Judge Ashworth is on the bench. She’s clearing up a ruling about an objection yesterday over a recorded interview in evidence.

Shane Smith’s attorney Mark Reichel asks the judge to toss out count 4, the machine gun felony. It’s the only charge he faces that his dad doesn’t.

Reichel is pointing to federal case law out of Texas, which he says precludes states from prosecuting federal machine gun laws. The prosecution is arguing h that the decision is not binding in California, which is in a different federal court circuit.

Ashworth says she won’t rule on this motion now, but will allow both sides to submit written arguments in briefs.

Here are some highlights from yesterday:
https://sfba.social/@brandonrittiman/111489362468881259

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The hearing opens with testimony about the searches of Travis Shane Smith’s home, from an El Dorado County DA office investigator who was part the team serving the search warrants.

He says:

Shane Smith resisted when the investigators tried to look in his safe, but complied after the team explained it was part of the search warrant— and that they would call a locksmith if he refused.

Incendiary rounds (ammunition designed to shoot sparks and start fires) were recovered when serving a second search warrant in September.

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DA investigator Gary Malmquist reviews photographs of burn wounds from survivors of the #CaldorFire.

He described life-altering trauma, both physical and emotional, suffered by the victims.

One survivor from Grizzly Flats told him it was “the worst pain of his life” escaping through the flames. The man “thought he was going to die.”

Three victims had to go to UC Davis burn center.

Two of them required skin grafts.

One spent more than a month in the ICU in hopes of regaining the use of his hands.

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Coming back from lunch break, Judge Vicki Ashworth just called all the lawyers into her chambers to talk scheduling.

It's clear that this prelim is going to take longer than 2 days. Judge said she intends to run "continuously" until this hearing is done.

We left off before lunch with testimony about the weapons charges against the Smiths.

One investigator said 2 metal tubes were found in a burn pile while serving a warrant-- these are the silencers that the Smiths are accused of possessing. (a felony in CA)

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Judge Vicki Ashworth says the parties have agreed to hold day 3 of the mini-trial of David and Shane Smith on Wednesday, December 20.

After the hearing, the judge will decide if the evidence is sufficient to make the Smiths stand trial before a jury.

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So far this afternoon we've heard testimony about the device Shane Smith allegedly used to convert his semiautomatic into a machine gun-- and about the phone/GPS location tracking work investigators used to put the Smiths in the location where the fire started.

In other news, this reporter just made the typo "beyond a reasonable donut" in a draft version of the story for #ABC10 tonight. Please send coffee. It's been a couple of long days here.

(And a donut, too. That goes good with coffee!)

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We're *finally* getting into the origin and cause investigation of the Caldor Fire.

US Forest Service officer Matthew Swanson says the earliest images of the fire were taken by the first helicopter on the scene.

These photos helped him locate the origin area of the fire, which was near dispersed (undeveloped) campsites in the forest.

He says he located shell casings in the area. Some of the brass appeared to be fresh. "Some even smelled of gunpowder."

There's not enough time left in the court day to get to a lot of detail on this stuff... court wraps in 25 minutes or so.

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