Prosecutor depicts suspect as evil man
First day of trial in deadly robbery, stabbing case
February 05, 2002
By Glenn ChapmanSTAFF WRITER
Deputy District Attorney Michael Nieto vowed to prove the 44-year-old career criminal stabbed Charles Hass through the heart while trying to rob him Jan. 27, 2001.
"You are about 20 to 30 feet away, depending on your seat, from evil," Nieto told jurors during his opening statement in Alameda County Superior Judge Philip Sarkisian's courtroom. "The evil that is Mr. Green entered and destroyed the dreams and the hope that was Charles William Hass."
Nieto gestured toward Green, who was flanked by his lawyers, Daniel Horowitz and James Giller, at the defense table.
The slain man's mother, Louise Hass, with a nephew at her side, listened from the gallery. Hass traveled to Oakland from her Indiana home Saturday. She will attend every day of the trial, which could end with Green sent to death row if convicted.
"It is a relief to have it actually begin," Louise Hass said. "Most of all, I want that Mr. Green never hurts another person, inside prison or outside prison."
Charles Hass worked as an engineer for Federal Express and was transferred from Texas to the Bay Area four weeks before he was killed. The 27-year-old Hass moved into an apartment on Yerba Buena Island and met Aaron Merritt online.
San Francisco's costly rental market had prompted Merritt to move to the East Bay 14 months earlier.
Merritt and Hass began dating. The pair picked up video tapes and went to Merritt's apartment, where they were going to watch the movies.
The men walked to Bay Area Liquors on Peralta Street. Green stepped up to the couple at the liquor store entrance and asked for money for bus fare, Nieto told jurors. Merritt told Green go to a BART station, where he could get a transfer good for AC Transit.
Merritt and Hass went into the store, where they bought micro-brewed beer and malt liquor.
The 5-foot-9, 140-pound Hass walked out of the store followed by Merritt. The men were heading toward Merritt's apartment when the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Green confronted them, Nieto said.
Green purportedly announced he was a police officer and that he was going to arrest Hass for buying drugs. Green pulled Hass around to the side of the store, where there was less light, Nieto said.
Green ignored Merritt's demand to see a badge, Nieto told jurors. Merritt darted into the store and asked a worker to call police. Merritt, who is to testify at trial this week, rushed back outside to see a man holding Hass by the jacket, lifting him "like a scarecrow," Nieto said.
Merritt raised the malt liquor bottle and charged. Green turned and stabbed Merritt in the chest, Nieto said.
Merritt retreated into the store, asked again for a clerk to call the police, then returned outside and hit Green with the bottle, Nieto said.
The blow evidently surprised Green, giving Merritt and Hass a chance to make a "desperate sprint" to Merritt's apartment, the prosecutor told jurors. Hass collapsed dying to the floor with a stab wound.
Giller urged jurors to be skeptical of prosecution witnesses, some of whom have criminal histories, and lectured them about the need for Nieto to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Green is guilty as charged.
"This is a case of mistaken identity," Giller told jurors. "Our position is it was not Willie Green who committed this offense. ... Even if it was, what is the offense?"
Green's prior felony convictions include a manslaughter plea negotiated after he shot an Oakland drug-ring enforcer's sister dead with an assault rifle in 1983. Green reportedly joined a gang while in prison.
"I do not feel the identity is mistaken," Louise Hass said, adding there was no doubt in her mind the evidence shows Green killed her son. "I just feel that none of the things Mr. Green has done matter to him at all. ... I don't feel he has any regrets, and, to me, that is very distressing."
Among the evidence Nieto will introduce in court is details of a robbery in which Green reportedly attacked a tow truck driver after asking him for money at an Oakland service station in 1982.