Court Watch

As the trial of Michael Artz, a Davis High graduate accused of forced oral copulation with a minor, winds toward a verdict possibly as soon as this morning, the spotlight has shifted away from the problems with the case and towards the conduct of Yolo County Judge Stephen Mock.

Throughout the lengthy testimony, Judge Mock has had to rule on a large number of objections. There are issues such as the admissibility of evidence, that we will discuss after a verdict is reached. However, his rulings on a number of hearsay objections, as during a lengthy cross-examination of Davis Police Detective Jeff Beasley by defense attorney Kathryn Druliner, raised some questions.

Last year Davis Enterprise columnist Rich Rifkin wrote a piece that generated as much attention and criticism as any he has written.  In his column, Mr. Rifkin describes a rather horrific and senseless crime, where an individual pulled out a knife and stabbed another individual without warning several times.

From that he picks his bone against the ACLU, arguing that the these stories are “the product of successful lawsuits decades ago by the ACLU that “freed” the mentally ill from psychiatric hospitals.”

We have spent a lot of time on these pages looking at issues like burden of proof and burden shifting, the overcharging by prosecutors, the overly-stringent and harsh mandatory sentencing laws, but for the average person who ends up in the system, the most likely outcome is some sort probation and a fine.

I do not think we talk nearly enough about the system of fines that have been imposed.  This week already, I have noted just in sitting through regular calendar hearings that one individual received a $550 fine for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.  Another individual had his fine reduced down to a little more than $100 by Judge Rosenberg.  But for the most part we see the regular assessment of fines in minor crimes, mostly drug possession cases where the individual is put into some mandatory treatment program (which has additional costs to the individual) and then they have to pay a fine.

On December 5, 2009, Miguel Ruiz and Tiffany Dougherty entered the West Sacramento Wal Mart among other things, Mr. Ruiz purchased with cash a stereo, a game, and a Wii game controller.  Moments later, Ms. Dougherty re-entered the store with Mr. Ruiz’s bag and receipt and attempted to walk out with an identical stereo and video game.  She was met by store security and the West Sacramento PD was called.  Ms. Dougherty was arrested and she eventually plead no contest to her role in the case.

However, Mr. Ruiz was charged for his involvement with four felonies, including burglary, petty theft, and two conspiracy charges.  On Wednesday a Yolo County jury found him guilty on all four courts and now Mr. Ruiz could face up to three years in prison for someone else stealing less than $200 worth of merchandise.

At a time when teachers and schools are being cut to the bone, the Governor’s idea of taking $65 million out of the state’s general fund to construct a new wing with 1152 beds for San Quentin’s death row is drawing fire from newspapers and columnists across the state.

In fact, it is worse, as the Sacramento Bee reported yesterday. The $64.7 million is merely a down payment.  “Construction would cost about $360 million. 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.”

On June 17, the Vanguard reported that, despite all of the attention that Arizona’s immigration laws were receiving, in our own neighborhood, in fact,  similar tactics are being used.

A lawsuit has moved 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.

Yolo County Judge Stephen Mock sentenced Rudy Ornelas on Thursday morning to 45 years in prison following his July jury trial in which he was found guilty of unpremeditated attempted murder, use and possession of a firearm and assault with the firearm.

As the Vanguard reported on July 20, Mr. Ornelas had been accused of chasing and firing at Abel Trevino, a man he had known for many years, with a loaded 9mm handgun belonging to another acquaintance, Claudio Magobet. The prosecution’s position, with some of the testimony and most of the police reports in support, was that Mr. Ornelas and Mr. Trevino had a dispute over drugs and money.

The West Sacramento Gang Injunction trial took an interesting turn late Wednesday afternoon when Judge Kathleen White, as the proceedings were wrapping up, suddenly admonished the plaintiffs.  Thus far the plaintiffs’ case has been a series of West Sacramento police officers testifying to various incidents they have witnessed and questionably admissible hearsay statements that have been relayed to them by the defense.

The result has been a long, tedious, incongruous process that has left all involved fatigued and at times puzzled as to how the pieces will fit into place.  Judge White has already made it clear that while she will not tell the plaintiffs how to call their witnesses and layout their case, that she thinks it would benefit them to at least get some experts to layout an overarching theory.

In watching what has developed into an excruciating third week of gang injunction testimony, one thing is becoming more and more clear. The DA’s office is attempting to paint the picture of a public nuisance by the alleged “Broderick Boys gang” by coddling together a vast array of incidents over the past decade, tacking the incidents to a map to demonstrate the scope of the threat, and hoping that somehow that case sticks.

From our perspective, however, this is going to be an increasingly tough case to make.  While the DA can point to events and incidents that involve alleged gang members, often upon further scrutiny these cases fall apart.

It was supposed to be one of the seminal cases for the Yolo County District Attorney’s office.  On March 19, 2010, the District Attorney alleged that at least nine named defendants, including several juveniles, attacked two juveniles in the Memorial Park of West Sacramento.

The District Attorney’s Office on April 15, 2010, filed criminal complaints alleging that James and Reese Hopkins were kicked and punched as they lay on the ground, and were attacked with weapons including a knife and a hammer. Additionally, the victims were attacked by a pit bull dog. The complaint also alleges the defendants taunted the victims by announcing that the victims were being beaten by “BRK,” and not to mess with Broderick.

On August 4, a story ran in the Woodland Daily Democrat entitled, “West Sacramento gang member sentenced in domestic violence case,” and once again it was a strange title for a case that had nothing whatsoever to do with gangs.  Instead it is a story about how a simple misdemeanor domestic assault turned into a nearly eight-year prison sentence.  And how once again, the Yolo County District Attorney’s office took a minor incident and turned it into a major criminal act.

The act itself was simply a misdemeanor assault charge, that would have netted him six months in prison at most, and most likely would have been suspended and turned into probation.  What really nailed him was the “violation of probation” which netted him 3 years, and the two felony counts of dissuading a witness, which turned what should have been a six-month sentence into a seven-year and eight-month sentence. The Woodland Daily Democrat inaccurately reported this sentence to be twelve years.

When Jeff Reisig ran for re-election this year, part of his focus had been on “increased conviction rates.”  He writes on his webpage, “Jeff has improved efficiency in the District Attorney’s Office, lowered crime rates, increased conviction rates, put more violent felons behind bars and dramatically improved services to victims of crime.”

In an October 2009 article in the Woodland Daily Democrat, again he “cited a 90 percent conviction rate” during a fundraising event.  Again in March, he emphasized, “the highest conviction  rate  in more than a decade.”

I was going through the list of hearings scheduled for today in the Yolo County Superior Court.  On a daily basis we have our interns watching these cases and it just struck me how many of them are no more serious than this one: “F poss controlled subs; M poss narc paraphern.”  Or this: “F transp/sell cntl sub; M use cntrlld substance.” Another one, “F transp/sell cntl sub; F poss controlled.”  Another: “F poss controlled subs E commit on bail/or E commit on bail/or M poss narc parapher.”  Another: “F poss controlled subs.”

In all today, there are at least 30 to 40 hearings that have charges no more serious than for possession of a controlled substance.  Some of them have enhancements for prior prison.  Some of them have enhancements because they are violations of probation.  But at the end of the day, the genesis of these cases are drug possession.

The juvenile justice system, as well as the entire criminal justice system, have swung too far in the estimations of many toward long and harsh sentences.  Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has introduced SB 399.  While it is a rather modest reform bill, it is a step in the right direction, as it allows those juveniles sentenced to life without parole to have a court review their cases and potentially allow some individuals to receive a new sentence of 25 to life.

“No other country in the world outside of the United States sentences juveniles to life without parole,” Senator Yee said in a statement on Wednesday.

Last week, a Yolo County jury hung on all 12 counts for a man who was accused of and admitted on the stand to having actually made inappropriate sexual contact with a minor under the age of 14.  The incidents occurred in 2008 and 2009.  The victim is presently 11 years old. The defendant moved out of the home on June 1, 2009.

While that portion of the case was fairly cut and dried, the complicating factor was a brain ailment that the defendant, Erik Sass, suffered from which likely led two or three jurors, depending on which count, to vote to acquit.

Last week the second week of the gang injunction trial slogged on with even Judge Kathleen White getting a bit impatient with both the pace of the trial and also the fact that the plaintiffs, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, have chosen a piecemeal approach to presenting their case.

In some ways, one has to feel a bit sorry for Deputy DA Jay Linden, on his own as his colleague Ryan Couzens works on another trial and facing the wrath of eight defense attorneys, armed with an endless slew of objections that have made this case move at a snail’s pace.

Juan Garcia lived in Long Beach with his common-law wife and three children, the youngest of which is only two weeks old.  He has been with her for five and a half years.  On June 4, 2010 according to his wife, he was pulled over by Long Beach police for no reason.  During the course of the polices search it was determined that he had two outstanding warrants. 

One of these warrants was for a failure to appear in a ten-year-old case from Long Beach that was quickly resolved, and the other a warrant for his arrest stemming from a domestic violence incident in West Sacramento on December 18, 2009.

Next time you hear Sheriff Ed Prieto or District Attorney Jeff Reisig complaining about their lack of resources to fight crime remember this case, and the use of court and law enforcement resources needed to prosecute this case and bring it to a jury trial and ultimately to a guilty verdict and a felony conviction.

Maria Pastor was taking her friend to a court hearing in Department 9, which is the arraignment court across Third Street from the main court building in Woodland.  As she went through security, the Deputy at the screening line, Sgt. Batista noticed something suspicious in a purse going through the scanning machine.  He saw something that looked like a smoking pipe.  He found a pipe and a bag of white powder that turned out to test positive for presumptive meth.

On a night in November, 50 students took over the Mrak Hall at UC Davis.  Brie Holmes was never in the building.  Instead she was described by her Attorney Stewart Katz as being outside Mrak Hall – clapping and cheering the protesters who had volunteered to be arrested.

Brie Homes was a 20-year-old senior who was charged with battery on UC Davis Police Captain Joyce Souza and resisting arrest.  After deliberating Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Monday morning, the jury deadlocked on both counts.  The final poll had a 10-2 vote for acquittal on the battery charge with a full 6-6 deadlock on the resisting arrest charge.