FORT MYERS, Fla. (Court TV) — An 18-year-old convicted of murdering a teenage girl during an attempted robbery has filed a motion asking for a new trial, alleging violations by the prosecution in the case.
Thomas Stein took the stand in his own defense. (Court TV)
Thomas Stein, 18, was convicted of felony murder with a firearm and three counts of attempted murder in the death of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon Miller. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced in July.
In a motion for a new trial, filed on Monday, Stein’s attorney accuses the prosecution of a discovery violation involving the testimony of one of the key witnesses in the case.
At trial, prosecutors said that Stein was with a friend, Christopher Horne Jr., when the two decided to rob a group of three girls they saw walking. The two surviving victims testified to a chaotic encounter and seeing men jump out of a car and run at them, trying to rob them.
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One of the victims, Emma Wright, testified that she saw the driver of the vehicle, who she described as a white male with a bowl cut and blue eyes, “go straight for Kayla” after getting out of the car. But Stein’s defense has maintained — both after Wright’s testimony and in Stein’s motion for a new trial — that Wright’s testimony was different from every other statement she’d previously given in the case.
From the motion:
At all times prior to trial — from her very first encounter with law enforcement at the scene, several follow-up interviews with investigators, and during deposition testimony — victim Emma Wright’s version of events never [wavered] on four (4) crucial facts: a. At least 4 people [exited] the vehicle; b. Victim K.R.M. was already struggling with an assailant when the driver ran over to them; c. she did not see whether the driver was armed with a weapon or firearm; and d. She could not tell which person shot victim K.R.M.
In their opening statement, prosecutors told the jury they would hear a victim identify Stein as the gunman, which Stein’s defense says shows they knew her story had changed. The motion also points out that prosecutors never called the co-defendant as a witness, “despite having offered Horne the ‘plea deal of a lifetime’ in exchange for his testimony against Stein.” The defense argues that a change in strategy would have occurred only if prosecutors knew that Wright’s testimony had changed.
In its own opening statement, Stein’s defense told the jury that none of the state’s witnesses would identify Stein as the gunman except for Horne. “Yes, neither of these happened, and the defense was placed in the precarious position of calling Horne as a witness because of the promises made to the jury by the defense during opening statement,” the defense said.
Stein’s motion further argues that Judge Nicholas Thompson interfered with the defendant’s constitutional right to call witnesses by barring the defense from calling one of the prosecutors on the case to the stand. The motion says that Assistant State Attorney Alyssa Wolf “admitted to the defense during a break that, prior to her in-court testimony, Wright had told [Wolf] she did not know whether Stein was carrying an object in his hand during the incident.” Stein’s attorney wanted to impeach Wright’s testimony using the prosecutor, but Thompson found the defendant’s team had had an adequate opportunity to do that during Wright’s cross-examination.
Prosecutors have not filed a response to the motion.
Stein’s sentencing is scheduled for July 10.
