Aaron Noah Chavez, the man accused in the December shooting outside the Katy Mills Mall, is expected in court next Monday, and the defense has already filed a number of motions aimed at protecting him from public scrutiny.
Among the requests made by Chavez’s defense team is a request for all pre-trial hearings to be private. Attorney Michele Maples says that’s standard practice for defense teams. She told KTRH, “This is a normal tool defense attorneys will use to try to ‘brush under the rug’ how terrible your client actually is.”
What really surprised Maples was the attempt by the defense to shield Chavez from any questions being asked about his immigration status. She said, “The fact that they’re sort of making a kerfuffle about immigration status tells you everything that you need to know. So this is probably going to backfire on the defense.”
She says that if Chavez was indeed in the country illegally at the time of the shooting, the public deserves to know about it.
The defense also requested that Chavez’s bond be lowered from its current $500,000 mark. While Chavez has been able to acquire a private defense team, he has not been able to come up with the money to post bond.
Chavez and his unidentified juvenile brother are currently being charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.