Court Watch

After a morning of good discussions and reasoned discourse at last week’s realignment dialogue, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley became unhinged.  Mr. Cooley had actually been an innovator, someone who pushed for change in the charging of third strikes to avoid sending the pizza thieves and cheese bandits to prison for the rest of their lives.

On November 3, Yolo Judicial Watch will focus its attention, at its annual Fundraiser and Awards Ceremony Event, on the issue of preventing wrongful convictions. This event will feature, among others, Linda Starr, the Legal Director of the Northern California Innocence Project, which has played a strong role in a number of recent exonerations.

As we discussed on Thursday in the first installment of this series on the UC Davis School of Law Program on “Crime and Punishment Revisited,” the application of AB 109, commonly known as realignment, figures to change the nature of the criminal justice system, but no one knows for sure just how.

Public Officials Explain Realignment, Why We Need It, and Express Concerns About How It Will Be Implemented –

The application of AB 109, commonly known as realignment, figures to change the nature of the criminal justice system, but no one knows for sure just how.  On Wednesday, UC Davis School of Law had a program featuring policymakers, prosecutors, academics and other experts who discussed and debated just what AB 109 will mean and what will happen going forward.

On November 3, Yolo Judicial Watch will focus its attention, at its annual Fundraiser and Awards Ceremony Event, squarely on the issue of Preventing Wrongful Convictions. This event will feature, among others, Linda Starr, the Legal Director of the Northern California Innocence Project, and Maurice Caldwell, a man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1990 murder and who had his verdict overturned last December after spending over 20 years in prison. He was finally released this year around the first of April.

Death penalty critics, many of them recent converts to the cause precisely because of the length of stay and prohibitive cost, quickly jumped on a study released this summer from U.S. Ninth Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, which found that the death penalty adds $184 million to the budget over what it would cost to imprison people for life.

Everyone believes that AB 109, the prison realignment bill, will be a game changer, but as we have noted in previous articles and columns, no one knows just how it will play out.

The Vanguard has received additional statements about the tasering that occurred in West Sacramento on September 8, 2009.

“Norteño gangs” were the first words that Deputy DA Garrett Hamilton uttered in the opening statement for the prosecution – that was no accident, as Defense Attorney Hayes Gable noted in his closing arguments.

To the surprise of no one, the Yolo County jury charged with deciding the guilt phase of the Marco Topete case came back in less than a day and convicted Mr. Topete on all charges, special circumstances and enhancements.

Analysis of Closing Arguments Part One: Prosecution and Defense’s Discrediting the Gang Charges

After over three years of waiting, and months of trial, the case of Marco Topete accused of the shooting death of Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy, Tony Diaz, finally went to the jury.  And while the odds may be clearly stacked against the defendant in this case, his defense made a surprisingly strong case for second degree murder.

The Topete trial’s guilt phase will likely end today as both the prosecution and defense are expected to give their closing statements.

There is just something not right about an election involving judicial candidates.  Part of the problem is that judges by their nature should not exercise their opinions, they should be listeners and they should take steps to make sure that the law is being followed and that all sides are given a fair chance to present their perspective.

The Field Poll conducted earlier this month and released yesterday shows consistent and substantial public support in California for keeping the death penalty as a form of punishment for capital crimes.

The case of Troy Davis and his execution amid serious doubts about his actual guilt focused the nation on the death penalty last week, but the truth is the focus has been on the death penalty for a lot longer than that.

The October 1 date is rapidly approaching. That is the date when AB 109 takes effect, the date that whole classes of low-level offenders get sent to local counties, where there is not the capacity to handle them, and no one knows exactly what that means.

We Cannot Answer that Question Now – But Enough Doubts Exist That We Should Never Have Executed Him –

The execution of Troy Davis should haunt any reasonable person that is concerned about the possibility of executing an innocent person.  This is not a case of Cameron Todd Willingham, where we know for a fact that the forensic evidence used at the time of his execution to determine that it was an arson fire was flawed.

Billy Wolfington and Shannon Silva were in court on Thursday before Judge Janet Gaard, as their attorneys asked for a four to six week continuance due to what they said was new discovery.

Deputy District Attorney Clinton Parish surprised many on Wednesday when he suddenly announced he would challenge the newest judge, Judge Daniel Maguire, appointed just last year by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Suit Alleges DA Reisig Prosecuted In Order to Cover Up Law Enforcement Wrongdoing

In the early afternoon of Tuesday, September 8, 2009, Thomas Dias received a call advising him that his niece, with whom he worked at a family-owned flooring company, had run out of gas and was on the shoulder of I-80 eastbound, east of Reed Avenue in West Sacramento.

He went to assist her with a can of gasoline.  Mr. Dias put in enough gas to allow her truck to get off the freeway and then followed her to a gas station for the purposes of making sure she was all right, as well as to transfer some work materials to her truck..