Court Watch

The defense of Marco Topete, accused of the 2008 shooting of Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz, suffered another blow when the motion to disqualify Judge Paul Richardson was denied Friday by Judge Terrence R. Van Oss.

Judge Terrence R. Van Oss, a San Joaquin County Judge, was assigned the case last month when Marco Topete, who is representing himself pro per, alleged that a meeting between Judge Richardson with other parties of the case outside of his presence was improper.

Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson has filed a motion in Yolo County Court asking for a dismissal of additional charges against Jesus Arias on grounds that Deputy DA Ryan Couzens was engaged in malicious prosecution for attempting to leverage pruno (prison wine) possession charges into prison time.

Writes Deputy PD Hutchinson, “The overwhelming objective evidence proves that the Yolo County District Attorney’s prosecution of defendant in the above action is a vindictive prosecution motivated by a desire to punish defendant for exercising his constitutional right to a jury trial…”

It was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who issued a reprieve to Albert Greenwood Brown for a day, to resolve conflicting legal deadlines.

The state’s 1st District Court of Appeal last week overturned a judge’s order that had halted lethal-injection executions, but that order will not take effect until Thursday, which gives defense attorneys time to appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

In March of 2010, District Attorney Jeff Reisig made the startling announcement that nearly a third of the DA’s Office is funded by grants designated for investigating and prosecuting different areas of crime.

In 2008-09, the entire criminal prosecution budget for the Yolo County’s DA’s Office was 9.37 million dollars.  In 2009, Yolo County received 6.27 million dollars in grants for sexual assault and gang suppression.  That money does not exclusively go to the DA’s Office, but is shared by the Sheriff’s Department and three police agencies.

For the first time in four years California is likely to execute an inmate on death row, as the final hurdles were cleared Friday when U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel refused to block the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown. He has been on death row since 1980.

Judge Fogel, a Clinton appointee to the federal bench, expressed concern about the limited time in which he had to evaluate the state’s revised execution procedures. He gave the condemned inmate the choice of being put to death by a single injection, as opposed to the state’s three-drug method.

In March 2008, a Bench-Bar-Media committee was formed by California Chief Justice Ronald M. George,  in order to foster improved understanding and working relationships among California judges, lawyers, and journalists.

Chaired by Associate Justice Carlos R. Moreno of the Supreme Court of California, the committee includes appellate court justices, superior court judges, attorneys specializing in the First Amendment, a prosecutor, a criminal defense attorney, journalists, an academic, a superior court executive officer and a superior court public information officer (PIO).

The Yolo County Superior Court announced yesterday a new program that will encourage citizen participation on juries, increasing the pool of potential jurors jurors by contacting those residents who have failed to respond to their jury summons and encouraging them to fulfill their obligations as citizens.

We have been observing juries now since January, and one of the huge features of the Yolo County Court system is that largely non-white defendants’ cases are heard by white juries.  Perhaps one of the problems is that a large percentage of citizens fail to appear for jury service.

In early September, a Yolo County Jury found Roman Ibanez guilty of three counts – felony conspiracy to commit burglary, misdemeanor resisting or obstructing a peace officer, and misdemeanor possession of burglary tools. 

Mr. Ibanez, for reasons that still are not completely clear, decided to represent himself pro per – act as his own defense counsel.  Unfortunately, he did an exceedingly poor job of this, and turned what should have been a case that would be very difficult to get a conviction on into a fairly easy victory for the DA’s office.

On Tuesday, the Vanguard reported that Marco Topete, who stands trial for the 2008 shooting death of Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz, moved to disqualify Judge Paul Richardson, citing questionable and biased conduct on the part of Judge Richardson.

A judge appointed by the California Judicial Council will rule on Mr. Topete’s motion.  Judge Paul Richardson has filed his response and Mr. Topete has filed a supplementary motion.

We have spent the last few weeks criticizing the Woodland Daily Democrats’ coverage of the court system, but they deserve credit for breaking what could develop into a major story.  Covering the arraignment for a DUI case, they uncovered something very odd.

In a sad and tragic story, 19-year-old defendant Timothy Patrick Hernandez was charged with two counts of felony gross vehicular manslaughter, one count of felony DUI with an enhancement for causing great bodily injury and one count of misdemeanor driving without a license, after an arrest early Saturday morning for suspicion of felony DUI.

Now we have really done it, we started the debate on media coverage and now the DA has been forced to weigh in on it.  Our complaint was reignited a few weeks ago when the DA released a press release on the Michael Artz trial, a case in which Mr. Artz was acquitted on the main charge but the press release never mentioned that and in fact went on to imply that he had been convicted of charges that he had not even been tried on.

The local media then, as is customary, ran the press release verbatim and implied that they had written it by putting the byline as “Staff” rather than “Press Release from the DA’s Office.”

We started the Yolo Judicial Watch project at the beginning of this year believing that there were fundamental problems in the Yolo County Judicial System.  Having observed and attended hearings and trials for nine months now, if anything, I think things are a lot worse than I had envisioned.

I think it is important to remember however, that these problems are often not exclusive to Yolo County.  That can provide comfort or disquiet.  I hear that point all of the time, in response to articles that these individuals were convicted by a jury.  I understand that point of view, but I think even a jury finding must be treated with some skepticism.  Two recent studies may even suggest that they should be treated with alarm.

While right wing pundits will often complain about the liberal bias of the media, media analysts, scholars and critics point to a much more pervasive and structural problem that underlies media reporting.  It does not have a left or right component to it.  Rather it is a pro-government stance, due to the heavy reliance of the news media on official government sources in order to obtain their stories. 

Nowhere do we see this as starkly or with a more candid admission than in this morning’s commentary in the Woodland Daily Democrat written by Jake Dorsey, the associate editor.  He argues that journalists have to walk a fine line, especially with the police.

After a two year lull in the case of Marco Topete, who allegedly shot Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz in June of 2008, the case has resumed and remains as controversial as ever.  Three weeks ago, Mr. Topete dismissed his counsel and moved to represent himself.  Now he is seeking a continuance and to disqualify the court, after what he described in a motion as questionable conduct on the part of Judge Richardson.

On Monday, Judge Richardson announced that there was a motion to disqualify the court and that motion would take precedence over all other matters.  Judge Richardson said in court that he had not received a copy of the motion until now, he acknowledged receipt of it, and announced his intention to file a response to the motion.

When we reported on Jesus Arias back in mid-August it seemed likely he was facing prison time, and probably lengthy prison time, after being convicted of a violation of probation for having a rifle in the closet of the room he and his mother shared. Furthermore, he was convicted of possessing the stolen weapon, and a gang enhancement.

The weapon was discovered when the Gang Task Force of Sargent Dale Johnson, along with Hernan Oviedo and Hector Bautista – the same trio involved in the shooting of Luis Gutierrez in 2009 – conducted a probation search of Mr. Arias’ home that he shared with his mother and sister.  They asked him if he had any weapons and he pointed to a rifle in the closet of the room he and his mother shared.

On Tuesday, the California Department of Insurance Fraud Assessment Commission unanimously voted to again give the Yolo County DA’s office $254,000 in grant money for their fraud prevention program. 

The county has apparently received funding under the grant since 1994.  “It’s based on performance,” said Lt. Dan Stroski an investigator with the DA’s office that heads up the program, a few years back. “The Fraud Assessment Commission likes the job we are doing.”

What has been portrayed by both the DA and the media as a pair of innocent brothers who went to the park to play basketball, and instead were brutally attacked by the Broderick Boys gang, is emerging in a very different light after a of day of 17-year-old victim James Hopkins both testifying and being placed under an intense cross-examination in the Gang Injunction case by defense attorney David Dratman.

Sacramento Police Officer Roger Kinney told the court that on March 19th he was called by dispatch to a large fight involving 25 to 40 people.  He approached James Hopkins and his 16-year-old bother Reece (pronounced Ree-cy) and found both of them severely injured.

Just prior to the break for a few weeks, Judge Kathleen White told the plaintiffs in the West Sacramento Gang Injunction trial that she would be very disappointed if there were not real people, who can testify that this gang presents an actual nuisance to the community, brought in by the DA’s office, rather than a series of police officers and other expert witnesses.

This week, the DA’s office has sought to address that apparent shortcoming by announcing additional witnesses, including James and Reece Hopkins, who were the supposed victims of what the DA’s office is calling a vicious gang attack in Memorial Park this March.

When Marco Topete, the accused killer of a Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy, suddenly dismissed his counsel a week and a half ago, there were still questions that remained.  Judge Paul Richardson retained Thomas Purtell as an assistant counsel to help Mr. Topete with legal motions and other technical matters.

However, from the start Mr. Purtell argued that he lacked the resources and apparently even the physical vitality, at age 82, to effectively perform the role he had been assigned to.