I will never forget the feeling as we were watching reporters, cameras and news crews lined up to watch a high profile trial that everyone was covering. Everyone but us. We climbed past them, walked the other way.
In our courtroom there were five kids – quite literally, their lives in the balance. It was that day, nearly two years into the project, that I realized what we were really about. We are not reporters covering the high profile cases. Instead, we are the watchdogs that monitor the system and report when things go wrong.
I remember back in March this year, I had an interview with Maurice Possley, the former Chicago Tribune reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, and was also the keynote speaker at the Vanguard‘s event just over a month ago.
“There are plenty of people who write about guilty people,” he told the Vanguard. He would go on to suggest that perhaps it is more important to write about people who may be innocent. But the limited resources of newsrooms and the fact that reporters rely on law enforcement sources often precludes that.
Mr. Possley started looking into wrongful convictions and problems that occurred in the legal system. He told the Vanguard, “Well, I remember particularly getting a letter from a reader saying, ‘Where was the Tribune when this case was happening?’ The fact that we weren’t there, a lot of us felt – I mean you start to look at some wrongful convictions in this country and if you look back, in a lot of cases there just wasn’t enough press coverage.”
He added, “And you wonder sometimes, if the press can pay attention, whether that would happen. I don’t know yet about that question. I think it might, I’d like to say that maybe in a few cases it might not have happened if there were more close scrutiny from the outside world.”
The founding of what was originally called Yolo Judicial Watch and is now called Vanguard Court Watch was based on what seemed to be a growing number of concerning convictions and our lack of ability to get into the courtroom and find those problematic cases.
The idea developed after a call from the family of Ajay Dev. I remember it was the summer of 2009, I was called out to their home and met with the family. It was long and complex case. At that time, there was no way to tell after the fact whether an error had really been made in their case.
I went to the sentencing and it was a harrowing and stunning decision to watch someone sentenced to 378 years for a non-lethal crime.
Later that year, with the help of a friend who was in law school, the idea arose to put interns into the courtroom to monitor court cases. They would look up the cases, take notes, and in those cases where there appeared to be problems – questions of guilt, overcharging, prosecutorial misconduct, the Vanguard would report on those cases.
It sounds easier than it actually is.
Here’s the thing that I think we do not emphasize nearly enough. The vast majority of cases plead out before they ever get to the trial – even the cases that we have flagged as problematic rarely actually get to trial. Sometimes we can tease out the problems during the preliminary hearing, sometimes we do not have the personnel to be able to cover them.
Secondly and most importantly – crime happens in this county. Someone commits those crimes. When they do, we have a system that we would like to believe finds the perpetrator, puts them on trial and puts them away. Much of the time, they do. The cases are relatively simple and straightforward and the evidence is overwhelming.
We cover a lot of trials where it is very obvious that the individual accused of the crime did, in fact, commit the crime in question. For a while, we attempted to cover a few of such cases in the need for creating balance.
But something that Mr. Possley said really stuck with me – there are plenty of places that you can go to find stories about guilty people. That is not what we are about.
For instance, I asked the Davis Enterprise reporter Lauren Keene when was the last time she covered the trial of someone found innocent. The answer was over a year ago – Heather Duffy. And the fact is, you can probably count on one hand the number of trials she has covered in the last five years where the defendant was found innocent.
There have been months when we have covered that many because we are looking not for the high profile, made-for-TV cases, but rather the cases where there is a problem.
Our focus often brings questions. We get questions about objectivity.
One reader noted: “And you, with extreme bias, are asking us to believe your analysis as more accurate than that of the jury, a jury who does not necessarily have the extreme biases you do? After all, we are hearing only your ‘take’ on what happened in that court room. I can almost guarantee that if we asked a juror, they would not have had the same ‘take’ on what happened in the court room nor the same ‘analysis’ of the evidence…”
Another reader wrote: “Are you really saying that you wrote this story (and most of your others) from an objective reporter’s viewpoint? Every trial has a defense attorney whose job is to say ‘that’s not good enough evidence to convict.’ Their statements, implications and questions aren’t always accurate, you know.”
Despite the accusatory nature of these questions – they are actually good questions that have triggered this piece as an effort to explain what we do and why we do it.
If we had a professional staff of reporters, I think we would be able to write an article on every trial and it might be more clear as to what we are doing.
So instead, let me tell a few anecdotes which might illuminate a few things.
Contrary to what many believe, I am actually pretty cynical about claims from defendants. Early on in the process, a defendant charged with domestic violence talked me up as we waited to see which case would be called.
He told me that he was charged with DV against his ex-wife, but in fact, she had attacked him. Sounded interesting. Watched the case and by the time the wife had spoken, it was clear that she was very credible and I questioned his account. Then they played a 911 tape, and you could not hear what had happened, but you could hear enough to know she was telling the truth.
By the end of the morning, the defendant conceded and cut a deal.
My experience with defense attorneys is more interesting. Privately, defense attorneys will talk to me. Defense attorneys have somewhat of a bad reputation among some people who seem to believe they are the criminal law equivalent of accident chasers, but my experience has been very different.
Most of them do not want to waste a reporter’s time. They will tell me if the case is interesting. They will tell me if they believe there is a problem with it. Most times, they are spot on.
Every so often, the case does not go as they expected and they will be forthright about that.
In court, I am far more cynical than perhaps the writing here reflects. In one case, I watched the victim’s testimony, it was very believable and I thought the defense was in deep trouble. When an attorney asked me what I thought, I said bluntly: “you’re screwed.”
Except for one thing, I was completely wrong and there were huge holes in the witness’ story that were exposed. However, this was an unusual case. Most of the time, you can tell pretty early if this is going to be a close call or not.
So I think the charges of extreme bias are wrong. The job of the defense attorney is to defend their client to the best of their ability. Our job is to find problems in the system. Sometimes those two goals gibe. Sometimes they do not.
I intentionally pick the problematic cases to cover. Sometimes the jury agrees with the problems that we uncover; many times the jury does not agree.
In fact, as the second reader noted, “A jury’s duty is much more complicated.”
Indeed, we are looking at publishing a narrow range of cases.
Toward this end, I would argue that a comparison between what we do and a jury is not an accurate one. The jury is handed the evidence over the course of the trial, they are then handed the law in the form of jury instructions and their job is to fit the evidence with the law.
Most juries probably perform that task with all due diligence, though I have heard disturbing stories to the contrary. But jurors are also limited to what is presented to them in court and the law as the judges reads to them.
We have no such limits. We attend the evidentiary hearings and motions to suppress. We do additional research and we are mindful not just of this case, but the totality of all cases.
I think, for instance, most jurors, even with the trial evidence put on, will tend to believe what society is taught, that fingerprints are a science and that the identification is scientifically valid and could be replicated.
However, increasingly, the research shows that the science of fingerprint matching is anything but a science. There is a lack of double-blind scientific research to back up the methods that we use or the assumptions that are made.
The fact that errors were acknowledged in the collection and matching of the palm print in a recent case likely raised a much stronger flag for me than for the jury.
Juries may get things right most of the time, but where they get things wrong tend to be with these more technical questions that are, frankly, best decided in the appellate courts.
All one has to do is look at the range of cases that get overturned on appeal to see the problems that juries face.
Finally, the point of this exercise is not to suggest that we are unbiased. Everyone has their biases that they take into making an assessment of a case. But we do try to get things right, because leaping to conclusions undermines the credibility of the effort and the project that we are attempting to undertake.
Look at the two most prominent cases we covered this week. Jose Valenzuela was found not guilty of stabbing one victim. The jury hung 11-1 on the attempted murder trial and 7-5 on the assault trial.
Someone suggested, is it beyond the realm of possibility that the DA would have had additional information or argued their case better? No it’s not. But, the fact that the DA allowed him to walk with time served suggests that’s probably not what the DA was thinking.
Is it really the sign of extreme bias to believe – as Mr. Valenzuela told us – that he had the opportunity to get out of jail with no additional time served and took it? We watched the trial, and there really was very poor evidence linking him to the crime.
In the Valadez case, people were arguing that there must have been additional evidence that the jury saw other than the print. The fact is, you could not see faces at all on the video. It was dark, grainy, and distorted. It was impossible to identify people on it, other than claims by one of the probation officers in the previous case that he could tell a given defendant by the way he walked.
The jury in the end believed what they have been taught about prints – that they are a good match. I have read enough not to buy that. I think there were too many problems and there was no additional evidence linking Mr. Valadez to that scene. Is that really the sign of extreme bias or is that a reasonable conclusion?
Do people not get falsely convicted by juries of crimes? As Maurice Possley noted in his interview with us, perhaps if there were more people asking questions at the time, these convictions would not have happened. Or perhaps not.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David, I feel what you are doing for this community is extremely important. THANK YOU! Before the Innocence Project, people would never have imagined so many innocent people were convicted for crimes they didn’t commit. I hope what you are doing can be the start of a national trend. There is no way of knowing what really takes place in a courtroom unless someone is watching full time. As it is the law is stacked against the accused. If there were more watchdog groups like yours watching, maybe this fact would be exposed to the public and reforms would be able to change things.
As for jurors, they don’t hear all the evidence. Judges can and do rule that certain evidence can’t be heard during trial and like you pointed out, they give some “forensic science” too munch credibility.
Excellent summary explaining the way you look at cases, your view of the criminal justice system and your concern for those who get caught up in the system (guilty or innocent). Thank you for giving this some more thought and passing along your viewpoint.
[quote]Most of them do not want to waste a reporter’s time. They will tell me if the case is interesting. They [defense attorneys] will tell me if they believe there is a problem with it. Most times, they are spot on.[/quote]
How can you possibly know they are “spot on”? That is your opinion, based on hearsay from a defense attorney!
[quote]Most juries probably perform that task with all due diligence, though I have heard disturbing stories to the contrary. But jurors are also limited to what is presented to them in court and the law as the judges reads to them.
We have no such limits. We attend the evidentiary hearings and motions to suppress. We do additional research and we are mindful not just of this case, but the totality of all cases.
I think, for instance, most jurors, even with the trial evidence put on, will tend to believe what society is taught, that fingerprints are a science and that the identification is scientifically valid and could be replicated.[/quote]
This is so wrong on so many levels… you are basing your evaluation on non-admissible evidence, irrelevant evidence, etc…
[quote]Juries may get things right most of the time, but where they get things wrong tend to be with these more technical questions that are, frankly, best decided in the appellate courts.[/quote]
Appellate courts can only rule based on the trial court record. That means they do not have the benefit of seeing facial expressions, non-verbal cues, and the like. Secondly, are you saying that all cases involving technical evidence should end up in appellate court, regardless of whether there is other evidence in the case?
[quote]In the Valadez case, people were arguing that there must have been additional evidence that the jury saw other than the print. The fact is, you could not see faces at all on the video. It was dark, grainy, and distorted. It was impossible to identify people on it, other than [b][u]claims by one of the probation officers in the previous case that he could tell a given defendant by the way he walked.[/u][/b][/quote]
A piece of evidence you conveniently neglected to mention in your article on this case…
Elaine
[quote]How can you possibly know they are “spot on”? That is your opinion, based on hearsay from a defense attorney! [/quote]
I am not sure what objection you are making here. Of course this is David’s opinion. This is a piece entitled “commentary”. What else would David be expressing but his opinion in a commentary piece ?
[quote]This is so wrong on so many levels… you are basing your evaluation on non-admissible evidence, irrelevant evidence, etc…
[/quote]
I would seem to me that this would be more complete and accurate if you had stated ” you are basing your evaluation on evidence that has been determined by a judge to be non-admissible evidence, irrelevant” evidence, etc…
If we consider it of value to point out weaknesses and areas for potential error in our judicial system, is it not potentially valid to examine what may be errors in the performance of our judges ? As a doctor, and thus an authority figure in my area, I know that I have made mistakes. I have been most grateful to those who have pointed out an error before it has caused harm or at a point in time when the harm can be minimized. I would like to think that our prosecutors, defenders, and judges would all feel the same.
I see it as part of David and his interns role to examine the situation from a different point of view, possibly help some to see a different perspective, and possibly in a small way limit the harm that can come from being locked into one way of seeing things.
Instead, we are the watchdogs that monitor the system and report when things go wrong.
yes, and luckily there are watchdogs over the vanguard who report when the vanguard is wrong.
“How can you possibly know they are “spot on”? That is your opinion, based on hearsay from a defense attorney!”
My opinion based then on watching the trial. What you don’t seem to understand is that there are trials where the outcome is in question and there are trials where it is very obvious from the start that the person is guilty. There are interesting trials and boring ones.
“This is so wrong on so many levels… you are basing your evaluation on non-admissible evidence, irrelevant evidence, etc…”
It’s not always inadmissible. But regardless, it is often very informative about the overall case.
“Secondly, are you saying that all cases involving technical evidence should end up in appellate court, regardless of whether there is other evidence in the case?”
You like to put things in absolute terms, I don’t think any system works on absolutes – ie “all” cases
“A piece of evidence you conveniently neglected to mention in your article on this case…”
I’m not sure which defendant that referred to, I believe it was in the article on the original trial.
“I see it as part of David and his interns role to examine the situation from a different point of view, possibly help some to see a different perspective, and possibly in a small way limit the harm that can come from being locked into one way of seeing things.”
Wouldn’t we all wish for this. And visa versa.
The responses here indicate to me a complete misunderstanding of how rules of evidence/trials/courts/criminal justice system works. It would take me forever to explain, because it goes to the basic underpinnings of our justice system.
It is not surprising that there is this misunderstanding, as I had some of the same confusion while going through a very messy divorce. It is one of the main reasons I decided to change careers and get a law degree at age 42. Once having learned how the justice system is supposed to work and the reasons behind the various policies and procedures that go on in a courtroom, then going into the courtroom with that knowledge to actually do trial work, helped me to better understand why the court does things the way it does.
Do courtrooms always dispense “justice”? Depends on whose looking at it; how one defines “justice”, etc. Is the system perfect? No. Are there abuses in the system? Yes. No system will ever be perfect; but that is no reason not to try and make it better. But many efforts over the years have been tried, to remove the inequities in the justice system, and many have boomeranged horribly. The 3 strikes law is a case in point. It was originally implemented because of some egregious cases that came down, where judges were abominably soft on crime – giving child molesters a slap on the wrist, and blaming the victims for rape. But we see how well that “fix” worked. There are no easy “fixes”.
IMO what we have here in the Vanguard’s coverage is a civilian sitting in on a trial, who clearly doesn’t understand many of the concepts of law and policy and firmly believes he is somehow objective, yet with a clear agenda – to approach the prosecutorial side only and catch out the criminal justice system in “wrongdoing”.
Correction: Mandatory sentencing and the 3 strikes law are cases in point. Mandatory sentencing was originally implemented…
“The responses here indicate to me a complete misunderstanding of how rules of evidence/trials/courts/criminal justice system works. It would take me forever to explain, because it goes to the basic underpinnings of our justice system.”
You may be somewhat overstating, but I agree with your point about the rules (which, in the end, have been developed to favor the accused’s right to a fair trial). We can add all we want to a case beyond what the rules allow juries and judges to consider in a fair trial, and we can choose to ignore all of the evidence we don’t like as outside observers.
The system and its accompanying rules are easy to disregard and disrespect since they never arrive at perfection no matter how much they evolve.
David, did you miss the following questions or did I miss your answers? Please let me know if you refuse to answer and, if so, why. Then, I can move on.
08/31/12 – 01:33 PM
…
“I believe the pleas are coded ‘P’ not ‘FC’.”
Sorry, you’re way beyond me here. Please help.
You wrote that Mr. Matzat pleaded “no contest” to a single charge and the DA agreed to dismiss the remaining charges (4 felonies and 15 misdemeanors, according to the Enterprise).
You wrote that Mr. Valenzuela agreed to something that “resembles an Alford Plea” on “a single count of attempted murder” which you later wrote was for an “assault charge” instead.
Please clarify what the two folks under discussion pleaded and, for the sake of enlightenment, what “P” and “FC” stand for.
We’ll never agree on whether these two are innocent and there’s no way to history ever can provide an answer since the trial process was short-circuited by the pleas. But, it would be good to know the scoop about the pleas that ended everything.
“Sorry, you’re way beyond me here. Please help.”
In their registry, you are looking at forced confessions rather than plea bargains.
“You wrote that Mr. Matzat pleaded “no contest” to a single charge and the DA agreed to dismiss the remaining charges (4 felonies and 15 misdemeanors, according to the Enterprise). “
Matzat plead to a single count of vandalism of a starbucks.
“You wrote that Mr. Valenzuela agreed to something that “resembles an Alford Plea” on “a single count of attempted murder” which you later wrote was for an “assault charge” instead. “
I was mistaken, they dismissed the attempted murder charge and he plead to the assault (which makes more sense for a lot of reasons).
Thanks for getting around to responding to me begging for clarification. When you say “their registry,” can I assume that “P” and “FC” codes are something out of one of the innocence studies rather than court terminology? As you know, I was inquiring about what he pleaded in court, not whether you thought it was a righteous conclusionm to the ace.
In conclusion, it appears you’re reporting that Matzat did not plead guilty, but was allowed to make a [i]nolo[/i] plea deal. It’s hard to understand why the DA wouldn’t hold out for a guilty plea instead.
Also, it appears that you’ve decided to outlast me re. the Alford Plea matter.
Still, I think it makes a big difference if a defendant tries to convince the judge that he has reasons to plead guilty even though he’s claiming he’s innocent or, on the other hand, if he tries to convince the judge that he’s factually guilty of the charge to which he’s pleading.
Elaine
[quote]IMO what we have here in the Vanguard’s coverage is a civilian sitting in on a trial, who clearly doesn’t understand many of the concepts of law and policy and firmly believes he is somehow objective, yet with a clear agenda – to approach the prosecutorial side only and catch out the criminal justice system in “wrongdoing”.[/quote]
While I agree with the first part of your statement, I do not think that David is so
deluded that he “firmly believes he is somehow objective”. David has stated again and again that his emphasis is on challenging what he perceives as “wrongs” within our system. He is not pretending that he is unbiased. His biases are clear to all. So, once again, why the emphasis on the unbalanced nature of his reports ? One can hardly expect “puff pieces” or complimentary articles from someone whose expressed purpose is to challenge the workings of our government and authorities at all levels. If what one wants is lack of controversy, one can certainly find news media to supply that. If what one wants is an invitation to comment on controversial issues, the Vanguard certainly provides that forum.
Just as I do not expect anyone who did not go through medical school to understand the intricacies of my field, I am very aware that when I post on legal issues, I am coming from a very naive point of view. That is why it is valuable to me that when I express an opinion that you know has been addressed within our legal system, that you provide the background for me. I am sure that David and especially his interns also benefit from your input on the legal system.
[quote]While I agree with the first part of your statement, I do not think that David is so deluded that he “firmly believes he is somehow objective”. [/quote]
Actually he has said so… tried to go back and find the exact quote, but it was just too time consuming…
Did find these which are not quite on point:
[quote]”we believe we are actually rather judicious about when we apply these charges and to what cases”
“I am actually pretty cynical about claims from defendants”
“So I think the charges of extreme bias are wrong”‘
“we do try to get things right”
[/quote]