Court Watch

It is appropriate that today we also run an article about a proposed 32% fee hike for UC students.  It is appropriate because every dollar we spend to incarcerate someone is a dollar we cannot spend on educating the future investment.

In a lot of ways, money spent on prisons – especially in their current form with the length of sentences and recidivism rate – is a sunken cost.  Every dollar we spend on education is an investment.

In 2010, a Yolo County jury convicted Steven Hector Martinez of Woodland, age 35, of one count of battery with serious bodily injury.  The incident had occurred on Picnic Day in April 2009 in a fight outside of Bistro 33.

Supposedly the defendant, a complete stranger to the victim, “sucker-punched” him in the face with his fist.  After an initial trial saw a 6-6 hung jury, the second trial saw Mr. Martinez convicted and sentenced to 31 years to life.

Judge Timothy Fall eventually accepted a misdemeanor plea by Anthony Brown for a DUI on a case that began on December 26, 2008 but for which the DA was attempting to upgrade to a felony even as Mr. Brown was serving time in the California Department of Corrections for another unrelated offense.

The case was filed almost two and a half years ago in January 2009.  Because the DA was taking so long to dispense with the matter, Mr. Brown filed the paperwork himself for the Penal Code 1381 demand for a trial.  It was completed by Mike Cabral of the DA’s office and the defendant was delivered back to Yolo County.

A few months ago a woman accused of drug dealing was acquitted of those charges, but still faced an immigration hold.  Her husband had tragically put out an assassination hit on her back in Mexico.  The sad part is, given the minor charges against her, the Sheriff’s office did not have to report the woman to immigration.

Some will argue that everyone who is here illegally ought to be deported, but considering the resources it takes to verify immigration status and transfer from custody to deportation proceedings, that is simply not practical.

A Yolo County jury last week acquitted Maria Olivares of possession of heroin for sale, possession of meth for sale, and offering to give away or transport less than 28 grams of marijuana.  The two primary charges contained enhancements due to their large quantities.

The incident began on November 4, 2009 when officers made an 11 pm traffic stop.  The car was pulled over for turning on the left turn blinker while stopped at a red light, when the law requires one to do so 100 feet or more before the intersection.

In a 5-4 Decision determined by swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy, the US Supreme Court cited “serious constitutional violations” in California’s overcrowded prisons and ordered the state to ease overcrowding by releasing tens of thousands of prisoners, if no other solution can be arrived at.

“The violations have persisted for years,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “They remain uncorrected.”

One of the key complaints against gang injunctions is the notion that people can be deprived of “lawful commonplace activity” without the due process of law.

When Yolo County Judge Kathleen White allowed the permanent gang injunction to go forward in West Sacramento, one of the key provisions was that now people could be enjoined just by serving them and validating them as gang members.  As much as the West Sacramento Police Department had provisions in place to oversee such a process, and as much as they claimed they had no current plans to do so, the possibility that people could be deprived of liberty without the due process of law was in place.

In a move that surprised the judge and defense counsel, rather than turn over the phone to the defense, in the DA’s own office, Deputy District Attorney Sara Jacobsen dropped the charges in the Oscar Arreola case.

She indicated that they needed more analysis and thus more time to pursue the case.  So rather than put the matter on hold as Judge Gaard suggested, she dropped the charges.

An op-ed piece by the Innocence Project reminds us once again that the cost of a wrongful conviction is not merely that an innocent person is incarcerated for a crime not committed – a tremendous atrocity unto itself. But there is also the additional problem of the actual guilty party going free, free to possibly perpetrate a crime again.

The problem is pervasive as well.  They write of a 1993 murder of a woman by her sister’s boyfriend.  As they note, “Unfortunately, this tragedy might have been prevented — but for the wrongful conviction of an innocent man for a previous crime.”

SPECIAL TO THE VANGUARD

The office of District Attorney Steve Cooley has failed to disclose public documents on the costs of prosecuting capital cases, according to a lawsuit filed today by The American Civil Liberties Union of California (ACLU of California) on behalf of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHIRJ) at Harvard Law School. The lawsuit is for public records on expenses related to homicide cases, and discretionary spending generally, by the D.A. of California’s most populous – and murderous – county.

According to FBI statistics, there were about seven hundred murders and non-negligent homicides in Los Angeles County in 2009, accounting for approximately 35% of the homicides in California and nearly 5% of the homicides in the entire United States. The Los Angeles County D.A.’s office (LADA) handles the vast majority of prosecutions arising out of murders in Los Angeles County. But in response to a broad request for records showing how much the office spent on these cases, the D.A.’s office claimed that it had no such records.

Judge Paul Richardson lowered the bail of Ashot Manukyan to one hundred thousand dollars, following a hearing on Wednesday.  Mr. Manukyan, who owns the popular Cafe Mediterranee in Davis, faces three felony charges stemming from an arrest last week on a warrant.

The charges include penetration with a foreign object, assault with intent to commit penetration with a foreign object and false imprisonment in addition to a misdemeanor sexual battery charge.

Back in March, the Vanguard reported that Yolo County had become the focus of a nationwide gun debate as a federal court on Thursday heard arguments in a case where gun-rights advocates have challenged the courts to determine how much discretion California’s law enforcement officials have in issuing concealed weapons permits.

County Sheriffs, the plaintiff argued, who handle the bulk of these situations, must issue permits to anyone who completes a training course and has no mental health problems or criminal background.

Judge Stephen Mock called them the most complicated sentencing issues he had ever seen, but after spending over an hour privately and then an hour publicly, he finally sentenced Bennie Moses, convicted of 62 felonies back in March, to 830 years in prison.

He cited four different provisions under the law that guided the sentencing structure.  One of the key issues was the extent to which he could concurrently sentence for separate crimes that were committed basically simultaneously.

The Third District Court of Appeal has denied the writ filed by the California Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the Yolo County District Attorney’s office, appealing the decision by Judge Gaard ordering the phone sought by the defense to be viewed with unfettered access in the DA’s office today, May 16.

Defense Attorney, Dean Johansson from the Public Defender’s office had believed that the previous order was to turn over the phone so that an expert could examine it in his lab.  Mr. Johansson may himself file a writ arguing that the defense is entitled to the evidence as a matter of law.

I have seen Judge Stephen Mock handle quite a few trials in the last year and a half.  His is now the long cause trial court, which means any trial that lasts more one week goes to his department.

I have seen him handle some cases well and others less well.  It is important to understand that Judge Mock was a prosecutor prior to becoming a judge, and it is also important to understand that he is married to Ann Hurd who was at one point the supervising District Attorney and now, though technically retired, is still in the leadership.

Judge Fall ruled that there was no evidence duress, and thus no legal basis for Mr. Ramirez to withdraw his plea.

The prosecutor grabs the alleged weapon, a gun, points it over the heads of the jury and suddenly shouts, “What color are my shoes?  What color are my shoes?”  He is making the point that an officer who is being fired at may not correctly recall details of the event.

Deputy DA Clinton Parish likes to brag that he saves his best arguments for what is supposed to be the rebuttal closing argument – the argument that the DA gets due to the fact that they have the burden of proof in the case, when the defense attorney cannot respond.

In West Sacramento were a group of youths, most of them 14 or 15 years old.  They were drinking heavily, apparently.  Late at night they walked up to a man walking through a neighborhood and one of them reportedly asked where the individual was from.

The individual, with headphones on, listening to his Ipod, did not respond immediately, so the kids jump him, beat him up and rob him.  He was struck in the side of his face and went down almost immediately.

Last week was the latest in a series of volleys back and forth between those questioning the timing and the need for the construction of the Yolo County court project, which is scheduled to be completed by 2015, and Judge David Rosenberg, who has made the new courthouse a centerpiece of his legacy as presiding judge.

Financing the more than five billion dollar statewide project are fines to convicted felons and traffic violators.  Roughly $178 million is going to Yolo County at a time when Yolo County is being forced to lay off and furlough employees, and cities like Davis have huge and growing unfunded liabilities.