Court Watch

In the past few weeks, I have had numerous conversations on the issue of racial profiling and the recent event involving 68-year-old Eli Davis.  One of the more interesting things is how much the reaction of white and blacks diverge, not only on this incident, but on the issue of the treatment of blacks and minorities by the criminal justice system as a whole.

Public relations people use the term “optics” to describe how something will look like to the outside world, and one of the problems is that police interactions and criminal justice interactions with minority populations suffer from poor optics.  When one group is disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, regardless of the myriad of reasons for that, the optics look bad.

By Charmayne Schmitz

In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Brandon Finn told a jury: Beyond A Reasonable Doubt “is a term us lawyers come up with.”  This is the second trial where I’ve witnessed a Yolo prosecutor take liberties with the basis for a criminal conviction in our country’s judicial system.

Finn’s statement was at the tail end of a contentious 2-day trial. Pablo Campos was accused of driving with a suspended license after a traffic stop on March 30, 2012. Deputy Seja testified about pulling the vehicle over on I-5 to check for an expired registration. Mr. Campos was found to be the driver. The deputy issued a ticket for the expired license and the defendant signed it.

by Antoinnette Borbon

Wednesday was a short hearing for James Elron Mings in Judge Timothy Fall’s courtroom. James Mings, who was recently convicted of attempted murder, was back in court to hear whether or not Deputy District Attorney Martha Holzapfel will refile on the “pre-meditated” special findings, part of the case. Although the jurors could agree on attempted murder, they hung on the special findings part of the verdict.

James Elron Mings was arrested on October 1 of 2011 for the murder of his friend, Kevin Seery. Upon the viewing of the deceased by several law enforcement personnel and the coroner’s office, the death appeared suspicious. On the evening of October 1 they found a sock and other items in the mouth of Seery.

In the end, after a three-day preliminary hearing, Judge David Rosenberg held Clayton Garzon to stand on all charges for his brutal attack on Mikey Partida back in early March.  However, the standard of proof to be held over on charges is fairly low – the probable cause standard.

To gain a conviction in a court of law, one needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  And so while it sounds good when attorney Linda Parisi told the court Mr. Garzon had no way of knowing that Mikey Partida was gay, it was not enough to overcome the facts of the case in which witnesses testified they heard Mr. Garzon yelling “faggot” and other epithets as he beat Mr. Partida.

Eight years ago next month, police responding to a report of a potential hit and run accident in the Safeway parking center in South Davis came to the home of the Buzayans.  The evidence that an actual accident occurred was sketchy, at best.  Nevertheless, when Davis Police Officer Pheng Ly appeared at the Buzayans’ home at nearly 10 pm on a school night to arrest then 16-year-old Halema Buzayan, her father Jamal Buzayan offered to bring her down to the police station in the morning.

Officer Ly refused that offer and proceeded to arrest her, in her night clothes, for a misdemeanor, and bring her down to the police station.  What followed is questionable, at best, for Ms. Buzayan appears to have been questioned by Officer Ly despite her request for counsel.  And to make matters worse, former Officer Gina Anderson appears to have attempted to have tried to use the internal investigation process to question the defendant and get her to acknowledge guilt.

Date: May 19, 2013
Time: 5:15 to 7:15 PM
Location: 315 E. 14th St. , Davis, CA 95616
Yolo County Library Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch in the Blanchard Room

The public has an opportunity to tell of their experiences with the Yolo County judicial system. These are experiences that normally are not covered in the newspaper. The Council will take public comment and testimony from invited speakers and then deliberate in closed session to determine our course of action.

In the past few weeks, fueled by a few egregious anecdotes, opponents of AB 109, the state’s realignment program that shifts custody in certain non-violent, non-dangerous cases from the state to the county, have asserted that the program has failed and produced a spike in crime.

However, an early study conducted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) shows no such finding.  According to a report release on Thursday, “One-year arrest rates are down and conviction rates are virtually static for offenders released after completing their state prison sentences post-Realignment.”

In the early 1990s, despite years of decline in the actual crime rate, politicians took advantage of public angst and frustration with high profile crimes, gangs and the crack wars, to push through a series of very harsh penalties.  Over the course of the next two decades, the crime rates continued their drop from their late 1970s peak, as prisons filled up.

Realignment was the result of a federal court order for California to reduce its prison population.  It shifted prison populations from the state to counties.  While many accused realignment of simply shifting the problem, there was a strategic nature to that shift.  County prosecutors make the charging decisions and the hope was that by making counties responsible for their own prison population, it would change the way criminal charging occurred.

by Antoinnette Borbon

We knew going in that the murder trial against James Mings would not be straightforward.  It had its share of twists and turns, with the defense arguing that Mr. Mings was not the actual murderer.  The defense claims that Mings’ original attempts at murder, in the heat of the moment after the pleading from victim Kevin Seery to end his life, were unsuccessful.

It was unknown to Mr. Mings at the time that Mr. Seery was still alive and his accomplice, Thomas McDermott, may have choked him a second time and been the one to force the sock down his throat.

With all that has happened in the last week, I have neglected to circle back to the Banker’s Dozen case, whichsettlement I find to be truly strange.  The original case made for some fantastic headlines – the protesters starting in January 2012 managed to shut down a bank, day after day.  Some days the bank never bothered to open.

The university, fresh from the turmoil and university embarrassment over the handling of the pepper spray incident, was not keen on creating another opportunity to drag people out of the Memorial Union, handcuffed and escort them through potentially hostile student throngs.  So, after much deliberation, with the bank literally screaming to arrest the protesters, the bank finally shut their doors and ultimately sued the university.

Last week, an 8-1 vote of the Mississippi Supreme Court halted the scheduled execution of Willie Manning a mere four hours before he was schedule to be put to death by lethal injection.  While 8 justices of the Court eventually did the right thing, the very fact that we came as close as we did to executing the man is a testament to the utter disaster the state of the justice system is in.

Remarkably, if we look at this case, long marred by racial bias in jury selection, there is actually no reliable evidence to sustain Mr. Manning’s 1994 conviction.