Court Watch

Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors heard about the current budget problems and spoke of closing down the the Leinberger Memorial Detention Center.  In the last three years, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department has cut forty-two positions, through layoffs and declining to rehire vacant positions.

Most devastatingly, early this year, ten deputies were laid off.  There is a good amount of research emerging about how costs can be contained within the system.  Some ideas that have come out have been to reduce sentences for drug offenses, shift the death penalty convictions to life without parole, and move inmates from state prison to county jails.

As Yolo County continues to prosecute and imprison individuals for possession of less than a gram of meth, polling released on Monday shows that voters increasingly are favoring reduced sentences and penalties for drug possession.

The March 21-24 survey of 800 California general election voters was conducted statewide by Lake Research Partner. It was released on Monday and  shows that nearly three-quarters (72%) of California voters support reducing the penalty for possession of a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor, including a solid majority who support this reform strongly.

Last April we reported that UC Davis had used anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation as a means to quash lawsuits, and invariably civil rights protections for employees. 

One of the cases that we focused on was the case of Professor Branner, a 74-year-old African-American professor who in August of 2008 filed a lawsuit against the UC Regents and Vice Provost Horwitz, alleging that their actions violated his rights and protections under California law.

The Third District Court of Appeals has tossed out another conviction in Yolo County, this time overturning a plea agreement after Judge Kathleen White erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence illegally obtained.

The appellate court ruled this week, that “the patdown search was unjustified because the officer did not have reasonable suspicion defendant was armed and dangerous” and “the search exceeded the scope of determining if defendant had weapons.”

It should have been a routine preliminary hearing.  Three youths, accused of being members of the Norteno criminal street gang in Woodland, were involved in a January incident in which a 40-ounce beer bottle was thrown at an alleged member of the rival Sureno criminal gang, but missed and broke the window of the 7-11 store.

However, with Deputy DA Ryan Couzens on the job, there is no such think as a routine preliminary hearing.  The defense attorneys in the case during the break were overheard complaining that this had become a “typical Ryan Couzens three-day prelim.”

Earlier this week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will send thousands of state prisoners to local jails.  The idea behind the plan was to reform the criminal justice system and save money.

Many have calculated that the state could save huge amounts of money through such a shift, as counties are better equipped to handle inmates for a much lower cost.

Last week, during the Yolo County Board of Supervisors meeting, representatives from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office, and Public Defender’s Office gave presentations on their cost cutting techniques employed in the past and proposed plans for the future.

Up until recently there was hope that Governor Jerry Brown’s previous budged cut proposal would allow the Yolo County Leinberger Memorial center, a minimum security facility in Woodland, to remain partially open. However, due to the increased likelihood that an agreement will not be made by June and the impact of a lack of any agreement even as early as July 1st, new measures must be taken.

My brother, Robert James Kerr, was murdered in 2003. Today, I am one of thousands of murder victim family members who oppose the death penalty.  I actively work for alternatives to execution to honor my brother’s memory.

This month Governor Quinn of Illinois signed legislation ending the death penalty.  The Illinois legislature follows New Jersey and New Mexico in replacing the death penalty with alternatives.  Sixteen states across the country now embrace an alternative criminal justice policy that recognizes the needs of murder victim family members while leaving funds on the table for effective public safety programs.  They have acknowledged the reality of an inherently human and imperfect criminal justice system.  At least six other states may follow the lead of Illinois and repeal their death penalty statues, including Connecticut.

In December, Woodland resident Jose Valenzuela faced trial in Yolo County. He was accused of attempted murder of two individuals at a notorious Woodland night club, La Finca, home to numerous homicide and assaults over the last few years including this year’s first murder in Woodland.

Mr. Valenzuela was acquitted of attempting to kill one man and he was nearly acquitted of attempting to kill the other man, but the jury hung 11-1 for acquittal.

At the core of the Yolo County judicial problem is the gang case.  Time after time, I see these young, relatively innocent, sometimes even harmless looking kids being accused of being gang members and committing some other crime.

As I sit there in the courtroom I cannot help but believe that we as a society have failed these kids, allowing them to get this to point.  The term gang and gang member inspires fear more than compassion.  It conjures visions of hardened criminal street gang members brazenly shooting and killing helpless and innocent victims.

There was an interesting discussion at the Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday on the number of jury trials in Yolo County, which have soared in the last few years.

Pedro Ramirez and Johnny Morales were scheduled to be sentenced on Friday in Woodland, after pleading no contest to an attack on a Sikh tax driver and making racial slurs during the attack.

However, Mr. Ramirez attempted to withdraw his plea, citing ineffectual counsel, and Attorney Robert Spangler was appointed to investigate whether there was a legal basis for this claim.

Judge Stephen Mock said in his thirty years on the bench and working in the criminal justice system, he had never seen a situation like this.  However, when West Sacramento Detective Tate had to rush to Florida for a family emergency, the Judge declared a mistrial in the case of Oscar Barrientos, accused of burglarizing a West Sacramento home.

The Tuesday afternoon dismissal of the case followed a disastrous morning for the prosecution.  They had put Maria Cerna, the person whose home was burglarized, on the stand.

On Tuesday, Yolo County Superior Court Judge Kathleen White issued her long-awaited ruling on whether to grant a “permanent” gang injunction.  The trial had lasted from July until December 15, and we have been waiting over three months for a ruling.

There was a large contingency of attorneys representing the defendants in this case.  Several of these attorneys declined to speak on the record, however, the Vanguard did speak at length with one of the lead attorneys, Sacramento attorney Mark Merin.

The Veritas Initiative, the research and policy arm of the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara University School of Law, today released Preventable Error: Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 2010, which follows up on last October’s Presentation.

While Yolo County did not have any reports of prosecutorial misconduct officially in 2010, the report adds the 2000 Miranda case that the Vanguard had noted previously.

Yesterday the Yolo County trial of Oscar Barrientos opened.  Mr. Barrientos is accused of burglarizing a West Sacramento home.  Not exactly the stuff that a Judicial Watch is made of, except for the fact that the only real evidence linking him to the burglary is a partial print of a palm.

As the defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Amber Poston, argued in her opening statement, fingerprint analysis is not the exact science that it is portrayed on TV.  Indeed, there is no standard for testing.

In August of 2010, Michael Artz was found not guilty of the main charge in his case, forced oral copulation, but guilty of having sex with a minor and contacting a minor for the purposes of having sex.

The sentencing phase has gone on since mid-January and now figures to continue at least until April 22, when Judge Stephen Mock indicated that there would be closing arguments and then a ruling, but we have heard that before.

The campaign to link the budget with reforms to the criminal justice system got another boost this week, and activists descended on Sacramento to urge the California Legislature to protect critical social services — including education programs and drug treatment — by cutting the Corrections budget.

One simple reform would free up $450 million dollars, they say. According to them, that is the amount California taxpayers spend to lock up adults who were convicted of non-violent instances of possessing a small amount of drugs for personal use.

Much has been made on these pages about the fact that the DA has a tendency to bring some rather problematic cases to trial.  For the most part the DA loses these cases, but they exact a toll nonetheless, as we saw in the case of Fernando Ortega who faced criminal charges stemming from what was largely explicable, by the fact he was carrying a truck battery and had a number of tools on him at the time he encountered Woodland Police.

However, Mr. Ortega remained in custody nearly five months, missed going to the funeral of his daughter, and lost his residence.  Mr. Ortega is one of the fortunate ones, exonerated by the a jury trial and now out of custody and free to move along in his life.