In a press release issued on Tuesday, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig attempted to take full credit for a reduction in court delays that, over three years, have been reduced by nearly 20 percent according to his office. The local media dutifully reported on this, doing little to no checking with the other key players.
According to his press release, “In 2007, after being elected District Attorney, Reisig started paying attention to lengthy case delays and the many inmates who were in the Yolo County jail for months and years awaiting trial.”
“In 2008, he introduced to his staff a new mission to reduce court delays with the mantra, ‘Justice Finds No Solace in Delay.’ The idea was that when cases are delayed and drag through the court system, victims are further traumatized, memories of witnesses fade or witnesses die, and defendants’ speedy trial rights are violated. Additionally, the countless court appearances seen in the past due to unnecessary continuances wasted both time and money,” the release reports.
According to the DA’s office, “In 2008, on average, felony cases took 144 days from assignment to a prosecutor to disposition. In 2009, that timeframe was reduced to 132 days. And, the average life of a felony case in 2010 further deceased [sic] to 117 days.”
Mr. Reisig praised the efforts of his prosecutors and the Yolo County judicial system. “Although we spearheaded these efforts to move cases through the criminal courts swiftly, the judicial system as a whole was cooperative.” Reisig continued, “My prosecutors have been very driven to avoid continuances. The court has tried to move cases along. And, victims have noticed a difference.”
Mr. Reisig said that he “hopes to continue working in partnership with the courts and defense attorneys to reduce court delays even further. ‘If we all work together, we can continue to shave days and even weeks off these cases while being careful to preserve the constitutional rights of the defendants.’ “
However, while he is quick to grab praise, he is slow to acknowledge the work of others.
Judge Rosenberg, as the Daily Democrat reported back in January 2010, “implemented a new calendar system to address an increasing backlog of cases. The inefficient court calendar of the past meant only 55 criminal trials went through the Yolo judicial system a year, and defendants had to wait more than eight months for their day in court.”
Moreover, Judge Rosenberg “reconfigured court proceedings to a vertical calendar system, in which only one judge is assigned to a case for all major purposes, instead of several. Taking out the middle man, so to speak, more than doubled the capacity for cases and broke an all-time record with 121 trials in 2008.”
“We’ve pretty much eliminated downtime,” doing so with a budget that’s $1 million leaner than the previous year’s, Judge Rosenberg told the Davis Enterprise back in 2010. “We’ve had to deal with that while maintaining the same workload, and maintaining staff morale.”
Back in March, Public Defender Tracie Olson discussed this issue before the county board of supervisors. Previously, she said, we did have a backlog, and there were people in custody for years before their trial. But, she argued, that is gone.
Instead, what we have seen now is a large number of jury trials with no corresponding increase in the crime rate.
“It’s absolutely true that we’re having more and more jury trials,” she told the Board. “I think we had 112 last year, 121 each of the two years prior which prior to that I think we had 50 or 60 jury trials. So, workload is still very, very high.”
Ms. Olson told the board, “It is my opinion that the number of jury trials has nothing to do with the crime rate.”
In addition to the large number of trials, the District Attorney’s office, while claiming to streamline the process, also bogs it down with a number of cases that could settle if they charged them more reasonably and if they were more willing to deal.
In the last month alone, we monitored and covered the Kalah case, where four defendants from a West Sacramento Asian family were charged with drug dealing and gang charges. After a six-month investigation produced only 1.4 grams of meth, they nevertheless charged the defendants with enough counts to send them away for life.
The result of the trial was one conviction, one dismissal and two hung juries. They then settled the two hung juries for minor charges and short prison time, but for all of the time and resources, the case was largely overblown as a gang dealing drugs, when it appears it was a father down on his luck attempting to sell drugs to support his family.
In that case, Deputy DA Ryan Couzens laid out what might be considered the DA’s Manifesto, in essence agreeing that Yolo County charges minor crimes very harshly.
He called this a gang, selling drugs. He said that it is irrelevant that Sacramento or Stockton would charge this crime as a misdemeanor. He said that it is on them, and their problem. He said this is Yolo County and we do things differently here.
He admitted that he is very aggressive about gangs and crimes. He said the same for his office. Further, he acknowledged that they did not find evidence of a huge drug operation – that they only found 1.4 grams of meth.
But he said that if we allow “specks of methamphetamine” to go unchecked, if we allow a fledgling gang to go unchecked, just because it is a fledgling operation, that “that’s throwing in the towel.”
In a case that has been going on since May 2010, two teenagers face at least 13 years in prison for allegedly attempting to sell an ounce of marijuana to what turned out to be undercover police officers. The case could have been settled a year ago, had the DA simply been willing to charge it as a marijuana case rather than a gang case.
The DA argued that the sellers of the marijuana were two validated Norteno gang members and an associate. However, Defense Attorney Rod Beede countered that the Penal Code 186.22(b) statute requires a specific intent, “with the specific intent to promote, further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members.”
Davis Officer Briesenick was fundamentally unable to articulate the benefit in this case to a criminal street gang, other than the fact that there were two gang members and an associate in the case and the home had ties, apparently, to Norteno gang members.
Recently, in one week, seven individuals were on trial in Yolo County, five were acquitted, there was one hung jury and there was one individual convicted but on lesser charges.
In March, Public Defender Tracie Olson indicated that when the DA refuses to make a reasonable offer, there is little choice for the defense but to take it to trial. The DA often sees the facts one way and the defense another way.
“We just couldn’t meet on the minutiae,” she told the Board of Supervisors, “so we ended up having a jury trial, we did a great job, and our clients were acquitted.”
The reality is that while the DA can talk about streamlining the process, until he changes both his charging policies and his offering policies, all we have done is push a lot of cases, that do not belong in trial, through the system.
Ms. Olson at the time suggested that the courts do not get involved as much as they used to. By this she meant that judges need to pre-conference cases “in a meaningful way.” The sides, in chamber, would lay out their cards and the judges would say, “given this, this is what I would do.”
“Sometimes we don’t have to fight any more if we know [what a judge is inclined to do given the facts presented to him],” she said. “So the judges need to do more work and the judges acknowledge that.”
Supervisor Jim Provenza indicated that this was brought up last year, and Tracie Olson responded that it has been subject to ongoing discussions.
Supervisor Provenza added, “I don’t want to cut costs by eliminating jury trials where there needs to be one. But if there are cases that could settle but for the lack of judicial involvement, then that’s something that we need to address.”
Tracie Olson concluded that portion of the discussion by citing shared blame among all of the parties.
In the meantime, juries continue to send the message this year that they are not going to convict on minor cases if the facts are even remotely in question.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
To understand the District Attorney’s philosophy on charging just look at the grants they write. This is written on at least five different grants they have submitted. Grants pay District Attorneys dependent on progress. Being tough on crime is financial rewarding to the District Attorney’s budget.
“Prosecutors strive to charge cases with a eye towards receiving the maximum penalties. If a defendant has prior cases in this office all files are pulled and banded. This information, as well as the rap sheets from this and other jurisdictions are analyzed for 3-strike eligibility or enhancements. Motions and arguments are presented to sustain a defendant’s incarceration.”
This philosophy increases expenses for incarceration, public defenders, and court personnel. Some of these cases, if charged correctly, could be plea bargained. In the end there is more of a tax burden on us. Charging cases with an eye to maximizing penalties may cost us more than it is worth.
What the heck is this story about? The headline indicates the DA is taking full credit for streamlining the court system. The article then concedes the DA also gave credit to the cooperation of the courts, so the article itself discredits its own headline. Then inexplicably the article moves on to complain about the DA overcharging cases, yet concedes the DA has a policy of “no tolerance” with respect to drug cases – the political platform the DA ran on and which got the DA voted into office and continues to keep him in office. The story then does another sharp zag into discussion of the failure of the judges to intervene with pre-trial conferences, which may/may not be contributing to the alleged overcharging of cases. This piece has so many premises/issues, it is hard to follow what the point is… but it certainly does not match the headlines.
The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states: Make certain that headlines… do not misrepresent…
To Grant Reader: The legal system is adversarial. Prosecutors get paid to bring maximum charges in any case as “leverage”. You may not like the system (I too find fault w much of it), but it is what it is…
I think I’ve pointed out that juvenile offenders charged as adults (direct filing) are taking too long to resolve. The last group took 3 years to go to trial and then were sentenced to 16 months in jail, but since they were held longer than that in Juvenile Hall, were immediately released on adult “parole.” Three years is too long to resolve a case for a 15 year old. In the past, a teenager was eventually acquitted, but only after he served 2 years in Juvenile Hall. This is not just. I hope that Reisig puts some attention on this. I suspect that the ADA in charge of these cases feels that they must get a conviction and will not settle, so it goes on and on.
E Roberts Musser – Who gives a shit what the headline is?
Elaine: This is the same discussion that has been going on for months. So please don’t pretend like you don’t understand what is being said in this article. You like to put your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine.
The story is talking about:
1. The DA is trying to save face by stating that he is saving money. Why? Because there has been so much discussion about how his policies are costing us money.
2. The DA is using the story of cases moving through the courts faster as a PR move for himself–He is forgetting to give credit to Rosenburg and the other judges for changing their schedules. It’s usually not good PR to take all the credit yourself.
3. Ms. Olsen from the Public Defender’s office comments verify that there is no reason to have so many cases brought to trial in the first place. So her comment illustrates that there is a problem with how things are done by the DA’s office.
I would be interested in seeing how the DA got to that average! 117 days seems really low. Obviously he didnt factor in the Topete trial which has now been three years. I am not saying that he is causing that delay but it is sure worth calculating into the total average!Not to mention there have been many other cases that the prisoner stayed in custody for more than a year awaiting trial.
R Kelly wrote: [quote]In the past, a teenager was eventually acquitted, but only after he served 2 years in Juvenile Hall.[/quote]
From where did you obtain the above?
What are you talking about?
Oh yea, people are sentenced to 16 month jail commitments, really?
Care to substantiate your claims?
ERM, thank you so much for a much needed breath of fresh air
AdRemmer –
Ref. GANG MEMBERS CONVICTED OF AMTRAK ATTACK –
Posted Date: 11/13/2008
http://www.yolocounty.org/index.aspx?recordid=565&page=26
“Robert Reynolds, 17, of West Sacramento, was acquitted of all charges.” (Robert Reynolds was arrested in 2006 and subsequently released from Juvenile Hall in Nov 2008 after he was acquitted.)
I wonder if Reisig is as willing to take the blame for all that is wrong with his office or if he just wants the credit for what might be considered good. Sounds like campaigning to me.
To E Roberts Musser:
The title refers to the DA claiming: “Although we spearheaded these efforts to move cases through the criminal courts swiftly, the judicial system as a whole was cooperative.” The article then goes on to refute that claim by explaining that Judge Rosenberg was also working to speed up the court system, and not being merely “cooperative” but doing it independently under his own initiative. After that the article lays out all the things the DA is doing to actually slow down the system which makes their effort to speed up the system look like peanuts in comparison.
E Roberts Musser, I don’t think we can simplify it for you any further than that.
Also, it is the DA’s duty to “seek the truth,” not to charge as much as possible for “leverage.” What garbage.
Link to page under discussion? Thanks.
“Link to page under discussion? Thanks. “
What page are you asking for?
For each injustice in Yolo County, there is more than just the single person that is affected. Reisig talks about the victims but the person wrongfully or unjustly prosecuted (the real victim) has a family and many friends. That voice of reason has been heard on this blog. I dont thing anyone in the DA’s office is aware of the following that the Vanguard has. It has the guts to tell the truth and from the truth comes change – a revolution!
Revolution: (from the Latin revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Its use to refer to political change dates from the scientific revolution occasioned by Copernicus’ famous De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.[1][a] Aristotle described two types of political revolution:
1.Complete change from one constitution to another
2.Modification of an existing constitution.
[quote]You like to put your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine. [/quote]
Actually I have been critical of the justice system frequently…
[quote]2. The DA is using the story of cases moving through the courts faster as a PR move for himself–He is forgetting to give credit to Rosenburg and the other judges for changing their schedules. It’s usually not good PR to take all the credit yourself. [/quote]
Actually the DA did give credit to Rosenberg… reread the post… “the judicial system as a whole was cooperative.”
[quote]3. Ms. Olsen from the Public Defender’s office comments verify that there is no reason to have so many cases brought to trial in the first place. So her comment illustrates that there is a problem with how things are done by the DA’s office. [/quote]
Ms. Olsen made it very clear she was disturbed that the judges were not holding pre-trial conferences to get cases to settle before trial.
[quote]I would be interested in seeing how the DA got to that average! 117 days seems really low. [/quote]
I wondered the same thing. The problem w a statistic like this is that it is an “average”, which could be somewhat misleading…
[quote]E Roberts Musser – Who gives a s**t what the headline is? [/quote]
Anyone should who believes in honest journalism. This article has no focus, other than to randomly trash the DA with this that and the other innuendo, which makes it largely irrelevant.
I think Elaine excuses the justice system much more than she is critical. It is easy to nit-pick over headlines and such. This is just lazy. ERM feels she must respond to every blog posting David makes, every day, day in and day out. Today’s post was not interesting to her, so, without something relevant to say, she trashes it and labels the post irrelevant. If that’s how she feels about the post….why respond? Because she must.
To Ryan Kelly: First of all you don’t know me. Actually you are completely wrong about my criticisms of the justice system. And I have many more criticisms of the justice system than will ever appear in the Vanguard. I have been the victim of the justice system.
Secondly, often I have been asked by dmg to respond to blog articles… so LOL at your “why respond” comment…
Thirdly, if you don’t care for my opinions, I always sign my name, so you may feel free to ignore them…
Fourthly, you did not address a single issue I raised, but instead chose to resort to a personal attack. Usually that is done when someone cannot come up w a logical argument…
[quote]This article has no focus, other than to randomly trash the DA with this that and the other innuendo, which makes it largely irrelevant.[/quote]
E Roberts Musser, I didn’t think I’d have to try and break it down any further for you, but here goes. The title of the article refers to the word “spearheaded” in the quote by the DA claiming “Although we [u]spearheaded[/u] these efforts to move cases through the criminal courts swiftly, the judicial system as a whole was cooperative.” The article then refutes this by explaining that Judge Rosenberg was not being merely “cooperative,” but also “spearheading” ways to speed up the judicial system.
The article then explains how ways in which the DA is actually causing the judicial system to slow down.
How is that “randomly” trashing the DA? You are “randomly” trashing this article. I swear to God I can’t simplify it for you any more than that.
Elaine: “Actually I have been critical of the justice system frequently…”
Please share some of those criticisms with us, and then maybe people won’t jump down your throat so often. It seems that most of your comments are in support of the DA and his policies.
People are really being hurt by those policies.