By Catherine Potente
WOODLAND, CA – Private Defense Attorney Chet Templeton said this week here in Yolo County Superior Court it is just “wrong” and feels slapped on the head after being denied face-to-face contact with his client by the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department.
In a co-defendant pre-trial hearing, defense counsel Chet Templeton made a request to suspend all criminal proceedings for the case until he has met his client who is in custody.
In effect, he won that motion and the judge continued the case until early May.
Templeton has made multiple requests, he told the court, to see his client in custody, but has been denied each time. Templeton has asked for sanctions and made requests to remove his client to various facilities where attorney and client visits are allowed.
The judge denied the motion.
At a previous court date, the judge at the time made an order that allowed Templeton to visit his client in custody one time.
Templeton stated to Judge David Rosenberg, “You were not the sitting judge that day, but what the judge did do was make an order to allow me one face-to-face, in-person contact visit with my client and the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department chose to refuse that order.”
Deputy Public Defender Marth Sequeira was in agreement with Templeton, in that it has been difficult to meet her client in custody and she has not met with her client in months.
However, she made it clear that she did not stand in agreement with Templeton’s request to suspend criminal proceedings.
DPD Sequeira stated, “[My client] and I have a longstanding relationship, so we sit different than Mr. Templeton and [his client]. I’ve been involved with [my client] for quite some time, so we have a longstanding established attorney-client relationship and we had already been aware about this case well-prior to the co-defendant’s involvement and the private attorney’s involvement for the co-defendant for sure.”
Ronald Martinez, Chief Assistant County Counsel, represented the county counsel to respond to Templeton’s issue.
Martinez explained that Templeton has been made aware that the jail does not have open-contact visits for attorneys due to COVID.
In response to the order that allowed Templeton one in-person contact visit, Martinez stated, “The sheriff’s office was not noticed about that hearing, we were not given a chance to appear at that hearing and so I think that order was legally deficient for lack of due process and separation of powers issues.”
Martinez noted that the jail is monitoring and assessing the COVID situation and open-contact visits are beginning to open up starting in May.
Judge Rosenberg asserted that giving Templeton more time to meet with his client is all he can do at the moment.
“It just slaps, it just flies so wrong in my face when I know Yolo County sheriffs that say that they are allowed to go in the jail whenever they want to interview a suspect or a witness in a case. If this doesn’t violate equal protection, I don’t know what does,” responded Templeton.
Judge Rosenberg refused to suspend all criminal proceedings, but agreed to continue the arraignment. The record shows the arraignment won’t be completed until Templeton has the opportunity to meet with his client.
The arraignment will occur May 10 at 1:30 p.m.
