Court Watch

In January the Vanguard launched a project to monitor court cases in the Yolo County court system.  The purpose of this program was to look into problematic cases, monitor them through the court system, and report about any abuses, overcharging, and other problems in the system.

By analyzing individual cases, we hoped to be able to determine, on a more systematic basis, the problems facing the Yolo Judicial system.  While this report does not represent a comprehensive review of the court system or the DA’s Office, it does provide some insight into problems that we face.

While the Gang Injunction trial wrapped up and we eagerly await Judge Kathleen White’s decision expected in May, we have further evidence that despite claims to the contrary, any gang problems in Yolo County hardly register as a blip on the radar of statewide gang concerns.

The DA’s Office argued in their closing that the Broderick Boys gang represented a clear nuisance to the West Sacramento community to the extent that they needed additional remedies not already available under the law.

In a time of financial crisis, when all government agencies are crying poverty, in a lot of ways Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig is operating as though it were business as usual.  Yolo Judicial Watch has now been covering the courts for about a year, and some of our findings are appalling.

DA Reisig and his staff may be able to write off the efforts of the Vanguard, but some of his antics have caught the Sacramento press’s attention.  Two of his worst offending cases – as in waste of taxpayer money – made top ten lists for the year 2010 in both the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento News and Review.

Under the best of conditions it is difficult to defend oneself, particularly in a capital murder case.  But the system conspired to make the task impossible for Marco Topete, accused of the 2008 killing of Deputy Sheriff Tony Diaz. 

Faced with inadequate time to research the case, lack of hours in the law library, lack of privacy and protection for legal product, Mr. Topete finally had enough last week and reluctantly took back the two attorneys he had dismissed just three months ago.

What we do know suggests something very wrong happened that night, and the people most responsible for that were not the defendants who may have to stand trial in two months for a fourth time, but rather the people that we entrust to protect us and keep us safe – police officers.  Unfortunately the DA’s Office is more concerned with protecting the financial interests of West Sacramento than they are in seeing that justice is done.  The statute of limitations has long since run on a state charge of felony assault.  And likewise a federal civil rights charge, for which the statute is five years, and which ended six months ago.

Last year, California’s judiciary adopted new transparency rules that allowed access to spending records on personnel, including salaries.

The Contra Costa Times have obtained court information that includes  includes all California judges and employees of appellate courts, the supreme court and the administrative office of the courts, and totals more than $1 billion in salaries for 15,377 employees.

After nearly five months of on again-off again testimony and hearings, the Gang Injunction trial has finally wrapped up as the plaintiffs presented their closing statement on Wednesday. The defense deferred theirs, and will submit written arguments only.

The plaintiff’s case rested on combining a number of crimes that seemed at times to be almost random and scattered throughout the safety zone, involving individuals that were said by police officials to be gang members.

Last week a Yolo County jury acquitted Fermin Galvan on one charge and nearly a second.  They also hung on the four charges against Ernesto Galvan, who in 2005 was beaten nearly to death by Officers Schlie and Farrington of the West Sacramento Police Department.

On Monday, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office stunned many legal observers in pursuing a fourth trial in the case that has seen two hung juries in the 2010 calendar year alone.

On Monday, the Vanguard presented the Innocence Project’s report that flagged over 700 cases statewide.  On October 5, 2010, the Northern California Innocence Project came out with a report, “Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997–2009,” that uncovered over 700 cases in which courts had found prosecutorial misconduct during an 11-year period.  Of all of those cases, only six prosecutors were disciplined.

The misconduct covered in the report ranged from failing to turn over evidence to presenting false evidence in court.  As a response to their research, the Northern California Innocence Project is calling for legal reforms requiring courts to report all findings of misconduct to the State Bar, which they currently are not required to do.  When a court decides the misconduct was harmless, those cases often go unreported.

Just when it appeared over for the Galvan brothers, who have had to endure a lifetime of injuries and already three trials as the result of an incident that took place early in the morning in June of 2005 at a dark park in West Sacramento, Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Palumbo announced that the DA’s Office intends to try the case for yet a fourth time.

Right now a trial readiness conference is set for January 31 and a fourth trial set to begin on February 7 – assuming there are no further delays.

On October 5, 2010, the Northern California Innocence Project came out with a report, “Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997–2009,” that uncovered over 700 cases in which courts had found prosecutorial misconduct during an 11-year period.  Of all of those cases, only six prosecutors were disciplined.

The Vanguard has found four cases in Yolo County: Racimo, Lindeman, Massey, and Morales.  However a source indicates a fifth case might be added, which would be the case of Lawrence James Miranda, which  was overturned because the prosecutor, then-Deputy DA Jeff Reisig, withheld exculpatory evidence and the conviction was reversed on appeal.

This week UC Davis announced that, more than a year after it was acknowledged that the longtime director of the Campus Violence Prevention Program had exaggerated the numbers of forcible sex offenses reported under the Clery Act in 2005, 2006 and 2007, the former director of that program has been arrested. 

The arrest of Jennifer Beeman occurred on December 9, on charges of embezzlement of public funds and eight other felonies in connection with her alleged misuse of public funds as director of the Campus Violence Prevention Program.

For the third time, a Yolo County Jury has hung on charges against Ernesto and Fermin Galvan.  But this time it was different.  The Galvan brothers, who have been prosecuted since 2005 for resisting arrest and battery on police officers, in the two previous trials had seen 11-1 splits in favor of the prosecution.  That prompted the DA to refile charges twice and continue pursuit of the case.

However, this time it was very different.  Fermin Galvan, who was the less active participant and the brother less badly beaten by the police, was nearly completely acquitted.  He was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge of resisting detention by then-Officer Jim Reeder, who dropped him to the asphalt with a leg sweep. The jury hung, 11 to 1 in his favor on the misdemeanor charge that alleged he had caused interference or delay to Officer Donald Schlie’s detention of his brother.

In a strongly-worded response, Inspector General Laura Chick rebuked efforts by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors to attempt to soften the blow of the criticism of the Probation Department for their failure to adhere to the terms of a grant.

Ms. Chick wrote on December 7 to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors Chair Helen Thomson, “It is important to remember that Yolo County received this grant for specific purposes. The innovations and risk-taking you mention in your letter were an inherent part of the grant. Any county seeking this funding was, in fact, being asked to change and improve the way it was dealing with perpetrators and victims of sexual crimes.”

A Woodland resident in his early 20’s, Jose Valenzuela, from a Salvadorian family, was acquitted of attempting to kill one man and was nearly acquitted of attempting to kill the other man, but the jury hung 11-1 for acquittal. 

Nevertheless, the DA is attempting to refile charges and it will be determined in January whether Judge Stephen Mock allows the trial to move forward again.

CASA packed the court with board members and supporters on Wednesday, to hear the sentencing of Claudean Medlock for embezzlement. But after waiting nearly an hour for the case to be called, there was a lengthy discussion between Deputy District Attorney Michelle Serafin, Deputy Public Defender Monica Brushia, Probation and Judge Thomas Warriner.

As it turned out, the trek was all for naught, as Judge Warriner announced that the case would be returned to the judge who accepted the plea agreement.  Judge Warriner was taking all of Judge Kathleen White’s cases for the day, as she was otherwise preoccupied.

In late September into early October, a Yolo County jury hung, with seven jurors voting to acquit and five to convict Jesus Solis. Mr. Solis stood accused of shooting and killing an individual named Jesus Cortez Heredia last September outside Ortega’s West, a bar in West Sacramento.  Another individual standing beside Heredia at the time of the shooting was also hit by the flurry of bullets, following a fight in the parking lot at closing time.

Mr. Solis is now in Mexico, having been deported, but is free after facing, at one point, the death penalty in this case.  Former Deputy District Attorney James Walker had said in the original filing that this was a capital case, unless stated otherwise. Charges were refiled after the mistrial.

Two men accused in the beating of Sacramento cab driver Harbhajan Singh in the early morning hours of November 28, 2010 were arraigned on Tuesday afternoon, charged with hate crimes, according to a release from the Yolo County DA’s Office.

Pedro Ramirez, 41, and Johnny Morales, 33 have been charged with felony assault and hate crimes, according to the release.  In a statement released by Mr. Singh through his spokesperson Amar Shergill at the Shergill Law Firm in Sacramento, they say that the Felony Assault charge also includes a Great Bodily Injury enhancement, and there was an additional charge of criminal threats.

I have sat in Judge Fall’s courtroom as he handed down an implausible sentence of 378 years to Ajay Dev.  I have sat in Judge Fall’s courtroom as he berated a young public defender, demeaning her not only in front of her colleagues, but in front of a jury.

He makes attorneys nervous.  He acts in an arrogant and condescending fashion at times.  But privately I have had more than one attorney tell me no judge in Yolo County knows the law better than Judge Fall, and Judge Fall makes them a better attorney.