Rosa Maria Valdez Garcia, whose husband was killed in the 2019 Walmart mass shooting, watched intently as defense lawyers and prosecutors argued Thursday over who was responsible for long delays in trying the case in state court. About 30 minutes into the hourlong hearing, she let out a loud sigh and laid her head on the shoulder of a woman sitting next to her.

The hearing ended where it began – no dates set for pretrial motions and other steps necessary before a trial can even be contemplated. It seems almost certain that no trial will take place in 2024.

“I was hopeful today that we could get closer to having this case resolved,” 409th District Court Judge Sam Medrano Jr. said at the conclusion of the hearing. “I am no closer to scheduling or establishing scheduling than I was in September.”

Defense lawyers accused District Attorney Bill Hicks of playing politics with the case and burying them in terabytes of case files. Hicks said defense lawyers have had access to the vast majority of the evidence for more than four years and should be ready for trial. 

Fifteen relatives of people killed in the white supremacist attack sat silently on a courtroom bench as the process dragged on.

Patrick Crusius, 25, of Allen, Texas, faces state charges of capital murder and aggravated assault in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart that killed 23 and injured 22 others.

Crusius pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to seek the death penalty for those charges. The Justice Department has never explained the reasons behind the decision, though defense lawyers and prosecutors hinted during his three-day sentencing hearing in July 2023 that his schizoaffective disorder diagnosis played a role.

He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison, which means he will die in prison. At the federal sentencing, defense attorney Joe Spencer said the only remaining question was “whether that will be on God’s time or man’s time,” a reference to the death penalty on state charges that Hicks is seeking.

The state case has been delayed by a variety of factors – the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition from longtime DA Jaime Esparza to Yvonne Rosales in 2021, Rosales’ resignation in December 2022 amid criticism that included failures in the mass shooting case, and a decision to move first on the federal case.

Hicks, a Republican, was appointed DA by Gov. Greg Abbott in December 2022 after Rosales’ resignation, and will stand for election in November against the winner of a three-way March 5 Democratic primary. 

Spencer repeatedly pointed to the November election as the motivating factor for Hicks’ insistence that Medrano could move quickly to set a trial schedule.

“We don’t believe that politics should play a role in the criminal justice system,” said Spencer, who went on to show several video clips from press conferences Hicks has conducted in recent months.

Hicks accused the defense of “delay, delay, delay.” He dismissed the accusation of playing politics with the case – an accusation also made by former Assistant District Attorney Loretta Hewitt when she resigned in November as the lead prosecutor in the Walmart shooting case.

“They’ve done a great deal of talk about whether this is justice or politics. If they think I’ve done something inappropriate, fine, put it into a motion.” Hicks said in the hearing. 

Prosecutors are required to share evidence they’ve gathered with defense attorneys, a process known as discovery. Spencer said prosecutors in recent weeks have turned over more than 1 million files, which he said would reach 200 times the size of the Empire State Building if printed out. 

Hicks said the vast majority of evidence turned over since the last hearing in September duplicates material that defense attorneys have had since 2020. He said the only new evidence turned over recently was a ballistics report on the weapon used in the killing, and some videos gathered from nearby businesses and police dashboard and body cameras.

He also mentioned that documents from “the Roger Rodriguez investigation” were included in materials recently produced by federal prosecutors. Rodriguez, an attorney who did work for former DA Rosales even though he wasn’t part of her office, was accused of intimidating the Hoffmann family in an effort to keep them from testifying against Rosales and him in a court hearing.

Hicks asked Medrano to request all pretrial motions in 30 days, which would kick off the process of setting a trial date. Spencer estimated it could take the defense three years to go through the evidence turned over by prosecutors.

Medrano set a status hearing for Feb. 22, and said he wanted to narrow the different time estimates by the prosecution and defense.

“We’re going to move forward. I want to come out with the court scheduling order this spring, if not earlier. So we will be having more of these hearings and they will get more productive as we go,” the judge said.

Spencer responded: “I heard you say that you would like to have a scheduling order sometime this spring. I don’t see how that’s even possible” given the amount of discovery material that defense lawyers must review.

Crusius, who has been held at the El Paso County jail since the shooting, did not attend Thursday’s hearing.

In the federal case, Crusius admitted to killing 23 people and wounding 22 others at the Cielo Vista Walmart on Aug. 3, 2019. He drove 10 hours from his North Texas home and posted a screed on the internet stating that his goal was to “stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Abbott and other Republican leaders have increasingly referred to migration at the border as an “invasion,” which Democrats and human rights activists have said could inflame others to repeat Crusius’ actions.