Last week State Senator Loni Hancock introduced legislation to replace the death penalty in California with permanent imprisonment, and to convert death penalty sentences to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.
It is perhaps our most notorious case. In December of 2008 a man goes into the Woodland Nugget and comes out with a $3.99 package of shredded cheese in his pants. After someone saw him shove the cheese into the pants and leave the store, the subject was detained by “loss prevention.”
Defense Calls It a Waste of Resources; Couzens Issues Manifesto Against Gangs and Drugs – The defense argues that you have two small time drug dealers, dealing on their own, and several largely innocent bystanders who got caught up in the web.
Shortly after 6 a.m. on April 26, eight to 12 ICE agents busted into an Oak Avenue home, destroying doors and denting floors with a battering ram. Although the agents announced upon entering that they were police and had a warrant, several residents of the home spoke limited English and hid from what they thought were attackers or terrorists. At gunpoint, the agents ordered the residents on the ground and handcuffed them. One terrified resident, a visiting scholar from Vietnam who was pregnant, suffered a miscarriage three days later.
Two weeks ago, in the Kalah trial, Deputy DA Ryan Couzens spawned accusations and anger as he attempted to get in testimony from Officer Duggins of the West Sacramento Police Department about a conversation he had with Marco Benitez.
Mr. Couzens attempted to establish that Mr. Benitez, a witness for the defense, was assaulted by Tommy Kalah, a brother and son to some of the defendants. The implication here was that Mr. Kalah had done this to intimidate the witness.
It was a study that occurred in Illinois, but it could have been written about any state at any time. The Center on Wrongful Convictions, based at Northwestern University, is one of many such centers that have popped up in recent years as researchers and attorneys become more aware of the problems of wrongful convictions.
This study, conducted by John Conroy of the Better Government Association and Rob Warden, the executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law, focused on the costs of such convictions.
Judge Mock sentenced Ronnie Barahona to 29 years in prison after he was convicted of a single charge of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, with an enhancement for using a firearm.
Back in May, a Yolo County jury deadlocked on whether Ronnie Barahona, when he shot four times at police officers, was attempting to kill them as Prosecutor Clinton Parish claimed, or was merely attempting to get away. This followed a failed robbery attempt on a Sacramento ATM that culminated in a high speed pursuit and a subsequent foot chase.
The lesson for the courts is clear, never invite me to jury duty. This Monday I was excited to go to jury duty – I have always been called to jury duty only to have my session canceled before coming in.
This time, at least, I made it in the door before the case – which we covered earlier this week – was continued. I went in knowing full well that there was more of a chance of June snow in Yolo County than my being selected to serve on the jury, but I still wanted to watch the process from the inside.
As a general matter of speaking, trials are set for a given date, but can be granted continuances based on a notion of good cause. What constitutes good cause may seem somewhat nebulous, but it generally is reserved for matters of logistics – the unavailability of a key witness, the failure to receive evidence with sufficient time to review it, delays caused by reports or tests from other agencies, etc.
Last week the case of Kenneth Woodall was confirmed for trial to begin on Monday. That means both parties – represented by the Deputy DA Ryan Couzens and Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson – agreed they were ready to proceed.
The Yolo County District Attorney’s office issued a press release announcing that Yolo County Superior Court Judge Kathleen White issued a final “Judgment Granting Injunction After Trial” against the Broderick Boys criminal street gang in West Sacramento. The gang injunction issued by the court imposes a curfew and restricts other activities of gang members in a defined area within West Sacramento called the “Safety Zone.”
According to the DA’s office, “After hearing all of evidence at trial and reviewing the exhibits and the post-trial briefs, Judge White found that the Broderick Boys is a criminal street gang, the Broderick Boys has created a public nuisance in the Safety Zone by its conduct and activities, and the public nuisance caused by the Broderick Boys has created irreparable harm to those who live and work in the Safety Zone.”
U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell wrote a study released last week entitled, “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle.”
They examined a combination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases over three years to estimate the additional costs of capital trials over and above the cost of a standard murder trial.
Amid the prison reform debate and concerns about prison over-crowding is an understanding of the role that the war on drugs has played in creating the prison issue.
In this article we will examine the conservative case for ending the war on drugs, the fear tactics and why they don’t make sense, and the cost-benefit analysis of the criminal justice system.
Prosecutor Admonished For Withholding Key Evidence to Ambush Defense in Gang Case – Add in four defense attorneys in a four co-defendant gang case and the always-volatile Deputy DA Ryan Couzens, and you have the recipe for something extraordinary. Thursday afternoon did not disappoint as the defense took exception to Mr. Couzens’ failure to disclose key evidence that seemed to threaten to derail the case for the time.
Among the provisions passed by the California legislature was another $150 million in cuts to the courts.
Yolo Superior Court Presiding Judge Rosenberg openly criticized the proposed budget plan which was being pushed through the Legislature on Wednesday. The proposed reductions would impose an additional $150 million, on top of a $200 million across-the-board cut already incurred by the judicial branch, and follows years of reductions to the Judicial Branch budget.
The Woodland Daily Democrat reported Tuesday that investigators with the California Alcoholic Beverage Control revoked La Finca’s liquor license. La Finca is a popular bar and club in Woodland that has been the location of fights, stabbings and, in March, a shooting that resulted in a murder.
According to ABC officials, the official reason for the liquor license suspension has been that the bar has been operating what they call a “disorderly house” and has been a drain on law enforcement.
A Yolo County Jury went out just after lunch and came back before 5 pm to convict Oscar Barrientos of two counts – one of first degree burglary and one of grand theft.
Despite these convictions, Mr. Barrientos still likely faces probation, given his age at the time of the crime and his lack of priors. Nevertheless, his conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, most of the pieces extremely flawed to the point where Deputy DA Sulaiman Tokhi suggested that the defense would be that he is the most unlucky person around.
This week, Yolo Judicial Watch covered a typical Yolo County trial in which an Hispanic defendant was judged by a nearly all-white jury that contained no other Hispanics.
We have been trying to get good data on Yolo County juries and defendants, but we can safely, from observation alone, draw one conclusion: Latinos as defendants are over-represented in this county as compared to their population. And Latinos in terms of their representation on juries are under-represented.
The case that would never end may have just ended with Michael Artz in custody serving what would appear to be a 270-day jail sentence.
Last August, Michael Artz was convicted of the two lesser counts in his case stemming from oral copulation with a 16-year-old female student, a year behind him at Davis High, and from his ill-advised attempts to reconnect with her nine months later.
by the ACLU
June 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of a “war on drugs” – a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world’s largest incarcerator. Throughout the month, check back daily for posts about the drug war, its victims and what needs to be done to restore fairness and create effective policy.
