Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney Ray Morrogh has completed his review of the controversial shooting death of Falls Church resident Steve Cornejo and has decided the beating and shooting of the unarmed Steve Cornejo in the back with a concealed handgun while the young man begged for his life was legally justified. County prosecutors will not seek any criminal charges against the shooter in the case.
The Falls Church News-Press covered the story in the July 17, 2008 addition (FCNP - Cornejo).
Morrogh iterated his decision in a three page letter sent to Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner. The letter, addressed only to Mayor Gardner, was received in early July. The tone of the letter is defensive, blunt, and belligerent, and outlines in stark detail the prosecution theory that Steve Cornejo was justifiably killed by a "good Samaritan."
The Mayor has shared the new information with the Cornejo family, but has asked Morrogh to communicate his decision directly to the Cornejo family as he had originally promised. Morrogh has not yet responded to that request.
The good Samaritan prosecution theory was soundly rejected by the only group of citizens who have seen and heard all the evidence in the case - the jury in the civil case. The jury in the civil case evaluated all the evidence; including the changed eyewitness testimony, the testimony about the shooter, the testimony of the girl whom prosecutors claim was in danger from Steve, and the medical reports showing the wounds on Steve. The jury rejected the argument that Steve was killed in self-defense or by a good Samaritan citizen.
The civil jury instead sent a "message verdict" to the citizens of Virginia, awarding the Cornejo family nearly two million dollars in a wrongful death verdict. The Cornejo family had only asked for $300,000 plus burial expenses from the jury. The shooter subsequently discharged the civil judgment in bankruptcy without ever paying a dime.
Morrogh dismissed the civil verdict as a product of a "much lower" burden of proof (he probably meant standard of proof). The standard of proof for a criminal indictment (probable cause to believe a crime has been committed) is, in fact, lower than the standard of proof for a civil verdict (preponderance of the evidence). County prosecutors have never explained why they were unable to justify probable cause for indictment, and have never explained whether or not they were looking ahead to the criminal conviction standard of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt) and were caught "prosecution stat watching."
In any event, attorneys familiar with the case have made the point the standard of proof issue made by the prosecutor is a red herring ... the only trier of fact to see all the evidence rejected the entire self-defense or good Samaritan theory of the case proffered by the prosecutor and then echoed by the shooter's civil defense team. A wrongful death judgment in favor of Cornejo would not have been possible if the jury had believed the defense theory of the case - irrespective of the standard of proof.
Morrogh had promised to review the case and communicate his decision to the Cornejo family in October 2007 in response to numerous public criticisms about the handling of the decision from print media and bloggers (including Blueweeds), attorneys familiar with the investigation, the Cornejo family, Arlington prosecutor Patrick McDade (who ran unsuccessfully against Morrogh for county prosecutor), and various citizens following the story and/or familiar with the popular Cornejo family.
Morrogh stands behind the original investigation in the case, and finds no fault in the investigation and no credibility to the numerous criticisms leveled against his office. Morrogh believes the Cornejo case was handled perfectly.
Indeed, Morrogh defends the entire investigation and conclusions by ignoring or excusing weaknesses in evidence and theory, and instead repeats questionable allegations of the bad character of the victim. Morrogh dwells on his points that Steve was drunk, aggressive, and had a reputation for violence. Morrogh also repeats a corollary fact, that the shooter used "snake shot" to kill Steve, which the Cornejo family has repeatedly said is particularly offensive to the family. "Steve was not a snake. Why do they keep saying and saying this?" his family has asked.
Morrogh has provided no insight into the facts of the case from what investigators found in the four days following the killing. He made no attempt to explain or square his review with any of the evidence brought forward at the civil trial - writing only "...the results of the civil trial add nothing ..." Morrogh also makes no attempt to explain the dramatic differences in the statement of a key eyewitness taken by his investigators and the sworn testimony of the same witness at the civil trial, writing dismissively that the key eyewitness "... failed to give any reasonable explanation for this change in his testimony ...." The end of story as far as Morrogh is concerned.
The civil jury evaluated evidence the shooter had been drinking the night he killed Steve. The jury also heard testimony about the shooter hearing an argument, calling police, and then going himself to intervene in a domestic disturbance after hiding a .38 calibur handgun owned by someone else. The jury heard Steve's girlfriend testify she was not in danger from Steve and that she in fact had left the area when the shooter confronted the unarmed young man. They citizen jurors saw the medical reports, including the significant defensive wounds where the shooter had hit Steve repeatedly in the face with the butt of the weapon. The jury heard the testimony of the key eyewitness, a Hispanic resident whom the Cornejo family has said was interviewed in English by county investigators, who was watching from a window ten feet and said the shooter was the aggressor. Eyewitness testimony that the shooter aggressively challenged Steve, who was alone, from a distance away, and came toward Steve to throw the first punch. The witnesses who said the shooter put an intoxicated Steve on his knees and shot him in the back even as Steve pleaded and asked the shooter, "Why do you want to take my life? Why do you want to take my life?" The jury looked in the eyes of the shooter who testified that after shooting Steve, he picked up the shell casing, ran from the scene, went back to his girlfriend's apartment, ripped up his bloody shirt and flushed the casing and the shirt down the toilet to hide evidence, and then did a load of laundry at 4:30 am to clean away evidence of the incident. The shooter and his girlfriend watched from their balcony as paramedics tried to revive Steve. They jury also heard how the shooter, when investigators knocked on his door looking for witnesses, lied to police by denying he had been involved at all in the killing.
The civil jury evaluated the defensive argument, identical to the prosecutor's, that Steve had a violent character, was drunk, and was the aggressor in the incident. The civil jury was aware of the difference in statements and sworn testimony of key witnesses. They heard all about the underlying facts of the early morning party.
The civil jury accepted a fundamentally different theory of what happened that night from what prosecutors have said happened. They believed the Cornejos. And the civil jury tried to send a message with their judgment that an injustice was done to Steve and his family. Steve Cornejo MySpace Page
In his recent explanation, Morrogh is also silent about the unsettling allegations since the verdict that the shooter has bragged about the killing and made specific threats ("... I have killed men for less...") to peers who threw him out of a party for aggressive behavior involving a girl. See Dave McKenna's A Murderer Among Us?.
And while the controversy over the prosecutorial decision is ongoing, certainly no reasonable citizen can be satisfied with the miserable way the case has been handle by Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney's Office.
Starting with Fairfax officials who communicated so poorly with the Cornejo family: refusing to allow the family to see Steve's body; repeating the "snake shot" slur over and over again; challenging the family to hire as many lawyers as they want to - saying if (former Fairfax CA Bob) Horan does not want the shooter tried, it is never going to happen; conducting a whisper campaign against the Cornejo family - saying they are not clean, involved in gangs, and illegal activities; detectives reportedly sitting with and smiling with the shooter during the civil trial; withholding the name of the shooter for nearly two years, allegedly he was "meek" and "at risk for revenge" from the Cornejos. Then immediately after the civil verdict, CA Horan saying he was "surprised" by the eyewitness testimony and vowing to re-look at the case and talk with the Cornejos. To his discredit, Horan retired without keeping that promise, ironically saying as a parting shot to his nearly fifty years as an elected official, that he "does not talk with politicians." No response to repeated requests for information from lawyers, citizens, and public officials from Fairfax officials. Nothing.
Then Morrogh, under the pressure of public scrutiny in his own campaign, makes the same promise Horan made. To re-evaluate the prosecutorial decision and communicate whatever his decision is with the Cornejo family and with the citizens of Fairfax and Falls Church.
Morrogh has partially fulfilled his bare promise to Mayor Gardner. But there are an unsettling number of legitimate questions about the killing of Steve Cornejo which Fairfax officials are clearly not able or are unwilling to answer. Morrogh's uncritical defense of the handling of the investigation and the subsequent prosecutorial decision as perfect, while at the same time denigrating all public inquiries and castigating the character of the victim and his family, fuels rather than belays public concern.
Morrogh's explanation, received some nine months after making his promise, and his continued unwillingness to communicate with the Cornejo family, unfortunately falls breathtakingly short of what citizens should expect from a public official invested with so much authority in our community.
