MOUNT VERNON — Juan Miguel Garcia was to begin his first day of trial for a drive-by shooting this week, but instead his attorney was disqualified Tuesday from representing him because of a conflict of interest.
“I haven’t had this happen before, but unfortunately it has happened in this case,” Skagit County Superior Court Judge Susan Cook said to a packed courtroom of potential jurors, who were later dismissed.
Garcia, 22, is charged with drive-by shooting, three counts of first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. He is accused of firing a gun into a crowd of people at the Moose Lodge on Feb. 16. Three people were shot in the legs, and police described the shooting as gang-related.
Cook ruled that public defender Glen Hoff had a conflict of interest representing Garcia because of a 2007 drive-by shooting. A confidential informant, represented by the public defender’s office, identified Garcia from photographs as connected to that shooting.
References to that shooting were likely to come up in the Moose Lodge trial this week, creating a conflict of interest for Hoff.
Cook said Hoff’s loyalty is split between promising the confidentiality of the informant and Garcia, who wants to know who identified him.
After explaining the conflict to Garcia, Cook said, Hoff is in between a rock and a hard place, with a duty to two different people and an “irreconcilable conflict of interest.”
Outside counsel will be hired to represent Garcia in the Moose Lodge shooting case. He is being held in the Skagit County Jail on $500,000 bail.
• Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .
