10 months ago
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FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- The transgression lawsuit against the antheral accused of sidesplitting Debbie Dorian and sexually assaulting 4 different women cleared a large hurdle successful tribunal connected Tuesday.
A justice ruled Nickey Stane tin present look a Fresno County assemblage for each 12 of the charges against him, including the intersexual assaults prosecutors accidental happened successful Tulare County.
"The bottommost enactment is, the radical inactive person to beryllium that Mr. Stane is liable for Ms. Dorian's death," Judge Arlan Harrell said.
Police arrested Stane successful the South Valley successful 2019 aft they said DNA connected him to respective Visalia intersexual assaults from the 1990s and 2000s.
Within days of his arrest, Fresno investigators said Stane was besides a fishy successful the decease of Debbie Dorian that rocked the metropolis successful August 1996.
Dorian was 22 years aged and a caller Fresno State graduate.
Her begetter recovered her bound and gagged successful her Northeast Fresno apartment, and investigators accidental they person DNA connecting that transgression country to the Visalia assaults.
Prosecutors filed the Fresno County and Tulare County charges together.
They accidental the drawstring of South Valley assaults shows a signifier of behaviour that could assistance beryllium Stane raped and killed Dorian.
Defense lawyer Jane Boulger has been arguing for 2 antithetic cases with 2 antithetic trials.
"I'm precise acrophobic that the emotion of the cases, blended together, are going to beryllium what stops Mr. Stane from getting a just trial," Boulger said.
The justice yet disagreed.
Just moments aft his ruling, a astonishing country arsenic Stane showed a notepad to Boulger and asked the justice to region some of his attorneys from the case.
"Counsel and ladies and gentlemen, I request to person a closed hearing," the justice said. "I'm going to inquire you to delight measurement retired for a moment."
After a closed-door hearing, the justice said the attorneys would stay.
His rulings travel astir a twelvemonth aft a antithetic justice already said determination is capable grounds for a assemblage to determine Stane's fate. It is unclear erstwhile Stane that volition happen, but jurors volition present determine connected each 12 charges.
"It is not successful the involvement of justice, and determination is nary bully origin for the joinder to beryllium severed," the justice said.
Stane has repeatedly pleaded not blameworthy and denied each of the charges against him, contempt a recorded jailhouse telephone successful which prosecutors accidental Stane admitted guilt to his mom.
The Fresno County District Attorney's Office is present seeking the decease penalty.
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