Public defender argues witnesses provided only hearsay, no testimony that crime occurred
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
A Delavan man was bound over for trial Wednesday in the stabbing death of his cousin.
Rafael Olivarez, 39, of Delavan, appeared at a preliminary hearing in Walworth County Circuit Court in custody represented by public defender Travis Schwantes. Olivarez is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the May 4 stabbing death of Ivan Guerrero, 31, of Delavan.
At the hearing, District Attorney Dan Necci called City of Delavan police officer James Berlin and Det. David Smith to testify about what Necci referred to as a crime at 509 Lawson School Road Unit 8 in Delavan on May 4.
Schwantes argued that the state presented no plausible set of facts about what he referred to as an incident. He said the state provided no witnesses who testified that Olivarez stabbed someone, only hearsay from a responding officer and a detective who attended Guerrero’s autopsy.
Walworth County Circuit Court Commissioner Dan Johnson said hearsay is allowed at preliminary hearings and found probable cause that a crime occurred and Olivarez committed it.
Berlin testified that he responded to the May 4 call to Lawson School Road and upon arrival saw a Hispanic man, later identified as Olivarez, whom he pointed out in the courtroom, approaching Berlin and waving him down.
“He was covered in blood – what appeared to be blood,” Berlin said.
Berlin said he also saw a Hispanic man, later identified as Ivan Guerrero, lying in the grass covered in blood with a stab wound to his chest and slash wounds to his left arm. He said the stab wound was about 5 inches long and 2 inches wide at its widest part, below Guerrero’s rib cage in the upper abdomen.
See next week’s Delavan Enterprise for the complete story.
