Court Watch

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.

One of the early battles in the Gang Injunction case has been on whether to allow third-party evidence from police officers in particular offering statements from various alleged gang members as evidence.  Judge Kathleen White made a formal ruling on the ongoing objection by defense attorneys to allowing such evidence on Monday.

She argued that she would continue to allow the plaintiffs leeway to “connect the dots” and show the relevance of the testimony in establishing that an individual was in fact a member of the Broderick Boys Criminal Street gang.

Daniel Carter was just released from a hospital where he was receiving treatment for a psychiatric ailment.  He was heavily medicated and missed his stop in West Sacramento on the Yolo Bus.  He reached the end of the line in Davis, was awakened by the bus driver and deposited on the corner of Chiles and Mace.

According to his mother, Janice Jackson, he did not know anything about Davis.  As he was trying to figure out how to get out of Davis, he went to a store to buy a can of beer.  Mr. Carter suffers from a mental disorder and he often carries all of his items on him.  That includes a pair of clippers and a knife that he used to adjust the clippers.  It is an old knife, worn down and dulled from the use, but it was in his pocket.

Earlier this week, Yolo Judicial Watch monitored a hearing in Judge Timothy Fall’s court. The case involved a man accused of molesting his girlfriend’s daughter.  The girl, 11, was allegedly molested for two years from the time she was 8 until she was 10.

The defense wanted to introduce evidence to the jury that the defendant in this case was suffering from a tick-borne ailment, similar to Lyme’s disease, which caused an infection and pressure on his brain.  In addition, an MRI revealed a cyst in the frontal portion of his brain.

A jury had already completed a day’s worth of answering of a questionnaire in advance of a murder case that was set to begin on Wednesday involving Jesus Solis.  However, a significant development has pushed the murder trial back to September as late evidence emerged involving latent finger prints on the SUV involved in the case that match Mr. Solis.

Prosecutors claim their experts say those fingerprints could have only have been left by the driver of the vehicle.  If accurate, that would put Mr. Solis in the driver’s seat and lend credence to prosecution’s claims that he fired the shots that killed the victim in this case. However, the case is tricky to begin with and the other suspects have fled to Mexico.

On Tuesday, the Vanguard covered the long and at times complex case of Rudy Ornelas, who was prosecuted and eventually convicted for attempted murder.  In watching the trial, it seems questionable that he was actually the shooter in the case and more likely that his co-defendant, Claudio Magobet, was actually the guy who pulled the trigger.

Mr. Magobet had the motive, he had the dispute with Abel Trevino over the girl, he had the explosive temper, he was the one who went on the run after the incident while Mr. Ornales went home to his wife, and the list goes on.

A Yolo County Jury has acquitted a young man charged with burglarizing the Davis home of his former girlfriend, in a case that was highly questionable as to whether it should have been criminally charged in the first place. The DA’s office charged him with grand theft and first degree burglary, with an enhancement because the girl’s roommate was in the house at the time of the burglary.  Mr. Estep faced five years in prison if he were convicted.

Daniel Estep thought he was in a long term relationship with his girlfriend Chelsea Stewart. They had met over the winter of 2007 in Oroville when Ms. Stewart was home for the holidays from a UC Davis study abroad program in Sweden.

Friday afternoon, Woodland, California, a jury returns after deliberating for nearly two days.  They file in quietly, most of them looking down.The last juror as she entered noticed a large contingent of people in the courtroom and muttered some exclamatory statement under her breath. She obviously believed that the people were for this trial. Little did she realize that there were two murder trials that had hearings in the same court room.

That body language should have been a signal, but when the judge announced that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked on what should have been the most difficult charge, it seemed everything was going according to form.  Then the clerk read the jury’s verdict, and when the first charge came back guilty there was stunned silence. The family of the convicted silently wept.

A Yolo County man, down on his luck, was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison for writing two bad checks to Nugget Market in 2007.  He had been facing 30 years to life as part of a three strikes, but that was reduced in final sentencing given the nature of his crimes.

On June 16, 2007 and again three days later, James Davis, a 46-year-old wrote two checks to Nugget Market that were returned for insufficient funds.  Mr. Davis says in his declaration that he was down on his luck and trying to buy food and necessities for his family.

The Gang Injunction Trial is expected to go for at least two months, one week on, one week off.  Judging by the first week, I would estimate it will be at least four months, possibly longer.  The first week saw only three witnesses come forward, however, I would expect that to increase as time goes on and both sides develop some sort of routine or rhythm.

There are a lot of side issues still to be worked out.  A big issue that needs to be resolved and will be is that of allowing hearsay testimony about unnamed defendants.  I will also discuss in this column, the prosecution’s game plan thus far, and finally a bit commentary regarding a line of questioning on Tuesday pertaining to gang terms and slogans.

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.