MILFORD, Conn. (Court TV) — A teenager involved in a deadly stabbing during a house party in Connecticut is asking a judge to dismiss charges against him, citing double jeopardy.
Raul Valle turns to his attorney after being acquitted of murder. (Court TV)
Raul Valle, 19, was acquitted of first-degree murder and three counts of intentional first-degree assault for a deadly stabbing involving teenagers. Valle was 16 when he attended a house party on May 14, 2022, that turned violent when groups of teens from different schools began fighting. Valle admitted to pulling out a knife and stabbing several people, but claimed he acted in self-defense. The stabbing killed 17-year-old Jimmy McGrath.
While the jury of 12 acquitted Valle of the most serious charges, it deadlocked on lesser charges of manslaughter, first-degree assault with extreme indifference and second-degree assault with a weapon. Prosecutors refiled those lesser charges, but Valle’s attorney says bringing them to trial would violate his client’s constitutional rights.
Valle testified in his own defense at his trial; he never denied using the knife to stab McGrath or the other victims, but said that he felt his life was in danger at the time. “The sole contested issue was whether those stabbings were legally justified,” Valle’s attorney, Darnell Crosland, said in the motion to dismiss. “You cannot simultaneously hold that Mr. Valle acted in justified self-defense — as the acquittals necessarily establish — and that he acted with criminally unjustified recklessness, as conviction on the pending charges would require.”
While the motion suggests that prosecutors may argue that a hung jury on the lesser counts permits a retrial, Valle’s defense argues “the only inquiry is whether the acquittals necessarily decided an issue of ultimate fact that is an essential element of the charges sought to be retried. They did. The acquittals established that the State failed to disprove justification. Justification is an essential element of the reckless charges. The deadlock on the lesser counts tells us nothing about the jury’s reasoning, cannot retroactively alter what the acquittals established, and cannot be used to circumvent the constitutional bar to retrial.”
Valle was released on a $2 million bond after his first trial. He is due to return to court on May 8.
