Court Watch

This week I spent my Tuesday night watching the Davis City Council finally deal with their economic situation and make a move towards a more sustainable future, as they faced dead-on the reality of a decade that saw unfunded liabilities soar while we kept increasing salaries and retirement benefits.

On Thursday it was the school district’s turn, as they listened to one of the most ominous budgets one could imagine and then voted to ask the voters to help.

On Friday was the first step in the sentencing hearing for Michael Artz, who was 18 at the time he had sexual relations with a 16-year-old classmate.  The DA’s Office had attempted to convict him on a charge of forced oral copulation, but the jury acquitted him of that charge.

He ended up being convicted of two lesser charges, one a statutory rape charge because, as an 18-year-old adult he had sexual relations with his 16-year-old classmate.  And the other charge was that of having contact with a minor for the purposes of having sex.

Last summer, to the shock and dismay of many volunteers and board members of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), an organization that advocates for foster children as they move through the court process, the former Executive Director was given a plea agreement of no prison time after pleading no contest to embezzling $46,000 from the non-profit.

Deputy DA Michelle Serafin filed a motion with the Court to reject the no contest plea entered by the defendant on October 14, 2010, arguing that the plea offer “was based on the belief that the defendant had only one prior arrest that resulted in a misdemeanor embezzlement conviction in Sacramento County.”

“This case is unprecedented,” the defense begins the first of ten briefs submitted, in closing the challenge to the gang injunction case. “No court has ever issued an injunction under the circumstances presented here.”

Do crimes exist in the “Safety Zone”?  Yes they do.  Are they committed by individuals who are either self-identified or police identified as “Broderick Boys”?  There is no disputing it.

The defense in the West Sacramento Gang Injunction Case deferred making oral closing comments and instead opted to submit a written closing comment, which they did last week on January 14.

While we tend to believe that the plaintiffs in the case, the Yolo County DA’s Office, failed to prove their case, we nevertheless believe that they will prevail in court.

It is a case that began in March of 2004.  What began as a family feud, ended in a stabbing with attempted murder charges, and federal involvement as allegations of Taliban operatives and sympathies permeated the case.

The case was set to go to trial for the first time, two years later, in March of 2006, when the prosecutor on the case dropped the bombshell about the involvement of Homeland Security and reams of witness statements that will likely never be seen again.

Back in August of 2008, the Yolo County DA’s Office was trumpeting this as a case of “Yolo County’s Own ‘To Catch a Predator’ ” which resulted in 40-year-old Todd Robert Dixon of Elk Grove being convicted of pandering, for his actions on December 27, 2007 when he solicited a seventeen-year-old girl in West Sacramento to have sex with him in exchange for money.

Now, just over two years later, the conviction has been thrown out due to insufficient evidence that Mr. Dixon committed that specific charge of pandering, and Mr. Dixon is free and cannot be recharged for this crime.

The big news in the case of Marco Topete, who is accused of shooting Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz back in the summer of 2008, is perhaps that the latest hearing went according to form, no surprises and no big shake-ups.

That has not been the case through much of this case, that began over two-and-a-half years ago and made headlines around the region when Sheriff’s Deputies locked reporters and family members of the accused out of the arraignment hearings.  That has prompted charges by the media of favoritism and censorship and led to concerns that Mr. Topete could not receive a fair trial.

It was nearly a decade ago that Governor George Ryan of Illinois, himself embroiled in scandals that would cost his office, put a moratorium on the death penalty.  This week, Illinois State House passed a measure by a narrow 60-54 vote that would repeal the state’s death penalty.

Illinois is a microcosm for the rest of the nation, as the history of the Illinois death penalty shows at least 20 people condemned to death have been freed after exoneration or new evidence surfaced which cast doubt on their convictions.

It was supposed to be a press conference and rally that asked District Attorney Jeff Reisig to drop the charges against Ernesto and Fermin Galvan.  However, late Tuesday afternoon the District Attorney’s Office announced that there would not be a fourth trial against the brothers, accused of resisting arrest and battery against several West Sacramento police officers in the early morning hours of June 14, 2005.

Instead, the group of twenty activists were seeking answers and a restoration of trust as they gathered on a cold morning in front of West Sacramento City Hall.

After five years and three trials it is finally over for Ernesto and Fermin Galvan.  They paid a high price, but will now be able to resume their lives without the criminal charges hanging over them from the 2005 incident that has left Ernesto Galvan with permanently disfiguring and brain-damaging injuries.

In a statement released from the DA’s Office late on Tuesday afternoon, the Chief Deputy District Attorney backed away from a previous statement that indicated that the DA’s Office would seek a fourth trial.

Attorney Anthony Palik, representing Ernesto Galvan, the brother most seriously injured and facing the most serious charges including felony assault on a police officer and resisting arrest, is seeking dismissal of the case that would have to be brought to trial for what may be an unprecedented fourth time.

His brother, Fermin Galvan, was acquitted on a charge of resisting arrest, but the jury hung 11-1 for acquittal on the second charge of allegedly delaying Officer Schlie as he attempted to  apprehend Ernesto Galvan.

With hundreds of worthy choices for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to choose to commute their sentence or to outright pardon, Gov. Schwarzenegger instead commuted the sentence of the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, Esteban Nuñez, who had pled guilty to participating in the killing of a college student.

Mr. Nuñez was sentenced to 16 years in prison for aiding and abetting the stabbing death of a college student near San Diego State.  His sentence was reduced to seven years by the Governor.

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.