After hung jury, what happens next for the man who killed Deputy Dennis Wallace?
A judge on Thursday afternoon declared a mistrial in the sanity phase for David Machado after a jury told him they couldn’t agree on whether he was insane when he murdered Deputy Dennis Wallace.
The jury, however, did find that Machado was legally sane when he carjacked two people and attempted to carjack a third while fleeing after the murder.
The jury deliberated for just over two days. When they returned to the courtroom, Judge Thomas Zeff asked them several questions about whether more time or clarification would help them come to a decision. They all said it wouldn’t.
The forewoman told Zeff they were split 9-3 in favor of an insanity verdict for the counts of murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm. That was up from a 5-7 split when they first started voting.
Following the announcement, Wallace’s widow, Mercedes Wallace, left the courtroom in tears. When asked to comment on the jury’s decision she said, “not today.”
The same jury last month found Machado guilty of the murder and the other charges, then spent another seven days listening to testimony from mental health workers who treated or evaluated Machado in the years before and after the shooting.
Machado shot Wallace twice at close range after the deputy contacted him at Fox Grove Park on Nov 13, 2016. He than carjacked a couple in Ceres and attempted to carjack two people in Tulare County before he was captured by law enforcement there.
Jury came to ‘two conclusions’
How can nine people think Machado was legally insane when he murdered Wallace but not in the minutes and hours that followed when the carjacking and attempted carjacking occurred?
“I can see a jury coming to the two conclusions,” said Gabriel J. Chin, a professor of law at the University of California at Davis.
According to testimony, Machado had persecutory delusions that the government was out to get him and his family and that it monitored him through a tracking device that was surgically implanted in his wrist.
“The defendant’s theory of the delusion that he was laboring under was that the government was out to get him, not regular people on the street who were the victims of the carjacking,” Chin said. “So the ... nine jurors might have believed that the defendant honestly thought that he was being attacked by the deputy, but that still didn’t justify carjacking people who weren’t part of this government conspiracy to get him.”
Machado was first diagnosed with delusional disorder in 2009. In addition to his delusions about the government he thought he was a child prodigy, about coming up with the idea for the Star Wars movies, inventing the Internet, becoming an attorney at the age of 14 and fathering 135 children all over the world, according to testimony.
Machado’s symptoms were controlled for about five years with the use of antipsychotic drugs, but he stopped taking them two years before the murder when his health insurance changed.
Deputy Public Defender Marcus Mumford said his client “self-medicated” with narcotics, which are known to exacerbate mental illness.
The defendant admitted to using methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana on the day of the murder, according to testimony.
“He didn’t have that ability to recognize reality,” Mumford said during closing arguments.
He said Machado had long feared that the government would kill him and his family and pointed out while questioning witnesses that law enforcement is part of the government.
“It wasn’t some future harm he was worried about,” Mumford said. “He was worried about getting killed in that very moment.”
Machado threatened to ‘shoot it out’
But Deputy District Attorney Melissa Chichportich said that theory wasn’t supported by testimony from forensic psychologist Dr. Phil Trompetter, who interviewed Machado just seven days after the “execution style” shooting.
“Not once after he pulled that trigger two times did he tell Dr. Trompetter that the police were out to get him or his family,” she said during closing arguments.
She pointed to testimony that Machado knew he had a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear at his trial on a different felony case, and that he told several people he would “shoot it out” with police.
“He killed Deputy Dennis Wallace for one reason and one reason only,” Chichportich said. “He wasn’t going to go back to jail.”
After excusing the jury, Zeff scheduled Machado to return to court Thursday, April 21. Attorneys and the judge will discuss whether Machado can be sentenced for the carjacking and attempted carjacking charges with the murder charge pending. He remains incarcerated in the county jail without bail.
District Attorney Birgit Fladager said she could not comment on the case “since we do not have a complete verdict” and Public Defender Laura Arnold did not respond to a request for comment.
Chin said the sanity phase on the murder charge has to be retried unless Machado changes his not guilty by reason of insanity plea or the defense and the prosecution come to a plea agreement. They could also agree to let Judge Zeff make the decision about Machado’s sanity.
If a different jury or the judge finds Machado was insane at the time of the murder he would be sent to a state hospital and could be released if his sanity is restored. However, if his sanity is restored he’d still have to serve a prison sentence for the carjacking convictions, Chin said.
Defense attorney appointed judge
To complicate matters more, Mumford, Machado’s deputy public defender, was appointed judge on March 25, in the middle of the trial.
Mumford did not respond to request for comment from The Bee but Court Executive Officer Hugh Swift said Friday Mumford’s last day with the Public Defenders Office would be in mid-May.
A new deputy public defender taking over Machado’s case will likely lead to more delays in a case that already took more than four years to get to trial.
