LET HIM SPEAK

Judge Reopens Pelosi Attacker’s Sentencing Hearing Over ‘Clear Error’

The court said it was a mistake not to “personally ask” David DePape if he had anything to say at the hearing where he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

The federal judge who last week sentenced David DePape to 30 years behind bars for breaking into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer said a day later that she would reopen his sentencing hearing, citing a “clear error” by the court. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said she’d failed to ask DePape if he wanted to make a statement at the Friday hearing, an oversight that apparently went unnoticed at the time by both the prosecution and the defense. “Nonetheless, it was the Court’s responsibility to personally ask Mr. DePape if he wanted to speak,” the judge wrote, according to the Associated Press. Prosecutors alerted the court to the mistake shortly after the sentence was handed down, Corley’s court order said. The judge set a May 28 date to reopen the hearing, which is unlikely to see DePape’s sentence significantly or at all altered. DePape, 43, has yet to face trial in state court on several felony charges related to the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, who has since recovered from the assault. Jury selection is set to begin in the case on Wednesday.