Christopher Loethen

Introduction

Christopher Loethen is a Merced-based criminal defense attorney — a former Merced County public defender who later ran his own law office — whose September 16, 2026 arrest at the Stanislaus County courthouse triggered the collapse of a six-year-old murder trial. Loethen, 50, was taken into custody on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance while representing Kelley Marie Ball, a woman facing murder charges in a fatal 2020 DUI hit-and-run. After his arrest he failed to appear for two subsequent hearings and stopped responding to the court entirely, and Judge Valli Israels removed him as Ball’s attorney of record, declared a mistrial without prejudice, and appointed a new defender, forcing prosecutors to begin jury selection again

Background Information

Loethen built his career in and around Merced County. A photograph published with the Modesto Bee’s reporting shows him in April 2018, when he was a Merced County public defender, questioning a witness during a preliminary hearing in a murder trial in Merced County Superior Court. He later went into private practice, running the Law Office of Christopher Loethen in Merced — the source of the office photo The New York Post used in its coverage — and took on Ball’s defense in Stanislaus County

His client of the moment was Kelley Marie Ball, accused of killing 12-year-old Yarely Jasso-Gomez in a July 19, 2020 crash in west Modesto, in which police said Ball ran a red light in a Jeep and broadsided a Nissan carrying the girl and her family. Ball faces four felony counts — murder under the so-called Watson theory, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, DUI of a drug causing injury, and vandalism — with prosecutors alleging five prior DUI convictions between 1997 and 2007. Ball has not been tried to verdict on any of them; the mistrial left her charges pending. Loethen had been involved in years of toxicology litigation in the case and had asked for more time in April 2026 after receiving a toxicology report he said required further investigation

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section describe criminal suspicions and court proceedings, not findings of guilt. Loethen was booked on suspicion of controlled-substance and public-intoxication offenses; the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office said investigators had not yet determined what substance, if any, was involved, and no charges from the arrest have been reported as filed. He has not been reached for comment and no statement from him has been reported.

The disruption began Wednesday, September 16, while the jury was outside the courtroom, on the trial’s seventh day. Court records show supervising Deputy District Attorney Wendell Emerson told Judge Israels there was concern about Loethen’s condition, and a sheriff’s sergeant described observations of Loethen in court. Israels advised Loethen of his Miranda rights at the prosecution’s request and ended the hearing so law enforcement could handle the matter. Loethen, 50, was arrested at the courthouse around noon by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the county Public Safety Center on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, being under the influence of a controlled substance, and public intoxication, Sgt. Michael Carranza told The Bee. He was released from jail later that night, around 11 p.m.

The judge had earlier flagged a change in his behavior on the record. “It just seemed like there was an aggressiveness about Mr. Loethen, not just towards the court, but in general,” Israels said, per The Post’s account of the Bee’s reporting. A person at Loethen’s own office told The Bee she had not spoken with him and had no information about his arrest, and Loethen could not be reached for comment

Public Reaction and Consequences

What turned an arrest into a career-ending courtroom rebuke was the no-show. Loethen did not appear for an 8:30 a.m. hearing Thursday and made no contact; the court emailed him at multiple addresses, called numbers tied to his office and cellphone, and left messages telling him he needed to appear. Israels issued an order to show cause requiring him to appear Friday at 8:30 a.m. He again did not appear, and by about 9:20 Friday morning the court still had received no phone call, email, or other response. With the murder defendant sitting in custody on $2.195 million bail, the judge removed Loethen as Ball’s attorney and appointed Martin Baker to take over the defense

Baker told the court he could not adequately prepare to take over the complex murder case in the few days before jurors were scheduled to return Tuesday — a request prosecutors Harshan Samra and Zynal Aziz objected to — and Israels, finding there was no realistic way for Baker to be ready in time, declared a mistrial without prejudice, meaning Ball can be retried. The image of a defense lawyer being led from a courthouse in cuffs, then vanishing on his own client, drew wide pickup: the Post carried the Bee’s reporting within a day, syndicated nationally through Yahoo News

Current Status

Loethen was released from the Stanislaus County Public Safety Center the night of his arrest and has made no public statement. No formal charges from the courthouse arrest had been reported as filed as of Saturday, September 19, and the sheriff’s office said the substance investigation was ongoing; the State Bar of California, which disciplines attorneys separately from the courts, had not announced any action. His removal from Ball’s case is final: the mistrial without prejudice was declared Friday, September 18, Ball is due back in court September 24 and remains jailed on $2.195 million bail pending her retrial, and jury selection must begin again.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The professional fallout for a lawyer whose livelihood is courtroom credibility is direct. Loethen’s arrest and unexplained absence emptied his own law office’s knowledge of his whereabouts — his paralegal told The Bee she had not spoken with him — and The California Post reported it reached his office for comment without an answer. Whatever the criminal process yields, the court record now contains a judge’s on-the-record observations of his demeanor, an order to show cause he ignored, and a murder trial destroyed, the kind of record that state bar discipline and future court appointments both weigh. Ball, meanwhile, awaits retrial in the death of Yarely Jasso-Gomez with a new lawyer who must rebuild a defense six years in the making, and Yarely’s family — whose brother was airlifted to a hospital with major injuries and whose father was seriously hurt in the same crash — must wait again for a verdict that a decade of prior DUI warnings and a six-year prosecution still has not produced