The settlement appeared easy: Brant Daniel, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood jail gang, agreed to plead responsible to homicide and, in alternate, prosecutors would see to it that he served time in federal jail.
However Daniel, 50, also referred to as “Two Scoops,” mentioned prosecutors didn’t uphold their finish of the cut price, leaving him to serve time in a Sacramento state jail for the previous seven months.
Final week he filed a movement requesting the U.S. District Courtroom overturn his sentencing, reinstate his not responsible plea and set the case for trial.
Brant Daniel, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood jail gang, says he agreed to plead responsible to homicide if he may serve his time in federal jail. He says prosecutors didn’t honor the settlement.
(California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation )
“The prosecutor’s agreements within the plea settlement, and his assurances in court docket that had been relayed to my attorneys, are the explanations I pled responsible — that’s, to be transferred to federal jail,” he wrote in his movement.
Daniel’s movement doesn’t clarify why he was adamant about being incarcerated in federal jail. His legal professional, John Paul Balazs declined to remark.
One potential clarification for why Daniel needs a brand new trial is included in a November 2023 court docket doc despatched to his legal professional and others: a small handwritten notice suggesting the Aryan Brotherhood needs to kill Daniel.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Division of Justice couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
The California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation mentioned in a press release that “due to the protection and safety points concerned on this case, CDCR is unable to supply additional particulars right now.”
The plea settlement stems from a long-running investigation into racketeering, drug trafficking and murders inside and outdoors of California prisons by greater than a dozen members of the Aryan Brotherhood. Amongst those that have been indicted within the 2019 case was Daniel.
In December, he was sentenced to life in federal jail after he agreed to a plea deal through which he admitted to murdering an inmate at Salinas Valley Jail on Oct. 29, 2016.
“Specifically, Daniel admitted that he dedicated the homicide as a result of the sufferer failed to hold out a success assigned by an Aryan Brotherhood member after which misplaced invaluable medicine belonging to Daniel and, by extension, the Aryan Brotherhood,” federal prosecutors mentioned on the time. “In his plea, Daniel admitted that he willfully, intentionally, and with premeditation, murdered the sufferer in an effort to preserve his standing inside the Aryan Brotherhood.”
On the December listening to, when the plea settlement was finalized, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jason Hitt, one among three federal prosecutors on the case, instructed the federal choose that the federal government had agreed to take away a racketeering conspiracy cost towards Daniel and would request that he be transferred from state jail to federal jail, based on court docket information.
Transcripts submitted by Daniel together with his movement on July 10 present discussions amongst his attorneys, federal prosecutors and a probation officer over the plea settlement.
In line with the transcripts, Daniel agreed to the phrases, at the same time as U.S. District Decide Kimberly J. Mueller knowledgeable him that the switch to federal jail was not assured.
Mueller additionally learn an electronic mail she acquired from Dominic Ayott, deputy regional counsel for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, clarifying that such transfers have been on the discretion of the 2 jail companies and that the court docket lacked authority to order transfers.
“I don’t know the way this has been labored out up to now, however this isn’t one thing the Bureau of Prisons agrees to and I don’t imagine the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace or a neighborhood prosecutor can do that both,” Mueller mentioned. “Sometimes, any such shift is on the request of the California Division of Corrections, and it’s finally determined by the deputy legal professional common.”
Hitt, based on the transcripts, instructed the choose he was conscious of the bureau’s stance.
“The regional counsel’s place is well-known to me,” he mentioned. “It’s one which I’ve mentioned with him many occasions. Perceive that I’ve taken steps that I imagine can be profitable.”
