PUBLIC SAFETY FACILITY — Two Arizona men facing attempted murder charges in connection with the brutal beating of a Santa Monica resident last month are formally fighting extradition, forcing Los Angeles County prosecutors to seek a governor’s warrant, authorities told the Daily Press.
Brian Scott Hale, 24, of Tempe, Ariz., and Brett Davis, 25, of Fountain Hills, Ariz., appeared before a Maricopa County judge Oct. 26 and chose to block attempts to transfer them from the Fourth Avenue Jail to Los Angeles County to face trial, said Santa Monica Police Sgt. Richard Lewis.
The men are being held on a bond of more than $1 million. The two were arrested Oct. 14 by Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies using information provided by the Santa Monica Police Department, authorities said.
Police believe the two men were drinking at a bar in the early morning hours of Sept. 22 when they randomly attacked a 45-year-old movie producer who was exercising with weights on the 3100 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. Police said Hale and Davis attacked the man from behind and used the weights to brutally beat him. The victim suffered a collapsed skull, several brain bleeds, a broken jaw and neck and back fractures.
Police said Hale and Davis were in the Los Angeles area working for a moving company.
Surveillance video taken from a nearby business does not show the attack, but it does show two suspects running away around the time the beating happened.
A governor’s warrant is a warrant issued by the governor’s office and used to extradite a wanted suspect from another state, where they are being held under arrest, in order to be returned to the warrant-issuing state to face trial for a criminal act.
Prosecutors will submit the proper paper work to Gov. Jerry Brown’s office. If approved, the warrant will be submitted to the governor of Arizona for processing. That can take anywhere from 60 to 90 days, said a member of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Extradition Unit.
Generally, a warrant should contain details with regard to a fugitive, the demanding state, details of the request from the demanding state, and the crime the fugitive is charged with. A warrant should also contain the way in which it has to be implemented and a direction to produce a fugitive before the judge.
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