The 25-year-old suspect accused in a deadly shooting spree at Los Angeles International Airport is expected in court today so attorneys can discuss evidentiary issues including a defense motion to suppress the defendant’s post-arrest statements.
Paul Anthony Ciancia could be executed if he is convicted of killing federal Transportation Security Administration officer Gerardo Hernandez during the attack, which also left three other people wounded — two other TSA workers and one traveler — on Nov. 1, 2013.
U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez previously said jury selection, marking the start of the trial, would start next August. Defense attorneys had requested a December 2016 trial date, but federal prosecutors argued that a delay past August 2016 would be unfair to Hernandez’s widow and other victims.
Ciancia’s lawyers signaled they plan to raise mental health issues before the jury in an effort to save their client from execution.
Authorities allege Ciancia walked into Terminal 3 at LAX and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle. He was allegedly carrying dozens of rounds of ammunition, along with a handwritten, signed note saying he wanted to kill TSA agents and “instill fear in their traitorous minds.”
Witnesses to the shooting said the gunman asked them whether they worked for the TSA, and if they said no, he moved on.
The New Jersey native, who had been living in the Los Angeles area for about 18 months, was shot in the head and leg during a gun battle with airport police. He is jailed without bail at the federal detention center in downtown L.A.
Prosecutors previously told the judge they had accumulated more than 10,000 pages and 150 DVDs of discovery in the case, including material collected during a probe of Ciancia’s background in the small town of Pennsville, New Jersey, which they have presented to the defense.
