Court Watch

On the surface it seems to be an easy case and relatively straightforward.  On May 1, 2011, Richard Rodriguez broke into the storage closet in an inhabited residence.

According to Deputy District Attorney Robin Johnson, he went in there with the intent to steal, however, the burglary was thwarted before he had the chance to take anything.  The light went on outside, he ran off and was subsequently arrested and charged with first degree burglary.

Deputy Darrel Johnson told KCRA that during a meeting with a number of deputies and other high-ranking officials in the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department in September of 2011, the Sheriff singled him out using possibly racially inflammatory names such as “gravy” and “dark one.”

Last week Judge Timothy Fall granted a Pitchess motion in a co-defendant case involving the Davis Police Department.  Pitchess is a motion that grants discovery of citizen complaints against law enforcement officers, and the disciplinary records concerning the officers’ records in terms of propensity to commit acts of violence or other problems.

To obtain peace officer personnel records, a defendant need only make a “good cause” showing by affidavit, setting forth the materiality of the information sought and an allegation about the governmental agency identified in the request.

When California originally put in the Three Strikes Law, back in 1994, judges had little to no discretion at all to remove past strikes.  However, a Supreme Court decision in 1996 changed that.  In what became the Romero Decision, the sentencing court was granted the discretion to strike prior conviction allegations (strikes) “in the interest of justice.”

While a Romero motion gives judges the right to strike prior strikes, depending on the judge, that discretion may rarely be exercised.  Last week, Yolo County Judge Timothy Fall, in ruling on a Romero motion, noted that since 1996, the year after he was appointed to the bench, he had granted a Romero motion just once in a contested hearing (meaning the prosecution opposed the motion), and that decision was later overturned by an appellate court.

In a brief statement, the DA’s office said, “District Attorney Jeff Reisig announced today that there was insufficient information contained within the police reports submitted by the UC Davis Police Department to justify the filing of criminal charges against those individuals arrested during the November 18, 2011, confrontation with UC Davis Police during the ‘Occupy UC Davis’ protest.”

The facts of the case can be found in the Vanguard’s original article back in December.  The two men had a confrontation that resulted in the shooting of Mr. Robinson by Mr. Smith.  Mr. Smith would claim self-defense, but critical errors in judgment by the defendant leading up to and following the shooting led the jury to a second degree murder conviction.

However, the defense has filed a new motion this week, after the California Supreme Court for the second time in a month struck down a death sentence due the improper removal of a juror.  The next hearing and sentencing date has been moved to early February, with legal experts mixed, at best, as to whether Judge Richardson ruled properly in this matter.

Arguing that this is not simply a return to business as usual by replicating the failure of CDCR at the county level, the County Board of Supervisors approved the application for the full 148-jail bed expansion, with the understanding that this money would go toward upgrading existing facilities and with the further understanding that Leinberger would be repurposed and, in fact, decommissioned.

The Board was assured that the operational costs of maintaining the smaller Leinberger was equal to the costs of operating the additional 148 beds called for in recommended Option 4.

On Thursday, Judge Paul Richardson will formally sentence Marco Topete in a case that has been anything but routine.  Back in November, a jury reached a unanimous verdict in the penalty phase, recommending the death penalty for Mr. Topete.  However, under 190.4(e) of the California Penal Code, the trial judge makes an independent determination regarding imposition of the death penalty.

At issue was the dismissal of Juror No.11, who sent the court a hand-written note asking to be excused from further deliberation and replaced with an alternate juror.  Following the brief inquiry, Judge Richardson made the decision to replace Juror No.11.

Many perhaps forget, from three years ago, that the carrot for the placement of the state’s re-entry facility was a promise of jail expansion to meet the expanded needs of Yolo County into the future.  When the economy collapsed, that funding source fell apart, but it has now been revived without the attachment of the re-entry facility.

The Yolo County Board of Supervisors will decide on Tuesday whether to apply for grant funding to expand the current jail capacity by up to 148 beds.  The grant would require a more than $4.6 million county match with an ongoing operational cost of nearly $2.5 million annually.

As the Vanguard reported on Wednesday, there are now questions as to whether Juror No.11 was properly dismissed on November 14 by Judge Paul Richardson from the penalty phase of Marco Topete’s trial for the murder of Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz. This occured after a brief inquiry, in which he determined the request for dismissal was based on a language barrie

Juror No.11 sent the Court a hand-written note asking to be excused from further deliberation and replaced with an alternate juror.  Following the brief inquiry, Judge Richardson made the decision to replace Juror No.11.

On November 14, Judge Paul Richardson dismissed Juror No.11 from the penalty phase of Marco Topete’s trial for the murder of Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz, after a brief inquiry in which he determined the request for dismissal was based on a language barrier.

Juror No.11 sent the Court a hand-written note asking to be excused from further deliberation and replaced with an alternate juror.  Following the brief inquiry, Judge Richardson made the decision to replace Juror No.11.

Originally, Judge Shockley had held Mr. Foster and his co-defendant Pamela Logan, who faced similar charges but not 25 to life, to answer on both counts for two different incidents, one on March 26, 2011 and the other on June 12, 2011.

Since the 1963 US Supreme Court decision in Brady v. Maryland, the courts have held that prosecutors cannot withhold exculpatory evidence – evidence that could potentially exonerate a defendant – as it violates due process “where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.”

To his credit, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley joined with the Innocence Project in seeking Mr. Morton’s release, after it was discovered that the DNA of an unnamed male was linked to the Morton crime through a bandana that also contained the blood of the victim, and was also found at the scene of a later murder in Travis County.  The unnamed male is now under investigation for both crimes.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye’s appointment to chief justice by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger marked a huge moment locally, as she grew up in Sacramento and is a graduate of the UC Davis School of Law.

While known as one of the high court’s more conservative members, she has turned heads as she said, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, that “the death penalty is no longer working for the state” and she urged a reevaluation of it.

It is still unknown at this point whether the decision by the jury to impose the death sentence on Marco Topete will stand – given doubt expressed by one of the jurors, and her dismissal from the sentencing phase, ostensibly due to language barriers. That explanation is complicated by recent revelations by another of the jurors, who indicated to the Davis Enterprise that there was more to the story than just this.

It was a case that had all of the intrigue – a red-headed boy-next-door looking defendant, turned racist gun-nut, who shot a black man claiming self-defense. But ultimately the jury failed to buy the self-defense theory and convicted Christopher Smith, 31, of second degree murder with enhancements, that put the likely sentence to 45 to life.

If Christopher Smith looked like the boy next door, it is because he was one, with fiery red hair, two young kids, a clean record.  But the recession had not been kind to Mr. Smith, he was in and out of work, struggling through his second marriage, and trying to take night courses at the local community college to build up his résumé.

In this case, co-defendants Nicholas Cummings and Penny Burkett would be convicted of first degree burglary and vandalism, with Mr. Cummings also being convicted of possession of burglary tools.

The authorities did not agree, but eventually Mr. Mink was not only vindicated but, after three trips to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, a $425,000 settlement finally ended a marathon legal battle over free speech that began on December 12 eight years ago.