By Alexander Jimenez
ALAMEDA, CA – Assistant Public Defender Paul Michael Foster bluntly charged at a hearing here in Alameda County Superior Court this week that “I believe that was a mistake by Judge Jacobson,” and added a hearing to the court calendar to formally request a modification to a current release order from GPS monitoring to home detention.
Foster detailed why he believes Judge Morris Jacobson, who issued the order, made a mistake. The current order as it currently stands from a June 21 order says that Michael Walker be monitored by GPS.
Walker was in custody when his case started and was released on supervision May 10, which was changed to pretrial services monitoring because of the cost, according to Foster.
Foster told the court he believes that when that change happened, that Judge Jacobson inadvertently did not order home confinement and just the GPS monitoring.
At this point the presiding judge, who appeared to be subbing in for Judge Jacobson and could not be identified, asked Foster “why would you request something that is more intrusive on your client?”
PD Foster responded by saying that Walker wanted to be given custody credits.
According to the court’s calendar report, Walker appears to have a multitude of charges including robbery and other charges related to the use of a deadly weapon.
After a brief moment of silence, the judge denied the request, seeing no reason to correct what Foster believes to be an error, but otherwise the judge believes that Judge Jacobson was clear in his intentions.
In a last ditch attempt, Foster conveyed to the court a piece of information revealing more about the order. According to Foster, Judge Jacobson had signed an order that would have allowed Walker to leave his home to attend a funeral, and “his signature on that order would be inconsistent with an order that he only be on GPS monitoring,” said Foster.
The judge seemingly disregarded this information because it did not influence the decision to keep the current pretrial service monitoring intact.
