By Bryan Miller
WOODLAND, CA – After a man’s court trial was moved from Dept. 8 of the Yolo County Supreme Court to Dept. 10, and his ability to a full court translation of it was put in doubt, Judge Samuel McAdam refused to accommodate the accused’s schedule.
The man was to be seen back before the court for a reassignment hearing after a prosecution motion was granted, disallowing Judge McAdam from presiding over the trial.
The man also faced the issue of a lack of a Spanish interpreter being available to assist him. This was because the two assigned to work that day were both being used in a different trial.
Judge McAdam allowed Deputy Public Defender Jailene Gutierrez, who is fluent in Spanish, to explain what was happening to the accused because it was what he called a simple “procedural hearing.”
However, this led to the accused being denied word by word translation, which is regularly provided by the court.
The accused was brought before the court for trial for his misdemeanor driving under the influence charge with an enhancement for “excessive blood alcohol or refusal,” a case that was originally assigned to Judge Daniel Wolk.
Upon the case being brought before Judge McAdam, Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hayes immediately issued a 170.6 motion, stating the prosecution believed that they would not receive a fair trial from Judge McAdam.
The granting of this motion meant the case must once again move to be heard before another judge. This led to Judge McAdam continuing the case to Thursday when it would be reassigned to another department.
DPD Gutierrez objected to the proposed date of Thursday, arguing the accused had an appointment that he “wasn’t sure he could reschedule” and that it was a “very hard” appointment to get originally. She then requested that the court continue the case until Feb. 26 to allow the accused to attend his appointment.
The request was denied by Judge McAdam, who told DPD Gutierrez to stay in contact with the prosecution on the status of the attempt to change the date of the appointment.
