Raul B. Castillo-Lopez walks into a Lewis County Superior Court room prior to the start of his child rape trial in July 2014 at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis.
The Washington State Court of Appeals upheld a Salkum man’s 2014 convictions for five counts of second-degree rape of a child in a decision released Tuesday.
Raul Castillo-Lopez was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl on a number of occasions. A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to 500 months, or more than 41 years, in prison.
Castillo-Lopez made a motion June 19, 2014, to substitute a new attorney for his court-appointed counsel, Sam Groberg, provided the new attorney was allowed to delay the trial to prepare himself.
Superior Court Judge James Lawler said he would allow the substitution, but not the continuance, according to the court of appeals decision.
Castillo-Lopez argued that the trial court therefore abused its discretion. The appeals court disagreed.
“Trial courts have discretion to manage their docket and deny continuances in order to do so,” appeals court Judge Rich Melnick wrote in the decision.
Castillo-Lopez asked a different judge to approve the motion again on July 3, 2014, and his request for a continuance was again denied. The appeals court ruled that this decision was also correct, saying that any benefit of a continuance to Castillo-Lopez was outweighed by the detriment it would be to the child victim.
