Court Watch

In late October, the Vanguard reported that the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office announced that Claudean Medlock had pled no contest to one felony charge of grand theft from an employer. Medlock is the former Executive Director of the Yolo County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).

She had embezzled more than $46,000 from the non-profit agency and used the money to gamble at casinos.

If you want to find injustice, follow the activities in your county courthouse.

I have been following the California Superior Courthouse in Yolo County for three months, and may I say, my eyes are wide open. The courthouse is found in Woodland and where I thought not much happened.

Timothy Acuna is one of the few named defendants able to take the stand in this trial and he gives us some insight that provides context to the black and white case of gang activity that the DA’s Office is attempting to portray.

Like many, Mr. Acuna has a long criminal record that goes back at least to 1997.  He was 21 at that time, raised in Broderick in what is now the safety zone.  He became involved with drugs and people who used drugs in the safety zone. He stated that he did meth and was addicted to it.

Earlier in the summer, the prosecution presented witnesses from what they considered to be one of two seminal cases showing that the Broderick Boys Gang represented an ongoing public nuisance to the residents of the safety zone.  One of these, the Memorial Park incident, appears to be far more complex than presented by the DA’s Office.

During testimony it became clear that while the victims, brothers James and Reese Hopkins, were indeed injured and injured badly in the fight that ensued at the park, they were also far from innocent bystanders caught up in the gang’s wrath.  Instead they went to the park looking for trouble, looking for a fight, and trouble they got.

Word to the wise, do not shoplift from Nugget, you will end up with serious prison time.  On Monday, Judge Timothy Fall sentenced Michael Caddick to seven years in prison for being the lookout in a shoplifting heist that saw him aid and abet the stealing of Chinese food from the Woodland Nugget Market.

This marks at least the third case where we know of a person stealing a very small amount from Nugget and landing  in prison for serious time.  Earlier, a man faced life for stealing a package of shredded cheese, only to see the Three Strikes provision waived, but he still ended up with a seven-year sentence.

The defense called their first expert witness on Friday, Professor James Hernandez of Sacramento State.  Professor Hernandez is a former law enforcement officer, having been assigned  back in 1993 as a gang expert by the Department of Justice, and having served as a police officer in Pittsburg, California.

Professor Hernandez argued that the Nortenos are not a criminal street gang because they lack central command.  They are not organized, but simply appropriate an identity they wish to use.  He testified that there was no criminal street gang in West Sacramento and there never was.

In 2006 California voters passed what would be the latest in a string of ill-considered laws to protect children from sexual predators. At that time it passed Jessica’s Law, one of the string of laws around the country named for Jessica Lunsford, a young Florida girl who was raped and murdered in 2005 by a man previously convicted of a sexual offense.

Among the stringent requirements was the mandatory registration of “sex offenders” for life, to allow officials to monitor and track individuals, who range from dangerous sexual predators to people who happened to be convicted of relatively minor offenses, as we have seen in this county.

The case for the plaintiff largely consisted of police officers testifying, at times secondhand, about long ago forgotten cases which required frequent referrals to official reports and excepted hearsay  statements made by suspects, defendants, and alleged gang members.  More on this point shortly.

The defense is now in the process of presenting their case and their goal is to go block-by-block to show Judge Kathleen White that the average resident does not believe there is a public nuisance presented by the alleged Broderick Boys Gang.  Key words, average resident, meaning non-expert. And they believe, meaning that in their experience, they have not firsthand experienced a nuisance from the gang.

On Tuesday’s County Board of Supervisors meeting agenda is a resolution that would authorize the District Attorney’s Office to accept grant funding from the California Department of Insurance for three 2010-11 grants in the amounts of $230,000 from the Workers’ Compensation grant, $38,942 from the Life and Annuity grant and $132,796 from the Automobile Insurance Fraud grant.

There will be no general fund impact, the staff report reads.  According to the report, “These are continuing programs and funding will cover the associated costs.”

I was a young man in 1992, a freshman in college, when the verdict came in on the Rodney King case.  I was not completely surprised, and watching the news coverage of the criminal trial led my gut to tell me there was a chance the police officers might get off, despite what the world saw on video.

The riot that followed was all too predictable, as well.  I remember being glued to my TV for days with my college buddies watching LA burn.  Somewhere in between, a small group of us marched down to the local police station and burned candles.  The police were nice, they sat outside their station and talked to us for an hour.  We were not a threat to them.

The case that began in July finally saw the plaintiffs rest and the defense open their case.  In theory, the plaintiffs have the burden of showing that the Broderick Boys Criminal Street Gang exists, that they operate in West Sacramento in the defined safety zone, that the defendants are members of that gang, and that the gang represents a nuisance to the citizens of West Sacramento.

The defense’s task is clear, and they will be parading witness after witness who will testify to the fact that there is no nuisance and that they have minimal personal awareness of or contact with the gang.

Back in August, a Yolo County Jury hung in the case of Eric Sass, charged with 12 counts of having made inappropriate sexual contact with a minor under the age of 14.  The incidents occurred in 2008 and 2009.  The victim is presently 11 years old. The defendant moved out of the home on June 1, 2009.

In the original trial, enough complicating factors were presented that led two or three of the jurors to vote to acquit, much to dismay of the jury foreman.  In a quick retrial, this time there was no such problem, and the jury convicted quickly on all counts.

When Jesus Arias was convicted of possession of a stolen weapon, a violation of probation and a gang enhancement in mid-August, it seemed a fairly routine case.  A thin prosecution propped up by gang charges, MySpace pictures, and a misconception by the jury of gang laws.

What has developed since then has been anything but routine, as Deputy DA Ryan Couzens has continued to pursue prison time, despite all evidence to the contrary, as Captain Ahab pursued his white whale.  The result was much the same as in the fabled book, as Mr. Couzens ended up not knowing when to take his loss like a professional and simply allow the case to proceed with dignity.

At the previous hearing in the Marco Topete case, DA Jeff Reisig had requested the court appoint an interpreter for the parents of Tony Diaz.  Judge Richardson asked the DA’s Office to submit a motion, even though none of the parties objected to the request on the face of it.  However, from the perspective of Judge Richardson this was a fiscal issue for the county, and he denied it on those grounds.

Wrote DA Reisig in his motion, “Carolina Rios De Diaz and Rafael Diaz Chavez are the parents of Tony Diaz. On June 16, 2008, they became victims in this case when their son was murdered.”

Two weeks ago Judge Paul Richardson denied the motion of Marco Topete, acting as his pro per counsel, a motion to continue the jury trial for an additional six months, until March. The Judge’s rationale was that the burden was on the moving party to prove reason to extend the trial, and that Mr. Topete, acting as his pro per counsel, was unable to show good cause.

However, a funny thing happened after the ruling by Judge Richardson, as the logistics showed that the defendant was exactly right.  And so on Tuesday, Judge Richardson set trial motions to be filed by February 14 with jury selection beginning on March 7.

On October 14, 2010, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office announced that Claudean Medlock had pled no contest to one felony charge of grand theft from an employer. Medlock is the former Executive Director of the Yolo County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).

She had embezzled more than $46,000 from the non-profit agency and used the money to gamble at casinos.

Good article this morning in the Daily Democrat, pointing out that most of the judges in Yolo County have now been appointed within the past four years.  Of the 10 judges, six have now been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with the addition of Judge Daniel Maguire in the past week.

Yolo Judicial Watch focuses a large amount of attention on the District Attorney, but it is very clear that problems in this county go well beyond just the DA’s Office.  Yolo County judges have by-and-large been conservative, appointed by Republican Governors, and many are former prosecutors themselves.  Of course, mandatory sentencing laws in this state do not help, nor do juries that often shift the burden of proof.

A behind-the-scenes deal was apparently reached between the Public Defender’s Office and the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.  The deal, which can be largely viewed as a victory for the defense, made the pruno charge against Jesus Arias go away and puts Mr.Arias on schedule to receive probation rather than prison time for his August convictions of possessing a stolen weapon and violating probation, each with a gang enhancement.

Deputy DA Ryan Couzens had pushed for a deal which would involve prison time in exchange for dropping the pruno charges. Pruno, as explained previously by the Vanguard, is the alcoholic beverage made in prisons from fruits and other ingredients. Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson filed a motion charging the DA with vindictive prosecution.

Two weeks ago we had an article on the problematic nature of expert testimony by the gang expert in the case of Michael Romero.  For the last few weeks we have seen the testimony of the plaintiff’s gang experts in the Gang Injunction Trial. 

First, Joe Villanueva took the stand as an expert.  Detective Villanueva currently works on the City of Fairfield gang unit, but up until the end of 2007 headed the Yolo County Gang Unit.

The Vanguard has previously reported on the DA’s Cash for Convictions Program, and now for the first time we may see an example of such a program at work.  We have covered at length the Michael Artz trial, in which the defendant was accused primarily of forced oral copulation with a younger classmate, but acquitted of that charge.  He was, however, convicted of sexual contact with a minor and having a conversation with that minor about sexual contact.

The Vanguard has now learned that prosecutor Tiffany Susz is designated as the Statutory Rape Grant Prosecutor, and 30% of her salary comes in part from a Vertical Prosecution Block Grant. This supplies the DA’s Office overall with $480,000 and funds portions of four prosecutors including Ms. Susz, and also Ryan Couzens (40%), Robert Gorman (45%) and Robin Johnson (45%). Data from the DA’s grant application illustrates this.