Judge considering motion to dismiss charges for accused Taboo shooter

CEDAR RAPIDS — A murder count against Dimione Walker — one of two men accused in April’s fatal shooting inside the Taboo Nightclub & Lounge shooting — should be dropped because his extradition from Illinois to face charges in the case took months and violated his rights to a speedy trial, his defense argued Monday.

Walker, 28, of Coralville, is accused of killing Michael Valentine, 25, in the April 10 shooting at the downtown Cedar Rapids club. Police said another man, Timothy Rush, 32, of Cedar Rapids, killed two others. Ten people were injured.

Walker’s lawyers said in a motion earlier this month that his rights were violated because his trial did not take place within 90 days of when the trial information was filed. The trial information was filed in May, before Walker had been extradited to Iowa.

Walker’s trial is set for Nov. 8.

He was arrested by U.S. Marshals near Chicago about a week after the shooting. But he was wanted in Illinois for parole violations for possession of a weapon, and the extradition process to send him back to Iowa took longer than prosecutors expected.

Assistant Linn County Attorney Rena Schulte called on her boss, Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks, to testify in a hearing Monday about attempts made by the office to bring Walker back to Iowa.

Walker signed a waiver of extradition, which typically would have expedited the process, but Illinois declined to honor it until after Walker had faced his charges in Illinois, according to Maybanks. Walker was finally extradited in September after the county attorney’s office obtained a governor’s warrant.

“We did continuously make repeated efforts to bring him back to the state of Iowa,” Maybanks said during the hearing.

Walker’s lawyer, Sarah Hradek, argued that the state could have waited to file the charges against Walker until after he had been brought back to Iowa to avoid the 90-day deadline.

Under Iowa law, trial information must be filed within 45 days of a person being arrested for a crime. But Hradek argued that the 45-day countdown wouldn’t have begun until Walker was arrested in Iowa — not Illinois.

Prosecutors filed the trial information 44 days after Walker was arrested in Illinois. Maybanks said he also believes the 45-day countdown wouldn’t have started until after Walker was brought to Iowa, but that out of an abundance of caution prosecutors decided to file it then in case a judge interpreted the law differently.

When the trial information was filed, the attorney’s office believed Walker would be extradited quickly and would be in Iowa in time to hold his trial before the 90-day deadline. When it became clear that that was not going to happen, prosecutors filed a “good cause” application, requesting that the delay to the speedy trial be excused due to the complications with extradition. That application was approved in June by Judge Paul Miller.

Hradek argued that since the good cause application was approved before Walker was in custody in Iowa, it should be reconsidered because he did not have the opportunity to dispute it.

Judge Andrew Chappell, who oversaw Monday’s hearing, raised several questions for both sides about the motion to dismiss. The discussion was postponed until Wednesday, when a case management conference was already scheduled to take place.

Walker is facing charges of first-degree murder, willful injury, going armed with intent and control of a firearm by a felon.

Three other motions from the defense were discussed in Monday’s hearing, none of which were resolved.

One was a motion to subpoena the Hope House, a correctional facility in Coralville. Quint Meyerdirk, another attorney for Walker, stated in the hearing that the defense wanted information about whether Valentine had been at the Hope House and whether he had escaped custody in order to be at Taboo the night of the shooting.

The defense has been gathering information about previous shootings that may have involved both Valentine and Walker. “Part of our theory in this case is that the victim has been hunting our client,” Meyerdirk said in Monday’s hearing.

Schulte said a subpoena of Hope House wouldn’t be needed. While Valentine previously had been in custody for criminal charges, he was released about a month before the shooting and he was not being held at Hope House at the time of the shooting.

Both parties also filed motions requesting that certain testimony be excluded from being told the jury at trial.

The defense requested that testimony about Walker’s criminal history, and testimony about other victims of the Taboo shooting, be excluded, claiming that such testimony isn’t relevant to this case. The defense also requested that visual-only surveillance footage from the club not be allowed as evidence because it could result in unfair prejudice against Walker among the jury.

The prosecution requested that no opinions be presented from witnesses claiming that Walker acted in self-defense, claiming that such testimony would be “improperly boosting the credibility of the defendant and would be misleading and confusing to the jury.”

The prosecution claims there is no evidence to support the idea that Walker acted in self-defense. Valentine has never been charged with a violent crime against Walker, and the surveillance video from the club shows that Valentine had arrived at the club only a few minutes before Walker shot at him, according to the prosecution’s motion.

“The alleged victim, Michael Valentine, entered the club, chatted with friends, and approximately two minutes later was spotted by the defendant. The defendant then followed Valentine around the club and opened fire in an ambush style attack on Valentine while he was not looking at the defendant. The defendant shot the victim 7 times while backing out of an exit,” the motion states.

Rush also was charged with fatally shooting his girlfriend, Nicole Owens, 35, the mother of his 1-year-old child, and Marvin L. Cox, 31, who initially survived but then died July 24 from his injuries.

Rush is charged with two counts of second-degree murder; two counts of willful injury causing serious injury; two counts of reckless use of a firearm causing serious injury; three counts of willful injury causing bodily injury; three counts of reckless use of a firearm causing bodily injury; one count of intimidation with a dangerous weapon; and one count of possession of a firearm as a felon.

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