By Aishwarya Rajan
SACRAMENTO – “I think that’s a failure of the Court. I think that’s a significant failure,” said Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White here last week, in agreement to Assistant Public Defender Brennan McGee’s argument that the courts have not handled COVID-19 trials very well.
McGee, used his own client, defendant Eric Giannini, as an example of the failures of the court, in hopes of providing an opportunity to rectify a failed system. The defense hoped to convince the court to grant Giannini a Motion to Dismiss.
When granted, Motions to Dismiss generally result in the plaintiff’s case being thrown out if the claims against the accused are argued as invalid.
Giannini is charged with Penal Code section 69, using threats or violence to prevent an executive officer from performing their duties, or resisting executive officers in the performance of their duties. A conviction of such crime can carry a three-year sentence.
Giannini was upset officers had come to his home on a domestic violence call. He allegedly became aggressive, according to the police report, flailing his arms at law enforcement while yelling expletives. He didn’t comply with orders, and, allegedly, it took two police officers to wrestle him down to the ground. After he was detained, he was charged with resisting arrest.
But, that was nearly two years ago, in early March 2019. And that is his lawyer’s point. A speedy trial.
As a preface to his Motion to Dismiss McGee explained that, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing has remained constant, but changed in an unprecedented way.
Giannini’s counsel approached the judge prefacing his argument with “the most important thing that we have is access to justice and the judicial system.
“The reason I bring this to the court’s attention is that … why we filed this motion after the second shut down, is that the defendant doesn’t understand the logic behind closing jury trials down completely again, denying (him) the right to a speedy trial again, when we have in fact found a way, and there was a way to have trials heard,” the PD said.
He postulated that the courts took the proper initiative to prevent any COVID-19 related outbreaks by creating space between jurors, witnesses, and court staff as a protective measure.
The defense drew the analogy: “Restaurants, for lack of a better term, Panda Express, were still allowing people to come in with just markers on the floor, clearly with a little more exposure than what the courts were allowing for.”
PD McGee requested the Motion to Dismiss, noting the defendant lacks previous criminal convictions aside from the current charge of resisting and fighting an officer, because the court system has denied those charged with crimes their 6th Amendment rights.
The defense next referenced, after being asked by the court to submit, the audio recordings from Eric Giannini’s Trial Readiness Conference.
Upon pulling the recordings, he found that they were improperly recorded, and “they just don’t exist. There’s no way I can get them” MGee solemnly explained.
He argued Giannini faced an ill-equipped judicial system, which Judge White stipulated as a failure, seeing as a “defendant is entitled to a speedy trial irrespective of the People’s readiness or lack of readiness.”
That was a statement to which McGee retorted that it “needs to be more than just, you know, because of COVID.”
With conviction, McGee challenged, “The court needs to look at the emergency order they were originally granted by the legislature and originally targeted at the legislative and executive powers, and look at what their effect is on the judicial system, specifically … the rights to a speedy trial.”
McGee was not alone with these views, as Judge Steve White added, “I do wish to say that I think the court has failed, procedurally, with regard to the record, and I am very dismayed by that, Mister.”
Before submitting for Judge White’s decision, opposing counsel Deputy District Attorney Chelsea Givens requested that Judge White mandate 20 anger management classes to be completed in 60 days as a Diversion Program, which also required that the defendant waive his right to a speedy trial.
After the 60-day period, the court will reconvene to discuss further matters in the case.
Aishwarya Rajan is a first year Political Science/ Public Service major and Cognitive Science major at the University of California, Davis. Her various experiences living in her hometown in Danville, California, have shaped her passions to deliver justice through a career in law.
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