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Defense theory takes stage in Brothers case

This story originally appeared January 24, 2007

By JESSICA LOGAN, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jlogan@bakersfield.com | Friday, Feb 16 2007 12:34 PM

Last Updated: Friday, Feb 16 2007 12:34 PM

In a recently filed motion, the prosecutor in the Vincent Brothers case poked holes in the defense's theory that someone else killed Brothers' family.

Two witnesses say they saw two men and a woman talking to Joanie Harper around the time and place she, her three children and mother were found dead in 2003, according to a defense motion.

Defense attorneys Michael Gardina and Anthony Bryan want to argue to the jury in the upcoming trial that these three people killed Brothers' family, not Brothers.

But Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green does not want the defense to argue this because the evidence is too flimsy, she argued in a motion filed Monday. She said statements from Timothy and Elbert Robinson have serious flaws, according to the motion. It's not known how the two men might be related.

In the motion, the defense blacked out the witnesses' names to keep them from the public.

In previous interviews with investigators, one of the men said he saw the three people the day before the family was killed and the second man said he was not in the area around the time of the killings, Green wrote.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush has not yet decided if the defense can argue these three people are responsible for the deaths.

During hearings Tuesday, Bush ruled that Bakersfield police detectives did not commit misconduct by listening to a wiretapped conversation between Brothers and his investigator.

The police could not have known at the time the investigator was working with Brothers, Bush said.

The prosecution wanted to call an investigator's credibility into question using a snippet of a wiretapped conversation between Brothers and the investigator.

The defense accused the Bakersfield police of breaking the law -- conversations between a defendant and his defense team are confidential.

Green agreed this conversation should not be allowed into the trial, but took offense at the accusation of misconduct. Bush ruled she too had done nothing wrong.

But not everything went so swimmingly for Green.

She won't be able to tell the jury that she believes Brothers didn't call the Bakersfield police just after he learned his family was dead because he already knew all the details.

The defense said Brothers didn't call Bakersfield police because he was advised not to by his attorney.

Bush ruled that Green cannot bring this up at trial because Brothers has the right not to talk to investigators.

Brothers, a former vice principal, is accused of killing his wife, Joanie Harper; their three children, Marques, Lyndsey and Marshall; and Joanie Harper's mother, Earnestine.

Brothers has pleaded not guilty.

His family was found dead on July 8, 2003, and he was arrested in April 2004 on suspicion of committing the murders.

Hearings are expected to continue today.