Judge Raquel West STUNS Defendant After Rejecting 35-Year Plea Deal in Texas Court!

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: and figure out whatever to do on that state jail later all right sir you're John Jones just a second let me get yours everything pulled up here say mr. Jones and cause number 25 DC CR 0 5 2 3 you're charged with a first degree felony offense of murder from April 28th of 2025 and what that means sir is that if you go to trial and you're found guilty in that offense the range of punishment would be between five years and up to 99 years or life in prison do you understand the range of punishment and then in cause number 24 DC CR 2 4 3 1 you're charged with a state jail felony offense of an authorized use of a vehicle from October 15th of 2024 what that means in that case is that if you go to trial and you're found guilty the range of punishment is between six months and up to two years in the state jail prison do you understand and then in cause number 25 DC CR 1 3 5 2 you're charged with a first-degree felony offense of aggravated robbery from September 18th of 2024 what that means in that case is if you go to trial and you're found guilty the range of punishment is a minimum five years up to 99 years or life in prison do you understand and then finally in clause number 25 DC CR 1 3 5 3 you're charged with the second-degree felony offensive robbery from September 18th of 2024 and in that case what that means is if you go to trial and you're found guilty the range of punishment is between two years and up to 20 years do you understand and then I have here on the tablet in those cases some plea bargain rejections that you've done with mr. Wilkerson they show that the district attorney's office has made an offer if you wanted to enter pleas of guilty for a 35 year term in the murder case to run concurrently with a 35 year term in the aggravated robbery case with a dismissal in the robbery as well as the state jail felony unauthorized use is that correct do you understand what their offer is and have you gone over it with mr. Wilkerson and do you want to reject that offer and have all four of your cases set for trial all right is there any reason to expect that those offers would change any evidence that you're waiting on that you guys haven't received or gone [00:02:51] Speaker 2: over no not at all in fact the state will be uh we're likely to be filing a motion to accumulate the sentences to the extent that we can i think three of them would come by one occurrence and then there's one from a separate [00:03:04] Speaker 1: you've actually got four three different um dates so you've got ag robbery and robbery from September of 2024 you've got an unauthorized use from October of 2024 and then the murders from April of 2025 [00:03:18] Speaker 2: to the extent we can accumulate all of those judges we will seek to do so [00:03:24] Speaker 1: i want to make sure you understand mr. Jones that if you are found guilty in more than one of these offenses by a jury the state can file request that i stack or run cumulative which means stack on top of each other any uh punishment that you receive do you understand that as well and that after today i will not accept this agreement for a 35-year term if you change your mind later you can enter a plea open to the court you can enter a plea to something different but it's not going to be 35 years do you understand all right and do you want to have all of your cases set for trial [00:03:57] Speaker 3: yes sir it's my offer 35 right that's what the d.a's offering my co-defendant admitted to it but [00:04:05] Speaker 1: he got a 30-year offer here's the thing your offer is what your offer is he may or may not have had the robberies before he would listen i don't know i know the offer is what the offer is all right so either you take the offer or you go to trial and let a jury decide i'm not involved in negotiations i'm not going to tell the district attorney's office what to do that's not my job um but you don't get to everybody has different issues in their cases that they feel important and why they would make different offers for different co-defendants all right so you're not going to have a different offer and that's what i want to make sure you understand even though there was something different for your co-defendant the district attorney's office has said this is it this is your offer do you understand okay and you want to reject it and go to trial okay we'll get it set for trial mr wilkerson will be in preparation you can go back with the bailiff thank you honor be excused thank you sir for inner peace of guilty in cause numbers 25 dccr 1106 and 1108 to the first degree felony offenses of aggravated robbery the agreements were for 10-year deferred probation and 500 fine in each i've received the pre-sentence report has everyone had an opportunity to review that report we have no i have your honor are there any additions or corrections no you're not so obviously mr brown is this gives me a lot of concern based on the nature of these offenses um another thing that i i make notes in your pre-sentence report and one of the things that i have found continuously happening in cases with young people your age you're 18 okay so everybody says they're hanging out with the wrong crowd right but everybody can't be hanging out with the wrong crowd you've become the wrong crowd right and so if i give you this opportunity today then this is the best opportunity you will probably ever get in your lifetime because you will be able to do live your life hopefully in a very different way than you were on that night and the way you were starting going down that road as a juvenile with stealing cars right um [00:06:40] Speaker 2: why didn't you finish school because i kept getting in trouble right so part of your probation is going [00:06:52] Speaker 1: to be that you get your ged and you're going to get it soon because that's hopefully you i mean you should want to get that because it's going to help you be more successful in life but it's going to be a part of your probation you understand okay and i know that um isf cognitive was not a part of this plea agreement but that is what's going to happen today as well and i'll explain that more i'm going to find mr brionis that you enter your pleas of guilty in each of your cases freely and voluntarily find sufficient evidence to find you guilty in cause number 25 dccr 1106 follow the agreement that you made with the district attorney and defer all proceedings and place you on probation for 10 years you're ordered to pay a 500 fine and to follow all of the rules and conditions of probation and i'm going to go over some of those in just a minute and cause number 25 dccr 1108 also find sufficient evidence to find you guilty but follow the agreement and defer all proceedings and place you on probation for 10 years you're also ordered to pay the 500 fine and to follow all of the rules and conditions of probation one of those conditions in each of your cases is that you will enter and successfully complete the cognitive track of the isf program that is a 90-day program that is you'll go from jail to that program and it is a program where you receive tools to help you make better decisions um you're young you're going to have to be making very adult decisions if you're going to keep yourself out of prison and that's going to help you do that so what that means is if i give you that up front and those tools up front and then you get out and you violate your probation there's no coming back and saying oh i need a second chance this is that chance you understand also a condition of your probation is that you have no contact with dashawn vital or vital however you say his name the co-defendant obviously you have no uh contact with the victims leandre collins and payton mahan or mayhan and uh you're not allowed to possess a firearm at all even though you're not convicted you are not allowed to be in possession of a firearm that means in the house you live in so if you live in a home and other people have guns they have to have them either locked down or out of the house and probation can come check on that and make sure of it and if you're caught where there's a place where there's guns that's a violation of your probation you can't be in a car with them you can't have them anywhere you understand and so if you do everything that you're supposed to on this probation again this is an excellent opportunity because you don't have the felony convictions on your record and you will be able to at the end of the probation if you're successful have these cases dismissed and you'll never be a convicted felon the other side of that though is if you violate any condition of probation you're brought back in here found guilty so you're then a convicted felon and i can sentence you to prison anywhere in the range of punishment which is up to um i think first or second it's a first year so it's up to the rest of your life it's between five years minimum in prison up to the rest of your life in prison that's what's hanging over your head so you have to grow up very quickly and make good decisions like everybody else that's not in prison or else you'll end up there you understand i'm handing you the trial court certifications in each of your cases that shows that these were agreements that i followed and so you've waived your right to appeal um and so you can go back with the bailiff all right good luck you sir thank you burton bailey mr rojas would you please raise your right hand ma'am do you swear affirm that you will truthfully and accurate accurately translate from english to spanish and spanish to english thank you sir are you wilmer godinez yes and will your client waive the formal reading of the indictment yes your honor mr godinez in cause number 24 dccr 2040 you're charged with a second degree felony of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon from august 29th of 2024 and how do you plead to that charge are you pleading guilty freely and voluntarily yes and are you pleading guilty because you did what they charged you with i have here on the computer some documents that have your signature on them that the states marked as exhibit number one before you sign these did you go over them with mr wilkerson yes do you fully understand them yes and do you understand if i follow the agreement that you made with the district attorney that you'll be waving or giving up any right to appeal also do you understand if you're not a united states citizen that a plea of guilty or no contest may result in your deportation exclusion from admission to the country or denial of naturalization under federal law state tenders number one no objection it's admitted is there any evidence that mr godinez is not competent no your honor mr godinez i'm going to find that you entered your plea of guilty freely and voluntarily find that you're mentally competent and you understand the nature and the consequences of your plea find sufficient evidence to find you guilty and at this time find you guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon sentence you sentence you in accordance with your agreement to a term of 12 years in the institutional division of the texas department of corrections you will receive credit on that sentence for any time that you've been in custody that the law gives you the right to receive there will be an affirmative finding of a deadly weapon i'm going to hand you the trial court certification this shows that this was an agreement that i followed and so you waived your right to appeal i've also handed you a written admonishment regarding your ineligibility to possess a firearm or ammunition that's in spanish so you should read it carefully if you have any questions about the laws that make you ineligible to possess a firearm or ammunition or how long that lasts you can talk with mr wilkerson [00:14:26] Speaker 2: yes sir we've included in that plea paperwork that the sentence in this case run consecutive to the federal sentence i know you don't necessarily have any control over that the only reason why we included it it's because judge cron the federal side okay so so consecutive [00:14:50] Speaker 1: and so mr godinez i want to make sure you understand that this sentence will run consecutively with any federal sentence that you're serving do you understand [00:15:02] Speaker 3: yes