Court Watch

By Jeff Adachi

A group of state judges wants to persuade the public to cash in one of our fundamental rights: trial by a jury of our peers.

The idea, floated by the California Judges Association as a cost-saving measure, requires passing a state constitutional amendment to shrink juries in misdemeanor criminal cases from 12 to eight members. Paring down juries is a dangerous bargain.

By Vanguard Court Watch Interns

The trial of James Mings ground to a halt on Wednesday when Deputy DA Martha Holzapfel fell ill, causing Judge Richardson to send the jury home.

When the trial resumed on Thursday morning, Ms. Holzapfel was still ill.  Her supervisor, Deputy DA Rob Gorman was supposed to take her place and select the jury.

Last November, California voters overwhelmingly adopted Prop 36, known as the “Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012.”  Under the new law, which created PC 1170.126, those sentenced to 25 years to life for a non-violent third strike can be resentenced.

On February 15, 2013, Judge Timothy Fall re-sentenced Eliaser Aguilar, who has been in prison since 1999 on a single count of violation of section 11377(a) of the California Health and Safety code for possession of a controlled substance.

The notion of cash for convictions is the idea that fiscal incentives might drive the decisions made by prosecutors as to which cases to pursue.  In the age of declining budgets, prosecutors increasingly are forced to rely on external grants which contain the incentive to arrest, prosecute and convict more people in the targeted category.

That may sound benign, but when the need for funding trumps the need to protect the community or ensure that justice is done from the perspective of the community, the victim and the defendant, we have a potential problem.

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.

For instance, in 2011 the New Jersey Supreme Court made a ruling that was aimed at resolving what they called the “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications.”  A year later, for the first time, the New Jersey courts are having judges instruct jurors in order to improve their evaluation of eyewitness identification.

Clinton Parish showed appallingly poor judgment last year in authorizing attacks against incumbent Judge Dan Maguire.  Even if those attacks had been accurate, it is questionable for one to play that sort of politics in a judicial race that is supposed to be about experience and neutrality, not politics.

How easily the charges were systematically dismantled under the least amount of inquiry, however, casts the situation in a very different light.  It calls into question Mr. Parish’s ability not only to be a judge, but also to be a prosecuting attorney.  After all, if you cast baseless charges against your political opponent, why would you not cast the same charges against a poor, defenseless defendant?

The Vanguard Court Watch has been in Judge Stephen Mock’s courtroom many times since 2010.  Our view of him is that he is a relatively fair judge, though he tends to lean towards the prosecution, and he has a firm grasp of the law.

We firmly believe that most people who go before Judge Mock get a reasonably fair trial.  There are exceptions, of course, but by far the most egregious was the Michael Artz trial.

The State Bar of California has filed disciplinary charges against a Yolo County attorney for allegedly failing to comply with ethical rules while seeking judicial office. Clinton Parish, 41, is accused  by the California Bar of making misrepresentations about himself and his opponent in the May 2012 election for Yolo County Superior Court.

It was one of the more controversial cases that the Vanguard has covered, where a Yolo County Jury found Michael Artz, a graduate of Davis High School, not guilty of forced oral copulation in a case involving another Davis High Student who was 16 at the time.

However, they did find him guilty of two felonies, oral copulation with a person under 18 and contact and communication with a minor with the intent to have sexual relations. Ultimately, Mr. Artz was ordered to undergo counseling and spent six months in the Yolo County Jail.

Vanguard Confirms Officer No Longer Employed by City – The Vanguard has received a copy of the city’s letter to Tatiana Bush, one of two individuals involved in an incident that occurred May 23, 2012 at the Glacier Point Apartments.

At the time, the Davis Police released an unusually detailed explanation of the incident.  However, that was refuted a few days later by Tatiana Bush, a member of the Cruz Reynoso Task Force that looked into the November 18, 2011 Pepper Spray Incident.