Witnesses to a series of violent events involving one of the three men killed in the 2023 mass shooting in Annapolis will not recount their experiences during the trial against the man’s accused killer, a judge ruled Wednesday.

After hearing from 16 witnesses in what he described as “mini trials,” Anne Arundel Circuit Judge J. Michael Wachs decided much of their testimony would be prejudicial to the state’s case against Charles Robert Smith.

The judge said, however, that he would permit testimony conveying Mario Mireles’ reputation for possessing a gun, while also allowing the defendant to relay any specific occurrences he has knowledge of, should he choose to take the stand at trial.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Feb. 7, though pending lawsuits regarding FBI investigations into Mireles could lead to a postponement.

Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess argued the encounters detailed in court Wednesday — fights, assaults and a shooting that injured Mireles one year before he died — would only “boost” Smith’s opinion that Mireles was a dangerous person. The 27-year-old Annapolis resident was not accused of having a gun when the shooting started.

But Wachs, who was specially assigned to Smith’s case after retiring last year, has allowed the defendant’s team of public defenders latitude in exploring their self-defense argument due to the gravity of the charges: 18 misdemeanors and 24 felonies, including three counts of first-degree murder and three hate crimes in the killings of the Hispanic men.

Smith, a 45-year-old veteran, was arrested at his mother’s home on the night of June 11, 2023, minutes after he shot six people in his neighborhood, three of them fatally: Mario Mireles, his father Nicolas Mireles, 55, and friend Christian Segovia, 25.

Smith’s team of public defenders — Anne Stewart-Hill, Denis O’Connell and Felipe Gonzalez — have declined to comment until after the trial concludes.

The bulk of Wednesday’s hearing was spent calling character witnesses. Most had negative experiences with Mario Mireles between 2014 and 2023 and two corrections officers spoke of altercations they’ve had with Smith in the Jennifer Road Detention Center. One of those incidents involved Smith calling an officer, a Black woman, a derogatory name.

Some of the actions described resulted in criminal charges for Mario Mireles, such as a 2014 assault in which he waved a handgun at a group who called him out for driving recklessly in a parking lot. Others didn’t, including a street fight in downtown Annapolis and a confrontation with a business owner on West Street. Leitess argued Mireles was not the aggressor in several of them.

One witness, a woman who said she “was talking” to Mario Mireles when she was in high school, referenced a fight in which she threw his phone out of a moving car and he allegedly dragged her by her hair. Though the judge’s ruling precludes testimony about that incident, Wachs said he may accept her interpretation of Mario Mireles’ reputation, which she described as “a little scary.”

Nelcy Goss, Mario Mireles’ sister, who was unable to attend Wednesday’s hearing, said last month that “no matter what is true or false, Mario did not deserve to die that day.”

“Three people lost their lives that day for no reason,” she said. “And all we want is justice for all our families.”

The mass shooting that killed her brother, the bloodiest event in Annapolis in nearly five years, was the climax of more than a decade of tension between the Smith and Mireles families.

According to court documents, Smith returned to the 1000 block of Paddington Place after sailing near Severna Park. At the time, the Mireles family was hosting a birthday party with dozens of guests and Smith was unable to park his 16-foot sailboat in his driveway.

Smith saw his mother and Mario Mireles “involved in a heated verbal altercation” in her front yard, according to the Maryland Public Defender’s Office. “Familiar” with Mario Mireles’ “reputation for violence as well as gun possession,” Smith walked into his house, retrieved a Glock pistol and confronted his neighbor, said Assistant Public Defender Deborah Katz Levi.

Mario Mireles attempted to disarm Smith and took him to the ground before Smith shot him and Segovia several times at close range, police said.

In a federal complaint, Levi said other partygoers began firing their own guns at Smith while “several individuals attempted to break into” his home when he and his mother retreated inside. The description contradicted witness accounts that no one other than Smith was armed, though after the crime scene was disassembled, bullet holes could be seen on the siding and front of his home, including on the front door.

Smith then grabbed an AR-15 rifle and began firing from his front window, police said, killing Nicolas Mireles and injuring three others.

For months, Smith’s lawyers have attempted to demonstrate Mario Mireles’ “history of violence” and alleged associations with drug dealing and gangs. Leitess, who is working the case with Assistant State’s Attorney Jason Steinhardt, has repeatedly said the shooting was not gang-related and has nothing to do with the victims’ pasts.

Even so, the defense has elevated their attempts to the federal level, first securing a court order to have FBI agents testify during trial and then challenging the agency in a lawsuit to “promptly provide information” it has on the Mireles family.

On Wednesday, Leitess criticized the defenders’ sustained efforts, describing them as a “fight over nothing.”

“They’re looking for something they’re never going to get,” she said, acknowledging the FBI’s refusal to compromise any confidential informants or open investigations.

Stewart-Hill said their team had an obligation to pursue any leads that could bolster their clients’ case.

“We all want to try this case, there’s no question about that … [but] we have to pursue this information until we can’t,” she said.

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