Kristin Smart: Ruben Flores’ lawyer considered quitting law if his client was found guilty
The attorney for Ruben Flores said he was so sure of his client’s innocence, he was considering quitting the law if Flores had been found guilty, he told told The Tribune as part of a wide-ranging interview following the Kristin Smart verdicts.
He also doesn’t believe there was enough evidence to convict Paul Flores of murder.
On Oct. 18, a Monterey County jury convicted Paul Flores of killing Smart in the first degree, while a separate jury who viewed virtually the same evidence acquitted his father, Ruben Flores, of helping his son conceal the crime.
Paul Flores’ attorney, Robert Sanger, plans to ask for a new trial for his client for the tenth time, according to a motion asking to delay his client’s sentencing. The move follows nine unsuccessful attempts for a mistrial throughout the three-month legal proceeding.
The hearing that will decide whether to push back Paul Flores’ sentencing will be held Friday morning at 9 a.m. at Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas.
Flores’ sentencing is currently scheduled to take place Dec. 9. He is facing 25 years to life or life without parole.
His lawyer, Sanger, asked to delay the sentencing because his team needed more time to file a motion for a new trial and other post-conviction motions. They had not yet received court transcripts from the court reporter in order to prepare proper motions, Sanger said in the motion.
Defense attorney says one woman’s testimony led to conviction
Harold Mesick, Ruben Flores’ attorney, spoke with The Tribune in October for roughly three hours about his career and the case.
He said the lack of physical evidence will likely be a factor in the motion for a new trial. Other post-conviction motions could include one for a directed verdict, meaning the judge can decide there was no evidence and direct a not-guilty verdict.
“The problem with that kind of motion is the jury only needs to believe Jennifer (Hudson). That’s enough,” Mesick said. “A directed verdict is where there’s just zero evidence.”
Hudson testified Paul Flores admitted he killed Smart while the two were at a skateboarding house in the months following Smart’s disappearance in 1996. She claimed he told her, “I was done playing with her and I put her (or buried her) under my place in Huasna.”
“Jennifer Hudson’s testimony is what convicted Paul, because there’s really no other evidence,” Mesick said.
Mesick said he believes Hudson lied on the stand, but even if she had heard someone say they killed Smart, the media attention of the case and Chris Lambert’s “Your Own Backyard” podcast could have manipulated her memory.
“She might not be lying in the sense that I want to say she is. She might just be mistaken, and that would be a better approach for me to take if I were defending Paul,” Mesick said.
A motion for a new trial has to show Paul Flores didn’t receive a fair trial, which can include the media attention on the case, the lack of physical evidence and the admissibility of evidence
A challenge for Sanger to overcome in his motion for a new trial — or any motion questioning Paul Flores’ verdict, Mesick said — is arguing that Paul Flores didn’t have a fair trial while Ruben Flores did.
Ruben Flores lawyer: Doe witnesses credible, but not relevant to case
Though he respects the jury’s decision, Mesick said he does not believe there was enough evidence to convict Paul Flores of murdering Smart, calling the prosecution’s case “almost pure emotion.”
He said challenging the decision to allow the two women who testified that Paul Flores raped them will be one of the strongest arguments for a new trial or appeal.
“The jury may or may not have believed that he killed Kristin Smart. The jury may or may not have believed that he attempted to rape or raped her,” Mesick said. “But the jury did believe he’s a bad guy. The jury did believe those two witnesses — and they were credible. I sat there and listened to them.”
Evidence Code 1108 allows “evidence of the defendant’s commission of another sexual offense or offenses” in court if the defendant is charged with a sexual offense.
Mesick said the code is supposed to show a “pattern of practice,” meaning if the defendant had committed the sexual offense or one similar before the crime on trial, it was likely that the defendant did it again.
“I don’t think Paul did anything really bad until after Kristin went missing,” Mesick said.
The incidents the two women described happened after Smart went missing, so they should not have been admissible, he said.
“It was emotional evidence that wasn’t directly relevant to the charge Paul faced,” Mesick said. “The only reason it became relevant was because the way the state chose to charge it, as a murder in the attempted or actual commission of a rape.”
While Mesick found the women who testified credible, he said the justice system is supposed to “punish the conduct, not the person.”
The cognitive dissonance required for this can be challenging for many people, especially when it relates to serious crimes, Mesick said, but is vital to keeping the justice system intact.
“You get punished for what you do, not who you are,” he said.
But that didn’t happen for Paul Flores, Mesick said.
“I don’t think either (Paul or Ruben Flores) are evil, and their life bears that out,” Mesick said. “Paul has done some bad things, hasn’t conducted himself perhaps as the way I would want other people to conduct themselves. But I don’t know think he’s an evil person, and I don’t think he was punished specifically for the conduct regarding Kristin. He was punished for the conduct regarding the Jane Does.”
Lawyer contemplated leaving career if Ruben Flores was found guilty
Marvel superhero memorabilia lines the walls, shelves and desk in Mesick’s office. Superheroes are the underdogs, he said, and they have inspired him throughout his law career.
“The defendant is always the underdog because against the power of the state, unless there’s somebody stepping up for you, you’re just going to get squashed,” Mesick said, noting that his personal hero is his father, who was a U.S. marshal and worked on San Quentin State Prison’s death row.
And Mesick said this was true of his client, Ruben Flores, who was the ultimate underdog after being convicted in the eyes of the public for the past 26 years.
Mesick was on the on his way to the airport to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii his son had won in February 2020 when he learned about Chris Lambert’s “Your Own Backyard” podcast, which has been credited by the Smart family and law enforcement alike for helping to crack the case.
Then in Hawaii, he learned about the warrants being served at Paul Flores’ San Pedro home and the home of Susan Flores, Paul Flores’ mother and his client’s ex-wife.
About a year later, Ruben Flores’ home was searched, and then a month later in April 2021, the father-son duo was arrested in connection with Smart’s murder.
“When I got hired by Ruben, I didn’t think there was any chance of Ruben being charged with a crime, especially after I interviewed him,” Mesick said. “I didn’t think I was going to have to do any work at all because I thought I had a guy that was absolutely innocent, which I still pound the table on.”
Before the verdict was read, Mesick said his heart was beating out of his chest, especially after he had heard Paul Flores’ guilty verdict. Ruben Flores’ jury wouldn’t look at them, and they had come to a decision rather quickly after having to start deliberations over when a juror had to be replaced for talking to his priest.
But that anxiety soon turned into relief, Mesick said, calling the moment the not-guilty verdict was read “one of the most joyful” in his life. If the outcome had been different, Mesick said he was considering quitting his law career for something new, perhaps real estate.
“I so strongly believed and believe in Ruben’s innocence — not just that he’s not guilty, his innocence, which is a little higher level — I felt like if I can’t walk an innocent man, I ought not to be doing this,” he said. “I was talking about hanging it up if I got a guilty verdict in Ruben’s case.”
Ruben Flores had already served the amount of time he would have been sentenced to — if not more — since his arrest in April 2021, and would have likely been free regardless of the verdict. Mesick said he hopes this brings solace to those who still believe his client is guilty despite the jury’s decision and evidence presented at trial.
This story was originally published December 1, 2022 at 2:56 PM.
