Sin City Law

a Sundance Channel documentary series in partnership with ARTE

an original 10-part documentary series that goes inside four recent criminal trials in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Filmed primarily in law offices and courts only steps away from the glittering lights of Las Vegas’s famed Strip, Sin City Law reveals a different side of Las Vegas — a world of gang activity, homelessness, drugs and mob vendettas.
As Poncet, de Lestrade and director Remy Burkel scrutinize four recent murder cases, their cameras sit in on strategy sessions in the offices of the district attorney, observe moving conversations between the accused and their public defenders, and chronicle the trial as it unfolds in the courtroom. Like their other acclaimed films, Poncet and de Lestrade’s raw, honest and suspenseful stories are as emotionally engaging as any high-quality TV drama, while also opening a window to the realities of crime and punishment in the United States.

1 – Butchered Innocence :

brother and sister teenage meth-heads Beau and Monique Maestas set out to take revenge on a duplicitous drug dealer. Armed with knives, they attacked the woman’s two young daughters, killing one and leaving the other paralyzed for life. Beau pled guilty, shouldering blame for the stabbings in hopes of saving his sister from the most serious charges. Three years later, Beau’s penalty hearing is about to begin, and Chief Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz and District Attorney David Roger are seeking the death penalty. With their client’s life at stake, Beau’s defense attorneys Tom Ericcson and Jim Oronos must persuade the jury to consider the case’s mitigating circumstances, particularly the horrific childhood the Maestas children suffered with their abusive, drug- dealing mother and father, a convicted murderer. Monique’s attorneys, Special Public Defenders David M. Schieck and Alzora Jackson, pay close attention to Beau’s trial while preparing for their client’s trial, which will immediately follow Beau’s. Working with SPD Investigator Maribel Rosales and Monique’s older sister Misty, Jackson delves into the dark details of the Maestas’ family’s life.

2 – Skin Tone

five members of the Crips street gang were driving around North Las Vegas when they spotted a rival gang member and went after him. As the ensuing chase spilled into an apartment courtyard, shots were fired and 9-year-old Genesis Gonzales was killed. Pascual Lozano, the sole Hispanic in the Crips crew, was charged, convicted and sentenced to death. An automatic repeal has resulted in a new trial, in which Lozano will be represented by defense attorney Bret Whipple and Special Public Defender Ivette Maningo. Lozano steadfastly maintains his innocence, but will not implicate any of his “homeys” who were with him that day. Adding to the layers of complication, Lozano grew up as a de facto family member of the intended victim, Robert “Chucky B.” Valentine. For the defense and the prosecution, the case comes down to eyewitness accounts, and the simple question: what color was the shooter’s skin? As the Deputy District Attorneys Vicki Monroe and David Stanton begin presenting their case, they find themselves stymied by some of the same witnesses who helped them win the first trial in 2003.

3 – Bourbon Strip :

On the night of January 27, 2006, a distraught 71-year-old man named De Rac Hanley phoned 911 to report that he had murdered someone in his apartment at an assisted living facility. Though Hanley remembered little at the time, it emerged that the victim was one of Hanley’s elderly neighbors, Earl Spangenberg. Hanley’s attorneys, public defenders Curtis Brown and Andrea Luem, quickly realize they have their work cut out for them with this particular client, a colorful Irish drifter with a troubled past, a prodigious drinking habit and an often tenuous grip on reality. Hanley now claims that he killed in self-defense after Spangenberg made sexual advances.

4 – Within Reach :

In the early morning hours of July 23, 2005, a young Asian American man named Wei Liu was shot and killed in a parking lot outside a Las Vegas strip club; also injured was Kristian Wong Wui, Liu’s fellow passenger in an SUV driven by Amir Mogadam, who was not injured. The next day, Jesus “Zeus” Vega turned himself in as the shooter, accompanied by his friend Brian Baker, a witness to the event. Vega and Baker were both charged with murder, and both assert that Vega, a former Marine, fired in self-defense. The shooting was caught on surveillance videotape, but there is plenty of ambiguity in the grainy black-and-white images of the encounter between three pedestrians (Vega, Baker, and a female companion) and Mogadam’s SUV. After 17 months of delays, the Vega/Baker trial gets underway with the State of Nevada’s case, argued by Deputy District Attorneys Linda Lewis and Danae Adams.

5 – Gladys Choice :

A little girl's body is found in a garbage dump in Las Vegas. After 5 weeks of being on the run, Gladys, the girl's mother, turns herself into the police and confesses that her boyfriend Marc Anthony accidentally killed her daughter. Gladys is expecting a child with Marc Anthony. The charge is murder. The prosecution presents her with an impossible dilemma: to testify against the father of her unborn child , or to stay silent and possibly risk prison time herself.