Court Watch

On Thursday, the Gang Injunction Trial resumed and prompted more legal and philosophical questions as we saw West Sacramento Police Officer Michael Duggins testified about unnamed defendants and he named them.  This prompted several long discussions about the relevance of testimony about named individuals who are not listed as defendants on the case, the fairness and propriety of the process.

We will discuss this issue more fully towards the end of this article and likely into the future as it gets really to the heart of the procedural matters and the rights of individuals.

The first witness in the Gang Injunction Trial appeared on Tuesday.   Thomas Ignacio Cedillo appeared on the stand following opening statements from the plaintiffs and the defense.  Wednesday became an open date due primarily to logistical issues involved the plaintiffs and the intention to hear on Friday where two key witnesses, named defendants, would be able to plead the fifth due to ongoing legal issues.

The plaintiff’s counsel was overheard at one point saying you always have a choice about starting strong or ending strong, certainly as the record will show, Mr. Cedillo who has been married for the last four years to a woman that he has known for 12 years (he is 28).  He has two children.  He has held stable employment installing insulation first for F. Rogers in West Sacramento and then PCI in Sacramento.

This week, the Gang Injunction trial opens in Yolo County Superior Court in front of Judge Kathleen White.  On Monday, lawyers for the District Attorney’s Office along with Attorneys representing those served by the gang injunction who have chosen to challenge it deliberated and argued over pre-trial motions which will shape the more than fifty witnesses that both sides will be allowed to call according to a ruling by Judge White.

Prior to the start of proceedings, neighbors and activists from the affected neighbors spoke to reporters.  Rebecca Sandoval who has been on a forefront of the opposition to the injunction in West Sacramento said, “The injunction is targeting innocent citizens and the community has been torn apart by this injunction.  The community was never consulted nor advised of the impacts and the way the West Sacramento Police Department would label citizens as gang members and that they all live in an area as a public nuisance.”

In July of 2007, having had the original Gang Injunction struck down by the appellate court, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig filed an amended complaint seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction to restrain activities of alleged criminal street gang, the Broderick Boys, supposedly a branch of the Norteno gang.

A preliminary injunction was imposed in 2008.  The injunction covers a large swath of West Sacramento and imposes curfews, restrictions on all activities which involve anyone deemed by the police to be gang members.  It limits the ability of those enjoined to go to restaurants, public activities, public transportation, or standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view with anyone alleged to be a gang member.

I still remember where I was when I watched the verdict back in 1992 in which an all-white jury acquitted Los Angeles Police Officers of beating Rodney King.  I remember where I was, I remember what I said, there’s going to be riots.  Turned out, there already was.  I was just a freshman at Cal Poly that year, but I watched transfixed for days to the burning and looting that occurred in Los Angeles.

One of my favorite musicians/ artists is Ben Harper, a few years after the riots, he wrote a song in which he sings, “Well Martin’s dream has become Rodney’s worst nightmare.  Can’t walk the streets, to them we are fair game, our lives don’t mean a thing.”  Towards the end of the song he sings, “So if you catch yourself thinking it has changed for the best you better second guess cause Martin’s dream has become Rodney’s worst nightmare.”

Recently a Woodland man was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison as part of a three strikes case stemming from a Picnic Day 2009 fight that broke another man’s eye socket.  He was sentenced by Yolo County Judge Kathleeen White on June 24, 2010.  On March 12, 2010 a jury convicted Steven Hector Martinez, age 35, of Woodland of one count of Battery with Serious Bodily Injury.

According the District Attorney’s office, on Picnic Day, April 18, 2009, the victim reported he was at the Bistro 33 restaurant in downtown Davis when he saw people he thought he knew getting into a fight in the street area. The victim went over to stop the fight. The defendant, a complete stranger to the victim, “sucker-punched” him in the face with his fist. The defendant and the group with him then fled the scene.

The West Sacramento Gang Injunction Trial is set to begin next week, but first they had some pre-trial motions to deal with on Wednesday in Judge Kathleen White’s courtroom.  Judge White presided over the preliminary injunction back in 2008 after the Third District Court of Appeals threw out the previous injunction back in 2007. 

Every so often it pays off just sitting in the courtroom.  In fact, that is part of the premise of Yolo Judicial Watch – the need to get people into the courtroom who can monitor and bear witness to the proceedings.  On Wednesday this paid off as I waited patiently for pre-trial motions to begin in the Gang Injunction Trial, set to begin next Wednesday.

I watched as Deputy District Attorney Clinton Parish became increasingly unhinged in Judge Kathleen White’s courtroom as a series of ruling went again him to the point where he seemed to becoming threatening to both Judge White and the defense counsel he was up against.  Whether he was actually speaking for the DA and illuminating new policy is something that we will have to see.

The Gang Injunction trial is rapidly approaching and gamesmanship is clearly afoot.  The DA is making a motion to exclude all witnesses from the courtroom prior to testimony.  While that sounds harmless, the effect will be that a large portion of the effected communities of Broderick and Bryte would be excluded from the courtroom for the majority of the trial as the prosecution would get to lay out their case and witnesses first.

The DA is filing two separate motions for the exclusion of not-testifying witnesses.  “Plaintiff requests that those witnesses not testifying be excluded from the Courtroom pursuant to Evidence Code section 777(a).”  And in a separate motion, “Plaintiff would ask that Court to receive a representation from defense counsel that any person remaining in the courtroom during testimony will not be used for any part of defendants’ case (in chief, rebuttal or otherwise) before allowing that person to stay in the Courtroom.”

On June 11, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office informed lawyers fight against the implementation of a permanent Gang Injunction in West Sacramento that they will be using the testimony of Angel Sanchez and Jesse Sanchez in the gang injunction trial which is set to begin in just two weeks on July 12, 2010.

Specifically they will use the fact that Angel Sanchez testified that he was a gang member, specifically a member of the Broderick Boys and that they have engaged in a pattern of criminal activity for years.  We covered this case a few weeks ago.

It has been a year since a Yolo County Jury Convicted Ajay Dev of multiple counts of rape of his adopted daughter.  He would in August be sentenced to 378 years in prison.  The family continues to maintain his innocence, and  to bring up  evidence that the multiple incidents of rape did not occur.  Many people continue to offer general support to the family.

In a letter to family, friends, and well wishers, Ajay Dev said, “This June 25, 2010 marks one year since the worst miscarriage of justice that has occurred against me and my family. It has been tremendously difficult as the wounds of betrayal, injustice and the loss of my freedom are still very fresh.”

Last week a nutrition specialist at UC Davis received a settlement from the university after she claimed she was subjected to retaliation for blowing the whistle on fraud perpetrated by a subordinate.

Amy Block Joy filed her complaint in September 2007 and a subsequent investigation by the university verified many of her allegations.  These included activities of another employee over a 6 year period.  The employee pled guilty in 2008 to theft in 2008, admitting to spending federal funds on hundreds of items.  Remarkably, the employee was only sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay government restitution of $128,681.80.

The Vanguard has learned that Former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, his wife Elaine and his grandson were in a serious car accident near Charlottesville, VA on Sunday.

Mr. Reynoso sustained a number of broken bones, ribs and a collapsed lung and will be healing for some time.

On Wednesday the Vanguard ran the story, “Media Bias in Local Court Coverage” which described how the District Attorney’s Office effectively gets to write their own stories.  To illustrate the point, we ran the DA’s Press Release side-by-side with the Woodland Daily Democrat’s article covering the same story.

The article went on to point out several inaccuracies or omissions that the Daily Democrat reprinted without fact-checking.  From our standpoint this is a problem as the public receives a very slanted view of what actually transpired and there is no effective media check against the DA’s PR campaign.

One of the main complaints about the charging of cases by the District Attorney’s Office in Yolo County is that the DA overuses the gang enhancement charge.  There are times when we believe non-gang members or questionably gang members are given extended sentences or charges by the DA’s office.  But there is another interesting set of cases, where the individuals are actually gang members, they commit a crime, but the crime should not be enhanced with a gang enhancement.

In March of 2009, the victim was walking to the store when he ran across a friend along with Angel Sanchez.  The victim did not know Mr. Sanchez prior to this date but was introduced by their mutual friend.  Together they walked back to Mr. Sanchez’s apartment and decided to start drinking alcohol.  In total there were individuals inside the apartment drinking.

While many in the nation including members of our community and adjacent jurisdictions have protested and boycotted Arizona’s immigration law that gives law enforcement the legal ability to racially profile in an effort to identify potential undocumented workers and residents, a lawsuit in the neighboring county of Sonoma is moving forward alleging much of the same activity.

Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco allowed a lawsuit to move forward that charges the unlawful collaboration between the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to unlawfully target, arrest, and detain Latinos in Sonoma County.

As a non-traditional media entity the Vanguard and sites like it, is often criticized for presenting a biased perspective and slanting its news coverage.  The Vanguard believes its role is to cover news stories in greater detail, and present alternative and opposing perspectives from the mainstream newspaper.

However, we also take issue with the notion that news covered by traditional media outlets, such as newspapers necessarily represent fair, unbiased, and accurate assessments of what has actually happened.  While we believe that individual reporters endeavor for journalistic standards of fairness and balance, the decisions made by editors introduce bias in terms of what gets covered and what does not get covered.  But just as important, newspapers given their lack of staffing and resources will often rely on third-party press releases and news accounts from government agencies to be printed, almost verbatim.

On June 4, 2010, Yolo County Superior Court Judge Tim Fall sentenced 22 year old Anthony Vasquez to 38 years and 8 months to life in state prison after a Yolo County jury convicted him of robbery and attempting to dissuade a witness. 

According to a release from the DA, the jury found Vasquez guilty of robbery with intentional use and discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury, assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury and attempting to dissuade a witness. The jury also found that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang.

In the fall of 2008, Judge David Rosenberg and Judge Janet Gaard wrote an op-ed that appeared in both the Woodland Daily Democrat and the Davis Enterprise.  In it, they were arguing against Proposition 5, which was the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which was supposed to reduce the costs by pushing nonviolent drug offenders away from prison.

In that op-ed that focused mainly on the particulars of the proposition, they argued, “We believe in drug courts and the real possibility that drug courts can help people escape addictions and turn their lives around.”