After a preliminary hearing and further arraignment, a Solano County Superior Court judge will schedule a trial for two men accused in a deadly 2016 Vallejo pawn shop robbery that ended in the store owner’s gunshot slaying, the wounding of an employee and the death of the store’s dog.
Amonie Azoun Andre Summerise, 27, of Vallejo, and Kashius Brazeal-Nelson, 25, a state prison inmate formerly of Vallejo, appeared Wednesday in Department 2 in Vallejo for a held-to-answer arraignment.
Afterward Judge Daniel Healy, hearing their not guilty pleas, ordered the pair to return at 8:30 a.m. July 6 for a readiness conference, a trial setting and a Pitchess motion in the Justice Building.
A Pitchess motion is a request by the defense to examine the personnel records of police officers involved in the case, typically if an officer or officers are suspected of excessive use of force.
During the past 27 months, amid the ongoing ups and downs of the pandemic, Solano County courts officials reduced court operations and rescheduled proceedings, as necessary, in accord with county, state, and state Supreme Court public health directives, which have accounted for some delays in the legal proceedings.
As the case has wound its way through the courts, proceedings against a suspected third person originally charged, Elijah Elliott Summerise, 24, brother of Amonie, were dismissed Sept. 11, 2019, court records indicate.
Brazeal-Nelson and the elder Summerise remain without bail in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.
Deputy District Attorney Bruce Flynn has led the prosecution of the case, which falls under the special circumstances category because the killing was committed during a robbery, a crime caught on the store’s video surveillance camera. The two defendants face the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole if convicted at trial. It is still unclear if Flynn will pursue the death penalty.
After proceedings in October 2019, the defense lawyers for the elder Summerise, Robert Boyle and Sean Swartz, deputy alternate public defenders, confirmed that “the death penalty is still on the table.” Because the charges make it a potential death penalty case, they were assigned to represent Summerise together.
Vallejo criminal defense attorney Dustin M. Gordon represents Brazeal-Nelson, who has been transferred from Calipatria State Prison, where he is serving time for a prior felony conviction.
Summerise was arraigned earlier in Department 4 in Fairfield and pleaded not guilty to the charges and special allegations.
Despite Swartz’s claim about the status of the allegations against Amonie Summerise, court records indicate that, besides first-degree murder and attempted murder charges, his client faces three counts of second-degree robbery. The elder Summerise also is accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Besides murder and attempted murder counts, Brazeal-Nelson is charged with second-degree robbery, being a felon in possession of a firearm, stemming from a prior conviction in Santa Clara County, and a charge of killing the store’s dog.
Vallejo police records indicate officers responded at about 3:10 p.m. Dec. 20, 2016, to reports of a possible robbery in progress at the Pawn Advantage Store on Springs Road.
Store owner Timothy Pult, 49, of San Anselmo, and shop employee Josh Poole, of Fairfax, were found inside, each suffering from gunshot wounds. Pult’s dog, Copper, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, was found shot to death near the store entrance.
Police originally released a surveillance video of the robbery in Jan. 2017 in an effort to identify the suspects. In July, they released 24 seconds of footage that showed two men enter the shop, their faces covered, guns in their hands.
The publicly available footage doesn’t show the shootings, but it shows the suspects quickly leaving the store, with one of them turning back and pointing his weapon at the dog before the video ends.
Pult was pronounced dead at the scene while Poole, who uses a wheelchair, was transported to a local trauma center. Poole, 45 at the time, survived but, for a time, continued to receive medical treatment for his wounds.
The Summerises were taken into custody in Vallejo on July 12, 2017. Brazeal-Nelson was arrested July 16 at the Imperial County state prison, where he is currently serving a sentence for a Yolo County robbery.
Boyle previously said the death penalty, which remains on the books in the Golden State, may still apply in the case, even though Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order suspending executions in California. in 2019.
Trial date pending for pair charged with deadly 2016 Vallejo pawn shop robbery - Vacaville Reporter
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