Court Watch

The Sacramento Bee reported earlier this week that Governor Brown is allowing that “convicted killers leave prison on parole at a far higher rate than previous governors, only rarely using his power to block decisions of the parole board.”

According to the paper’s research, Governor Brown has allowed 106 of 130 convicted killers’ parole releases to stand, which is about 82 percent.  Compare that to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who let stand only 27 percent of parole decisions, and Governor Gray Davis who only allowed 9 of 374 (about 2.5%) paroled killers to be released from prison while he was governor.

Governor Jerry Brown, in a quick stroke of the pen, has undone one of the more perplexing moves that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made, which was to take 65 million out of the state’s general fund to construct a new wing with 1152 beds for San Quentin’s death row – at a time when the state was not executing new condemned prisoners and at a time when there are only 700 inmates on death row awaiting death sentences.

And it was worse than that, $64.7 million was to be merely a down payment.  The full cost of construction would have been about $360 million from the general fund. The Bee last summer reported, “Interest payments on 20-year bonds the state ordinarily would sell to finance the construction could add another $150 million or more to the final price tag.”

Nicholas Benson pled no contest to all remaining charges against him, stemming from the January 21, 2011, incident that captured regional headlines after he was arrested for making threats to harm himself and others,  and carrying an assault rifle with over 100 rounds of ammunition in his vehicle.

Following his preliminary hearing, Mr. Benson only faced a single felony charge for possession of an assault weapon.

Yet another delay in the trial of Marco Topete will push the start of the trial to more than three years after he allegedly shot and killed Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz.

The trial of Mr. Topete has been pushed back to August 1, 2011, and Judge Richardson will attempt to preserve as many of the jurors as possible who were death-qualified during a five week proces.

Claudean Medlock on Wednesday pled guilty to four felony counts, for embezzling over 40,000 from the Yolo County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).  She was sentenced by Judge Timothy Fall to three years and eight months in prison.

Ms. Medlock faced up to 18 felony counts and 12 years in prison for her actions as the executive director of CASA.  She also faced 22 felony counts in Placer County for similar crimes, but those charges will be dropped in light of the plea agreement in Yolo.

Two weeks ago Davis Enterprise columnist Rich Rifkin challenged the new Yolo County courthouse project.  This week, Judge David Rosenberg has taken it upon himself to respond to Mr. Rifkin’s column.

In his over 1200-word response, the Judge wrote, “His column is so full of misstatements and misconceptions that I felt compelled to respond.”

There was not much additional information available now, a week after the delay in the nearly three-year-old Topete case, where Marco Topete is accused of shooting Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz as he fled pursuit.

Last week, the trial was delayed on the eve of the final round of jury selection, as co-defense counsel Thomas Purtell suffered a stroke.

A Yolo County jury on Monday convicted 26-year-old Hoang Nguyen of six felony counts, the most serious of which was the assault with attempt to rape during the commission of a burglary – a charge that carries with it a life term.

Mr. Nguyen became infatuated with the victim after he broke up with the victim’s older sister.  He would purchase a stun gun, then attempt to incapacitate her and to rape her.  However, when the stun gun failed to incapacitate her, he stunned her repeatedly before she eventually escaped and was able to call for help.

On Friday, we went to the court expecting to find out how many hundreds of years Bennie Moses would received after a Yolo County Jury convicted him of 62 counts for the molestation and rape of his daughter from the time she was 12 until she turned 21. 

Instead, we learned that a juror had possibly violated the very tenet of a fair and impartial trial.

This past week we ended up covering a very interesting trial that frankly should never have gone to trial.  In his opening statement, the defense attorney acknowledged that they were conceding the basic charges and only disputing the top end charges.

We will have a full report on this case when the jury comes back from deliberations, but we are pretty comfortable, given the facts of this case, in suggesting the individual will be facing a good amount of time in prison and faces an exposure of life.

Back in early March, a Yolo County Jury convicted Bennie Moses of 62 counts for the molestation and rape of his daughter from the time she was 12 until she turned 21. 

On Friday, as Mr. Moses was to be sentenced, Public Defender Emily Fisher announced to Judge Stephen Mock that she would be moving for a new trial based on jury misconduct.

A few weeks ago, Judge Kathleen White issued a seven-year permanent injunction on the safety zone in West Sacramento.  As we have written a number of times, there just does not seem to be a nuisance in West Sacramento that necessitates such a move, that infringes on the fundamental right that one is innocent until proven guilty.

The injunction reverses that claim and forces individuals who have been served with the injunction or will be served with the injunction to do the opposite – prove they are not gang members.

The trial of Marco Topete has been delayed yet again, this time due to the stroke suffered by Attorney Tom Purtell on Friday, according to sources close to the situation.

In a hearing on Monday morning, Judge Paul Richardson was informed by co-Counsel Hayes Gable that Mr. Purtell, who is in his 80s, will not make any decisions about his role in the case for at least a week.

On a day when the victim in a shooting of an elderly Sikh man in Elk Grove saw the victim lose his life, six week after being shot, the scene in Judge Fall’s courtroom was unusual.  A cameraman from News 10 had set up to shoot footage while the back of the courtroom as stacked with family members of the victim of a November attack on a Sikh taxi driver in West Sacramento.

Two weeks previously, it appeared the case was over as Pedro Ramirez and Johnny Morales were set to be sentenced after taking plea agreements.  Mr. Morales went through with his no contest plea, despite denying taking part in the attack.  He’ll receive probation and a small amount of jail time.

Close Relationship to the DA’s Office or a More General Double Standard For White Collar Crime in Yolo?

On Thursday, Jennifer Beeman, who had admitted to falsifying grant documents that exaggerated the reported number of UC Davis campus sexual assaults, pled no contest to two felony charges of embezzlement and falsifying accounts.

It is expected that she will face probation plus having to pay restitution of around $10,525, the amount she embezzled.

A few months ago, the Vanguard reported on Yolo County Superior Court Presiding Judge David Rosenberg’s October 2010 announcement that the court would be assigning a second judge to hear juvenile dependency and delinquency cases.  According to Judge Rosenberg, the result will be a decrease in judges on the criminal side and an increase of judges on the juvenile side of the court.  Among other acknowledgements, Judge Rosenberg said this change “recognizes our steady commitment that children in our juvenile system continue to receive adequate time and attention by our Judges.”

The Vanguard article expressed concerns regarding the negative impact and potential backlog associated with removing a felony criminal judge without filling the vacancy.  Skepticism as to whether or not a second full-time judge was necessary was also touched on in the article.

There was a good piece by Rich Rifkin in the Davis Enterprise this week, talking about the 172.9 million dollar courthouse that has been approved by the California Judicial Council.

Wrote Rich Rifkin, “One area where the state might save some money without too much pain is with its ambitious plan to build 35 new courthouses and to renovate six old ones. In 2008, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 1407. It provides five billion dollars for these 41 projects.”

Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors heard about the current budget problems and spoke of closing down the the Leinberger Memorial Detention Center.  In the last three years, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department has cut forty-two positions, through layoffs and declining to rehire vacant positions.

Most devastatingly, early this year, ten deputies were laid off.  There is a good amount of research emerging about how costs can be contained within the system.  Some ideas that have come out have been to reduce sentences for drug offenses, shift the death penalty convictions to life without parole, and move inmates from state prison to county jails.

As Yolo County continues to prosecute and imprison individuals for possession of less than a gram of meth, polling released on Monday shows that voters increasingly are favoring reduced sentences and penalties for drug possession.

The March 21-24 survey of 800 California general election voters was conducted statewide by Lake Research Partner. It was released on Monday and  shows that nearly three-quarters (72%) of California voters support reducing the penalty for possession of a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor, including a solid majority who support this reform strongly.

Last April we reported that UC Davis had used anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation as a means to quash lawsuits, and invariably civil rights protections for employees. 

One of the cases that we focused on was the case of Professor Branner, a 74-year-old African-American professor who in August of 2008 filed a lawsuit against the UC Regents and Vice Provost Horwitz, alleging that their actions violated his rights and protections under California law.