The Trial

It took 16 months for the case to go to trial due to the overload of cases in the public defender’s office.  After almost a year and a half of waiting in the Riverside county jail, Kelle was given his day in court on August 19, 2009.

 

The trial started on that Wednesday with the prosecutor bringing up three witnesses to testify against Kelle with claims of a troubled marriage and financial issues.  On what should have been the second day of trial, Kelle was not present in the courtroom as he was being held in the county jail by the sheriff’s office.  The jail would not transfer him to the courthouse for his court appearance.  The reason given was the scare of swine flu, even though Kelle was not sick.  The trial was then delayed until August 31.

 

Twelve days later, after the jury heard only one day of testimony, the trial resumed.  The prosecutor continued his accusations against Kelle until he rested his case on September 8.  During that time, the prosecutor did not present one single piece of physical evidence.  In fact, stories were changed from original police interviews. The police claim to have done a visual test of the view of the garage from the street although it was never put into any report or file. Several other misleading statements from the police were made. One detective said that Kelle made a comment while they were walking up the stairs during the second search, when in fact after reviewing the transcripts the detective was the one that made the statement and Kelle simply said "I guess so".

 

When the public defenders had their turn, they called witnesses that were friends, families and co-workers of Kelle and Isabelle and were with them on a regular basis.  These witnesses knew Kelle and Isabelle very well and could testify to the fact that the two did not have problems in their marriage.

 

The closing arguments were held on Friday, September 11.  The case was then handed to the jury late in the afternoon.