At the time Noe Jesus Smith Espiru was indicted by a Cochise County grand jury in 2021 for reckless manslaughter, he was on probation for transporting marijuana for sale in 2016 and had just begun a three-year term of federal supervised release for a conviction involving transportation of an undocumented migrant for profit.
Now, the Bisbee man is serving a 3.5-year prison term for the 2016 case while sitting in the Cochise County jail waiting for a trial date to be set in the manslaughter case.
Smith, 25, will be back in a courtroom Aug. 9 for a status hearing. Yet after more than two years, it is unclear whether Smith will stand trial this year or not until 2024.
Court records show Smith is accused of being at the wheel of a car that struck a bicyclist on June 11, 2021, along a curvy section of State Route 80 in Bisbee that has no bike lane. The bicyclist, Sergio Lalli, passed away two days later from his injuries.
Witnesses reported the car’s driver fled the scene, but investigators quickly located the abandoned vehicle nearby. Smith was taken into custody a few hours later after a family member contacted the Bisbee Police Department.
Some of Lalli’s friends and family contend Smith is “gaming the system” to delay the case through his frequent requests to change defense attorneys. As an example, they point to Smith’s most recent request for a new attorney last November.
The request came during a hearing at which his then-attorney, the judge, the prosecutor, and the victim’s family expected Smith would plead guilty as part of a plea deal. The offer, which was the second presented by prosecutor Michael Powell, called for a 15-year state prison sentence followed by five years of probation.
Instead, Smith told the judge he needed more time to review the offer put forth by the Cochise County Attorney’s Office. Smith also announced during the November hearing that he wanted to be represented by his fourth attorney, Rafael Malanga, who had recently been privately retained by Smith’s family.
The change of attorney went through but Malanga was not able to convince Powell to keep the plea deal on the table. Now, Smith now faces nearly three decades in prison if convicted at trial of reckless manslaughter, a Class 2 felony, as the sentencing range allows for a maximum of 28 years for someone like Smith with a recent prior felony conviction.
Arizona Daily Independent has confirmed there has been no renewed plea offer extended to Smith since then, nor any negotiations pursued by Malanga. But what Malanga did pursue was a change of judge earlier this year in Smith’s 2016 and 2021 cases, with both cases getting assigned to Judge Terry Bannon.
In May, Bannon formally revoked Smith’s probation in the 2016 case and sentenced him to 3.5 years in prison. Smith received credit toward that prison term for the 785 days he spent in the Cochise County jail awaiting resolution of his probation status.
Bannon also ordered the sheriff’s office to leave Smith in the county jail instead of transferring him to the Arizona Department of Corrections. This makes Smith readily available for hearings and legal consultations with Malanga in the 2021 manslaughter case, the judge noted.
READ MORE:
Change Of Judge, Attorney Will Delay Bisbee Manslaughter Trial