DUBLIN — A Fremont resident tried and failed to undo a murder conviction, after blaming the move on his “lying mother(expletive)” of a lawyer and attempting to convince a judge that he didn’t appreciate the gravity of what he explicitly agreed to in court.
Just a few days into his murder trial in April, Marquice McClinton, 39, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder for an agreed-upon sentence of 29 years to life in prison. But almost immediately after taking the deal, McClinton started trying to get out of it, complaining to loved ones over the monitored Santa Rita Jail inmate phone that he had been misled. Much of the blame and vitriol was aimed at his lawyer, according to court records.
“That lying (expletive), that lying-(expletive) (expletive). That lying mother(expletive),” McClinton said on one call, referring to his trial lawyer, according to a transcript filed in court. He claimed that he’d been told he’d have to do 16 years before he was eligible for parole, not 29, and that, “Before I come out, before, I’d be, I’d be 70 years old, 80 years old.”
The problem for McClinton’s claim was that at the April 21 change-of-plea hearing, Alameda County Judge Amy Sekany stated that the agreed-upon sentence would be 29 years to life and asked McClinton, “Is that your understanding?”
“Yeah,” McClinton replied, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Subsequent court filings, made by McClinton’s new Fairfield-based defense attorney, claims that McClinton’s trial lawyer, Stephen DeFilippis, urged McClinton to take the deal by telling his then-client that he “(expletive)d himself” by allegedly telling a family member to find a prosecution’s witness and mold her testimony.
When prosecutors informed the defense they planned to play the conversation, recorded on the jail’s phone, McClinton took the plea deal. The new court filings claim McClinton was actually trying to “protect the witness from being tricked into saying something that is not true because it could result in her possibly being charged with a crime.” He didn’t want to dissuade her, as prosecutors claim, according to court records.
As for McClinton’s explicit agreement to the sentencing, the filings say McClinton “was not on his antipsychotic medications at the time he entered the plea … Mr. McClinton did not have any meaningful opportunity to discuss the offer with his attorney,” who convinced McClinton the case was “hopeless.”
Prosecutors countered these arguments by publishing more jail calls involving McClinton, where he provided various reasons to an “unknown female” for taking the deal, including the allegedly incriminating call about the witness, and his contention that prosecutors wanted to give him “50 to life.” The prosecution’s motion says that McClinton was offered a sentence of 40 years to life and the defense countered with the 29 years to life sentence.
“At no point during this phone call did he claim to have been forced to take the plea or lacking medication or appear mentally incoherent. The following day he called the unknown female again and she immediately told him he that he needed to get out of it and withdraw the plea,” the prosecution’s motion says. “He agreed and was focused on the fact that new evidence (the jail call) was brought up during the trial and felt that that was against the law.”
McClinton’s case involves the Oct. 25, 2023 killing of Marcos Chisley. According to police and eyewitness testimony, McClinton killed Chisley near some dumpsters behind a Smart & Final in Fremont, then rode his bicycle to a friend’s home and made a chilling confession.
“That (expletive) started laughing at me. If you want to laugh at me, I’ll (expletive)ing kill you,” McClinton allegedly told his friend and the friend’s girlfriend, according to the woman’s testimony in the 2024 preliminary hearing. McClinton later reportedly recalled how Chisley “started gurgling” before he died. He allegedly said, “I shot his (expletive),” then added, “That’s number 10,” the woman said on the stand.
After months of legal filings, the parties appeared last week before Judge Sekany, who could have found that DeFilippis and McClinton’s attorney/client privilege had been waived and allowed defense attorneys to question him about the plea deal. Instead, Sekany denied McClinton’s motion to pull out of the deal. At the prior hearing, McClinton was removed from court due to an outburst, according to the minute orders from both hearings.
McClinton is set to be sentenced on Dec. 5, records show. Prosecutors have filed court papers saying the life sentence is well-deserved.
“It was not until after 14 of 27 scheduled witnesses had testified and transcript of the damning phone calls was provided that McClinton decided to accept responsibility for his callous actions,” the prosecution’s sentencing memo says.