What to Know
- Mexican actor Pablo Lyle is facing a manslaughter charge following a fatal incident in Miami-Dade in 2019
- Lyle is accused of hitting 63-year-old Juan Hernandez during an alleged road rage incident
- Hernandez died days later in the hospital
The Miami-Dade manslaughter trial for Mexican actor Pablo Lyle will begin in March 2021, a judge determined Thursday.
In a brief virtual hearing in which Lyle was present without being seen or heard, Florida 11th Circuit Judge Marlene Fernández-Karavetsos said the jury trial will begin on March 15. It also set a new hearing to analyze the status of the case on October 14.
"We have to give him the opportunity to go to trial," Fernández-Karavetsos said, after defense attorney Philip Reizenstein reminded her that an appeals court had rejected Lyle's argument that he acted in self-defense, thus ruling out the possibility of an acquittal without resorting to judgment.
The 33-year-old actor, whose credits include the Mexican soap opera "My Adorable Curse" and the Netflix series "Yankee," is under house arrest in Miami and has a GPS monitor on his ankle that allows the authorities to know his movements 24 hours a day.
At the hearing via Zoom were Lyle's three attorneys and prosecutor Eileen Keeley.
The judge had originally scheduled the trial to start in February, but Keeley asked her to extend the time because another prosecutor involved in the case would be on maternity leave by then.
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Reizenstein agreed to the request after explaining that it was difficult for his client to be without authorization to work in the United States for so long.
Lyle is accused of hitting 63-year-old Juan Hernandez during an alleged road rage incident last year in Miami. Hernandez died days later in the hospital.
Lyle's attorneys have claimed that the actor was trying to protect his family when Hernandez assaulted them. In August, a judge denied Lyle's motion to have the case dropped under Florida's so-called "Stand Your Ground" law.
