TUG OF WAR CONTINUES OVER LOPEZ'S DNA EVIDENCE

By Juan Montoya
The tug of war over DNA evidence Armando Villalobos used to convict Mazz superstar Joe Lopez in 2006 between appeals attorneys and Cameron County District Attorney will continue into 2014.
Lopez, convicted on two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child, had petitioned the court to release the evidence so that it could be tested by a neutral party.
A district ordered Saenz to turn over DNA evidence just last month.
Now – after Sanez said he filed an appeal with the 13th Court of Criminal Appeals – he will have to wait until after an appeals court ruling.
Earlier this month visiting state District Judge Federico Hinojosa ordered Saenz to turn over the DNA evidence to Tim Hootman, the Houston attorney for Lopez . Hootman first sough the evidence form outgoing (and now convicted ) DA Villalobos in late 2012 under the Open Records Act.
This, apparently, is the bone of contention between the DA's office and Lopez's attorneys.
Lopez is currently serving 32 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of having sex with a 13-year-old relative at his Rancho Viejo condominium in 2004.
Because Saenz filed the notice of appeal, he doesn’t have to turn the evidence unless the appeals court orders it. If that court overturns the order, Saenz does not have to turn the DNA evidence over to Hootman, but if the court upholds Hinojosa’s ruling Saenz will have to turn it over.
Hootman told the local daily that the 13th Court of Criminal Appeals has no written opinions concerning DNA evidence being obtained through an open-records request.
“There is no published Court of Appeals opinion applying the Open Records Act to a DNA case in Texas. It is almost certain, however, that the Act has been used by other litigants to obtain DNA information in trial courts,” Hootman is quoted saying in an October email. “The vast majority of cases never end up on appeal and trial court rulings never become well known like published Court of Appeals opinions."
Given the state of low esteem in which local courts are held in the wake of convictions of past district judges, the DA and a host of local attorneys caught up in the racketeering-bribery trails in the local judiciary, Saenz's appeal has drew a skeptical response from the commenters to this blog.

"Why is the DA resisting this?" asked an anonymous commenter. "They are doing this all the time now all over the country."

"Is Saenz hiding something?" asked another. 

"It'll all come out in the wash in 2014," wrote another commenter.
Lopez's supporters have long held that Villalonbos may have fabricated the evidence in a pair of shots once worn by the girl and which had been mixed in with clothes of the rest of the family in a trash bag for at least three months. They further add that the singer's attorneys never submitted the DNA evidence to be examined by a defense expert.
It is unknown how long it will be before the appeals court makes its ruling.