KAUK DENIED RETRIAL
This article was published in the October 18, 2025 edition.
Lonnie Kauk, a famed Yosemite climber convicted of felony domestic violence, appeared before Mono County Superior Court on Monday seeking a retrial.
Judge Gerald Mohun denied the motion after more than three hours of argument and set Kauk’s sentencing for December 1. If granted, the motion would have vacated his conviction and reopened the case.
A Mono County jury found Kauk guilty in April of three felonies and one misdemeanor stemming from a June 22, 2023 incident in which prosecutors said he strangled his girlfriend to the point of unconsciousness. According to testimony, Kauk also threatened to kill her dog, her ailing father, and the victim herself.
The Sheet covered Kauk’s trial in its April 19, 2025 issue, and his conviction in the April 26, 2025 issue.
Kauk appeared at Monday’s hearing with new counsel – Dan Wagner and Scott Simmons, Irvine-based attorneys – who argued that his former lawyer, Bakersfield-based Elliot Magnus, had performed inadequately violating Kauk’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.
“If counsel had been competent […] there is a reasonable probability of a different result that at least one juror would have had a reasonable doubt. That’s all it takes.” Wagner argued. “And the cumulative errors here certainly make it [clear] that this was not a fair trial.”
This motion put Deputy District Attorney Lauren Ryerson in the unusual position of defending the same lawyer she was up against in the trial just months prior.
“The court sat through the trial, observed the witnesses, and observed Mr. Magnus’ performance,” she said. “The jury returned guilty verdicts because the evidence was strong, not because counsel was constitutionally deficient.”
Wagner and Simmons focused on two main claims: that Magnus failed to pursue a mental health diversion and that he mishandled key parts of the trial. A mental health diversion allows defendants with mental health disorders to enter treatment instead of jail.
The new defense argued that Kauk struggled with alcoholism, citing testimony from the prosecution’s own witnesses who said he drank heavily and often. They contended that if Magnus had investigated this before trial, the verdict might have been different.
“We’re in post-conviction status right now; we couldn’t actually move for diversion at this moment,” Wagner said. “It’s our position, though, that counsel should have made that motion and are giving an example of what that motion might have looked like.”
Magnus, subpoenaed and under oath, said at the hearing he did not pursue that option because Kauk consistently denied having a drinking problem. Kauk also had no prior arrests or hospitalizations related to alcohol use.
Wagner countered that it’s common for people with substance abuse issues to deny they have a problem, but the court was unmoved.
“Your only basis for [this claim of alcoholism] is what these two witnesses, the victim and her friend, told law enforcement in the investigation?” Judge Mohun asked.
While it is common for alcoholics to deny they have a problem, “it is also common for people who do not have alcohol use disorder to deny they have a problem,” he added later.
The defense’s second argument centered on Magnus’s decision not to call an expert witness, which they said prevented him from effectively challenging the prosecution’s forensic evidence.
“There are ‘known knowns,’ and there are ‘known unknowns,’ and then there are ‘unknown unknowns,'” Wagner said. “Did you go into this trial with some unknown unknowns about the forensic pathology of the purported injuries to our case?”
The courtroom broke into laughter when attorney Ryerson objected. “If it’s an unknown unknown, then how would he know?” she said.
Judge Mohun upheld the objection.
“We’re getting deep into philosophy now,” he joked, as District Attorney Investigator Chris Callinan leaned back in his chair and laughed.
At trial, the prosecution called an expert who testified that photos of the victim’s neck injuries were consistent with strangulation. Magnus said he deliberately chose not to call his own expert, believing it would have undermined his argument that Kauk never inflicted the injuries.
“It didn’t seem reasonable or useful, even if it’s true, for the jury to consider that,” Magnus said. “I think we would have lost credibility if we had a doctor come in and testify to that.”
He repeated this explanation even as the defense brought forward pointed examples, such as how an expert might have testified that the marks on the victim’s neck were abrasions from her uniform collar or were self-inflicted.
Ryerson dismissed the line of questioning outright.
“I do not understand where we’re going with this at all,” she said, waving her hand. “You can absolutely strangle someone using a ligature—in this case, a shirt. That does not change the analysis at all.”
In their final attempt at persuasion, Wagner and Simmons combed through the trial transcript, pointing out what they viewed as missed opportunities for Magnus to object or recall witnesses to impeach their testimony.
Magnus stood by his approach, saying he avoided frequent objections to maintain the jury’s trust. “If I were to object and get overruled or jump up and down making objections […] it would look like I was trying to hide something,” he said.
Though Judge Mohun commended the defense on a thorough case, he didn’t budge on his perspective that the trial was fair and that Magnus was appropriate in his counsel.
“An error by counsel, even a professionally unreasonable one, does not warrant setting aside the judgment of a criminal proceeding,” he said. “Had counsel done the thing the defendant now argues, there would not have been a different outcome.”
Kauk faces a maximum sentence of eight years, four months in state prison.
