Why this coverage matters
Raimondo’s role
Independent legal analyst discussing uncommon procedural questions after acquittals and a hung jury.
Coverage highlights
- Central issue: Raimondo explained the unusual double-jeopardy and retrial questions that followed mixed verdicts in the Wendy Howard homicide trial.
- Raimondo’s involvement: Independent legal analyst discussing uncommon procedural questions after acquittals and a hung jury.
- Archive record: The Bakersfield Californian, published December 4, 2022.
Read the archived coverage excerpt+
Attorney Mark Anthony Raimondo was asked about the Wendy Howard verdict. Read Below Ink and headlines splashed Wendy Howard’s verdict across pages and screens after jurors acquitted her of first- and second-degree murder but deadlocked on voluntary manslaughter. After a hung jury, the Kern County District Attorney's Office could retry Howard for voluntary manslaughter, and a Friday hearing was held to determine Howard’s fate. During a 10-day trial, Howard testified she shot her ex-partner, Kelly Pitts, in self-defense after he sexually and physically abused herself and her children.
Prosecutors said she sought vengeance and enacted “vigilante justice” when killing him. But then defense attorney Tony Lidgett said during the hearing Howard has actually been acquitted of every charge, and prosecutors cannot relitigate the same facts. He then entered a “once in jeopardy plea” and Friday's hearing concluded. Lidgett’s response stems from various decisions made by attorneys and Kern County Superior Court Judge Charles Brehmer during trial and when instructing jurors about the case.
These moves are uncommon and unique, said local defense attorneys. “I’ve never seen it done before,” defense attorney Mark Anthony Raimondo said of Howard’s trial. THE CASE Howard was in a relationship with Pitts during which he strangled her, beat her and attempted to rape her, she previously testified in her own defense. But she escaped, and didn’t encounter him again until 14 years later in 2019. That’s when she found out that their daughter, Bayley Frost, suffered sexual abuse from her father in her mid-teens.
The Tehachapi Police Department launched an investigation into Frost’s allegations about her father.
This excerpt was recovered from Raimondo Law’s prior WordPress news archive. Editorial ownership remains with the named news organization.
Original source
The Bakersfield Californian
Continue to the original publisher when a working source link was included in the exported archive.