A man whose crime spree culminated in him allegedly driving his
truck at police officers while fleeing will wait to enter a plea as
his attorney plows through stacks of evidence.
A man whose crime spree culminated in him allegedly driving his truck at police officers while fleeing will wait to enter a plea as his attorney plows through stacks of evidence.
Shackled, clutching a folder of papers and dressed in red prison garb, Joel Barnes, 39, of Morgan Hill greeted his attorney as she walked into the courtroom. The colorful inmate spoke with her for several minutes before his hearing and required special attention from a deputy when he referred to Superior Court Judge Ray Cunningham simply as “Ray.”
“Have some respect,” the deputy reprimanded him. “This isn’t the street.”
Barnes faces a litany of charges ranging from misdemeanor battery to felony assault on a police officer and various weapons charges, including possession of a machine gun, carrying a concealed dagger and possession of a weapon commonly known as a sap. His misdemeanor charges, however, will trail the felony charges, said Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson, who is prosecuting Barnes’ most egregious offense, the assault on a police officer.
“They’re all so completely different that there’s no reason that one person should handle them all,” Hendrickson said of Barnes’ charges.
Though Barnes was scheduled to enter a plea, his hearing was delayed while his attorney sifts through a mound of evidence, Hendrickson said.
“There’s a ton of discovery we just gave her,” she said.
Barnes eluded Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies a total of three times this summer as they attempted to arrest him on warrants for felony false imprisonment and assault, and ran from Morgan Hill police on one occasion, Hendrickson said.
Barnes provoked deputies into shooting at him while he escaped their capture by driving his truck at them. Two days later, deputies cornered Barnes at a home in Watsonville. Barnes again ran from police but a SWAT team and canine officers found him hiding inside nearby bushes.
Barnes’ hearing was continued to 1:30 p.m. Dec. 1 in Department 109 at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill.
