used a “deadly weapon.”
Assistant county prosecutor Jon Marshall held up the baseball that hit McCarthy, then tapped in on the podium in front of him as he started his closing argument.
“This is the weapon that struck Christopher McCarthy in the head,” Marshall said. “This is the weapon that the defendant, Mr. Julio Castillo, used that evening to inflict as much damage as possible.”
Marshall said that McCarthy clearly suffered serious physical harm, since the ball caused a concussion, pulled out some of his hair, left stitching marks on his scalp and caused swelling that left him unable to wear a hard hat more than a week later.
Marshall also said that the baseball would qualify as a deadly weapon, though it normally is not used that way. He cited prior cases in which rocks, pool cues, baseball bats and bricks were all found to be deadly weapons.
He also said that though Castillo did not intend to strike McCarthy, Castillo should be prosecuted for felonious assault under the doctrine of transferred intent, because “his intended targets were emerging from that dugout.”
Lieberman took issue with those arguments, noting that none of the cases Marshall cited involved a baseball as a deadly weapon.
He also said transferred intent would not qualify because none of the Dragons were in the line of the ball when Castillo threw it. He noted that none of the Dragons players were called to testify.
“He was throwing at an empty dugout,” Lieberman said, tossing the ball into the jury box. “Like an empty jury box. There has to be somebody that he’s throwing the ball at. You can’t just say the Dayton Dragons were in the vicinity.”
Lieberman described Castillo as a “kid in a man’s body,” illiterate in Spanish, the only language he speaks, who grew up in desperate poverty in the Dominican Republic. Castillo, nervous and scared, reacted poorly when he threw the ball, but did not commit felonious assault, Lieberman said.
“It was not a good decision to do,” Lieberman said. “He reacted the best he can with his abilities.”
Assistant county prosecutor Tracey Ballard Tangeman told Price that Lieberman was raising “non-issues” to distract Price from the facts and the law.
She compared Castillo’s throw to someone firing a gun into the crowd. Under Lieberman’s interpretation of the doctrine of transferred intent, the gunman could not be prosecuted unless investigators knew who he intended to hit.
Castillo “doesn’t get a pass because we can’t put a name and number on the jersey of the intended target,” Tangeman said.
As for Lieberman’s point that none of the cases cited involved a baseball, Tangeman replied that Castillo “doesn’t get reward because this is the first case of its kind.”
Here's McCarthy's testimony from our friends at WKEF-ABC22 in Dayton...
Former Peoria Chiefs pitcher Julio Castillo testified Thursday, July 23, that he was trying to get Dayton Dragons players to retreat into their dugout when he hurled a baseball that hit a spectator.
“I threw the ball in front of the dugout, because I was nervous and I was frightened,” Castillo said, speaking through an interpreter. “I didn’t throw it to hit anyone.”
Castillo, 22, who is from the Dominican Republic, only speaks Spanish. He cannot read or write any language. When his defense attorney asked him to spell his last name, a standard question at the start of testimony, Castillo responded “I can’t spell it.”
Castillo, a former pitcher with the Peoria Chiefs, is on trial this week for two counts of felonious assault. The charges are second-degree felonies, punishable by up to eight years in prison, though the charges could merge for sentencing purposes should he be convicted of both.
Prosecutors claim Castillo was acting with anger when he threw the ball that hit Christopher McCarthy, 45, of Middletown. McCarthy suffered a concussion. Castillo’s intent was to hurt a member of the Dragons, prosecutors said.
But defense attorney Dennis Lieberman told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Connie S. Price on Tuesday that Castillo did not intend to hurt anyone. As Dragons players, reacting to a brawl on the field, began to run out from the dugout, Castillo threw the ball toward netting in front of the dugout to keep them from joining the fight.
Castillo threw to ball to communicate to the Dragons that they should stay back, since he could not communicate verbally, but the ball sailed over the dugout and hit the spectator, Lieberman told Price.
On Thursday, Castillo told Lieberman he was on the mound but getting nervous as the teams managers were arguing and starting to shove each other and it appeared a bench-clearing brawl was about to start. When he saw Dragons players leaving the dugout, he reacted, Castillo said.
During cross examination by assistant county prosecutor Tracey Ballard Tangeman, Castillo acknowledged that no Dragons player touched him until after he threw the ball, that no Dragons players were moving toward him in a photograph taken during the incident.
“It was something fast,” Castillo said.
Castillo also told Tangeman that no Peoria players hit any Dragons players before he hurled the ball. Asked if any Dragons players hit any Peoria players before he threw, Castillo answered “I didn’t see it.”
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