Court Watch

By Dan Aiello

California’s drug laws will remain steeped with inconsistent consequences for those convicted of simple possession after Governor Jerry Brown’s recent veto of a bill to make unlawful possession of certain controlled substances, including opiates, punishable as either a felony or as a misdemeanor.

Current law mandates a felony charge for possession of any opiate-based narcotic, while allowing for other drugs like L.S.D. and Methamphetamine to be “wobblers,” allowing local District Attorneys to prosecute as either felony or misdemeanor.

By Antoinnette Borbon and Catherine McKnight

Gang Task Force And Police May Have Chosen The Wrong Kids This Time – What was proposed to be a short jury selection yesterday for the trial of four young men accused of second degree robbery and assault with great bodily injury, along with a gang enhancement, turned into nearly a two-day process. It appeared to be obvious some of the defense’s questions were hard to answer, even emotional, for some potential jurors.

During jury selection all four defense counsel kept their foundation based around the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Robert Spangler, defense counsel for one of the young men, asked the jurors if they had a problem rendering a verdict because of religious or moral beliefs. Defense attorney Jeff Raven geared his questions and statements more toward the presumption of believing someone’s innocence before assuming their guilt.

by Antoinette Borbon and Sanam  Monjazeb

Editor’s note: For background, here’s the coverage of the preliminary hearing

The Kristal Sutton trial commenced today, November 13, 2013, with three witnesses testifying. 28-year-old Sutton is being prosecuted for a felony hit and run on June 13, 2013, as she allegedly ran over 58-year-old Valerie Horner with her car and fled the scene before the authorities showed up. Horner received life-threatening injuries from the car and died from these injuries two days later.

The trial began with an audio interview between Sutton and Officer Lutrell.

Stop me if you have heard this one before – a high profile case in which the defendant is facing dozens of felony charges and a potential life sentence, but, following a plea agreement, likely will not serve any time in prison.

The case of 37-year-old Troy Hensley, a former JV football coach at Dixon High, is one of those.  Mr. Hensley was arrested in June and held to answer in August on charges that he carried out a lengthy sexual relationship with a then 17-year-old student for four months while she was underage.

Yolo Chapter, California Grand Jurors’ Association

Sometimes the Yolo County Grand Jury addresses sensational topics, such as the recent expose of malfeasance in the probation department, or the delivery of an indictment in the Deputy Tony Diaz murder case. In most instances, its work and possibly it highest value lies in keeping tabs on more mundane activities. A major and very important function of the Yolo County Grand Jury is to see that county agencies and organizations, including special districts, are providing residents with good service. Every year the Grand Jury issues a report describing its investigations along with recommendations. Agencies are required to respond to these recommendations within 90 days (California Penal Code, Title 4, Sect. 933). However, by the time the responses come in, a new Grand Jury is in place.

As former grand jurors and members of the Yolo Chapter of the California Grand Jurors’ Association, we have followed up on previous Grand Jury recommendations. We selected responding agencies that stated they were either planning to implement a recommendation or needed time for further study. We wrote to agency heads listing earlier Grand Jury recommendations (along with their agency’s responses) and asked about the current status of the situation.

California leads the nation in wrongful convictions, according to a 2012 study, but it trails many states, particularly New Jersey, in safeguards and best practices aimed at reducing critical areas where wrongful convictions are likely to occur.  Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has been attempting to change that with his support of the Innocence Project Bill.

The law would authorize “law enforcement agencies to adopt regulations for conducting in person and photo line-ups; allows expert testimony at trial regarding the reliability of eyewitness identification; and requires the court to provide a jury instruction advising that it may consider whether or not law enforcement followed specified procedures when determining the reliability of eyewitness identification.”

Each year, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi and his office host the Justice Summit in San Francisco, bringing together a combination of local leaders and national figures whose work in the legal community and for social justice gets highlighted through speeches and panel presentations.

This year marked the 50-year Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees the poor and disenfranchised the right to a vigorous public defense.  On March 18, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that all defendants have the constitutional right to a free attorney if they cannot afford their own. Fifty years later, 80 percent of criminal defendants are served by public defenders.

This past week, students in the UC Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic, working under the supervision of Lecturer and Staff Attorney Raha Jorjani, were successful in preventing the deportation of a detained client.

Working on behalf of their client, they succeeded in filing a Motion to Terminate removal proceedings that cited recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions in arguing that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had not met its burden of proof in establishing that the client’s criminal convictions were deportable under the Immigration and National Security Act.

We often hear that a conviction was thrown out based on a technicality.  In this case, the technicality is not just Miranda, but the actual right to an attorney.  This is not a technicality, this is a constitutional right.

Last week, the LA Times covered a federal appeals court’s unanimous overturning of a first degree murder conviction in which the man was sentenced to life without parole for killing his estranged wife and an off-duty Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy.

This year the Vanguard is honoring eight individuals in this community and around the region who have put forth exemplary work in the area of social justice and justice reform.  Two of these individuals are honored posthumously.

It was a great honor that Steve Berlin worked as a member of the Vanguard Court Watch Editorial Board in 2011 until health conditions forced his resignation.  It was nearly a year ago that Mr. Berlin passed away at the age of 66.  On Saturday, we will present his wife, Linda Berlin, and his son, Eddie Berlin, with the honor.

It has been just over one year since a Sacramento federal jury acquitted three sheriff’s deputies of the 2009 shooting of Luis Gutierrez, a 26-year-old farm worker who was walking on Gum Avenue in Woodland in the middle of the day, after completing his efforts to get his driver’s license reestablished.

On October 21, 2013, Dale Johnson, who was the commanding officer during that incident, was promoted from lieutenant to captain.

I will confess that I am a relative later comer to the notion of restorative justice.  It was not until late 2011 and early 2012 that I was exposed to the idea when a group of citizens – Robb Davis, David Breaux, and Reverend Kirstin Stoneking – came to the Davis Human Relations Commission with the idea of promoting a restorative justice process, some sort of victim-offender mediation between the university and the students who had been pepper sprayed.

Ultimately, the proposal was unsuccessful.  The university was unwilling to engage in any sort of process with an ongoing lawsuit, and by the time the lawsuit was settled it seemed too late.  In retrospect, the process would have proven valuable and there are still deep wounds in the community that have come out as John Pike was awarded a worker’s compensation settlement.

By Kaiti Curry

The courtroom was packed as friends and family of the victims and the defendant anxiously watched the next proceedings of People v. Marsh. The defendant, 16-year-old Daniel Marsh, faces two counts of first degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and several case enhancements.

Case enhancement A involves a special circumstance for multiple murders. The second case enhancement involves a special circumstance for heinous and depraved murder.

Last summer, when Davis Police found a noose hanging from the goalpost of the Davis High School Stadium, many in the community looked to Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia, a pediatrician by training who has become, for the better part of the decade, one of the consciences of Davis.

“Though we don’t know the motivation of whomever put the noose there, we are responding as one voice against the centuries of pain and terror that this symbol represents and still produces today in so many of our neighbors,” Dr. Murray-Garcia would write in her biweekly column in the Davis Enterprise that she co-writes with Jonathan London.

When Sandy Holman created the Culture Co-op in 1991, it was an organization whose mission it was “to promote understanding and respect for diversity and equity, cultural competency, literacy and a quality education for all.”

“After working in working in various jobs, I noticed that there was a lot of challenges to being effective in serving whatever the target population was,” Sandy Holman told the Vanguard.  She said this was due to the fact that there “was inequity in those institutions, there was a fear in those institutions, and there was a general disrespect for differences that almost followed a color-skin line.”

by Antoinnette Borbon

Santa Rosa is no stranger to gang-related crimes. As I sat through what will be yet another gang-related trial’s jury selection, it was nothing I have not heard before. It was merely a different location. I have covered a few prelims involving gang activity crimes and the infamous Wolfington trial. But in the words of the Honorable Kenneth Gnoss, the charges which involve gang enhancements still need to proven without reasonable doubt.

Gnoss explained to the jurors it is up to the DA’s office to prove their case by all of the evidence and it is not the responsibility of the defense. The prospective jurors had a few disagreements with the explanation. It was something I have never heard before and came from two prospective jurors. Two of the men on the jury panel had asked Judge Gnoss if the defendant would be testifying. He explained the defendant had the constitutional right not to testify. Both men told Gnoss they would have difficulty in deciding on a verdict if the defendant chose not testify himself. They went on to say they felt it would be hard to decide on a verdict if they were not able to listen to the defendant’s side of the story. Gnoss thanked them for their comments but asserted the defendant’s constitutional right.

A month ago Clayton Garzon copped to a plea in the case that arose out of his actions back in March when he severely beat Mikey Partida while yelling anti-gay epithets.  Mr. Garzon pled to battery causing serious bodily injury, and the hate crime enhancement.  He received what many believed to be a light sentence of five years local time, meaning he would be released in 2.5 years assuming good behavior – with no further supervision.

At the time, not only were we worried about the lack of equal justice in that sentencing, but also the lack of mandatory services that Mr. Garzon would be required to receive.

By Dan Williams

Thursday brought the closing arguments in a gun case that puts the justification of a gun-carrying law in Yolo County to the test.

If you’re not familiar with the case, here’s a rundown of what happened.

By Kaiti Curry

Last Friday on October 18, after nearly two weeks of emotional, highly-sensitive testimonies and grueling questions to hash out the details of the allegations, the twelve-member jury found the defendant, Kevin Ellis, guilty of molesting two young boys over a five-month period. After several hours of deliberation, the jury found the 55-year-old man from Dixon, California, guilty on eight of nine counts as they delivered the highly-anticipated verdicts.

Counts 1 through 6 involved lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under fourteen years old, Count 7 regarded the defendant’s failure to register as a sex offender, and Counts 8 and 9 involved giving marijuana to a minor under fourteen years old.

The Vanguard Court Watch 3^rd Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony has been set for Saturday, November 9^th at the Davis Veterans Memorial Center starting at 5PM.  The theme this year is “Restorative Justice & Reforming the Judicial System.”

We have an exciting line up that you won’t want to miss including Public Officials of the Year Assemblyman Ammiano who will speak on his “Innocence Project Bill” AB 604 and Public Defender Jeff Adachi will speak on Indigent Defense 50 years after Gideon v. Wainwright. We also have Fresno County Judge David Gottlieb, who is our Keynote Speaker and who will speak during the Restorative Justice Education portion of the event and talk about a restorative justice program he has implemented in his courtroom.   This year we will honor award recipients: