Yolo County

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the death penalty became almost a third rail in politics, no one would dare criticize it.  When they did, they got crucified for it as Michael Dukakis clumsily answered a question as to what he would do if his wife were brutality raped and killed.

Given the landscape of two decades ago, it is remarkable that we now see a California legislator proposing a bill that would convert all current death sentences to life without parole.

I am constantly told that we have the best legal system in the world.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but suppose it is true, does that mean it is beyond reproach?  Does that mean that we cannot work to improve it, that we should sit back and not question things when they go wrong?

I have seen dozens of trials over the last 18 months and read intimidate details from dozens of other trials, and on a regular basis I see things that should give us concern.

For the past few years the city of West Sacramento has been placed under various gang injunctions.  Some have said the injunctions have helped reduce violent crime there recently.  Though that may be true, it tells us only about the good, and not the harm, that the injunctions may have done to the people who have to live under them.

Top county law enforcement officials have said that the gang injunction is fair, balanced and effective.  However, lifelong residents of West Sacramento, with whom the Vanguard spoke, who have had first-hand experience at the receiving end of the injunctions, described a different reality.

The supporters of Ajay Dev, who is serving a 378-year sentence that his friends and family believe is unjust, were finally able to provoke a response this week from the powers that be.

On Wednesday, two years after the conviction that his supporters believe to be wrongful, 250 to 300 people hit the streets in protest.  But it was another tactic that appeared to generate the response, in that every time someone filled out an online petition, the petition was set to generate emails to critical politicians and media that had previously ignored the efforts.

It has been two years now since Ajay Dev was convicted of raping his adopted daughter over 750 times over a five-year period and sentenced to 378 years in prison.  Since that time, family and friends have worked tirelessly to prove his innocence.

Usually, when activists will hold a protest, the first turnout is relatively large but the numbers decrease steadily over subsequent protests.  That has not been the case here.  If anything, two years after the verdict, we see more outpouring of support, and by all accounts this may have been their largest protest ever with between 250 and 300 people in attendance.

There is no other way to describe it other than this is just a typical Ryan Couzens case, which apparently can never go smoothly without bizarre and sometimes mind-boggling twists and turns.

On the surface this should have been a straightforward case, whether Ken Woodall cut Bert Lok in the mouth with his knife.  However, by the time the jury came back for a second time with a not guilty verdict on all counts, this case became yet another chapter in the bizarro book being written in Yolo County by Deput  DA  Ryan Couzens.

Are Yolo County’s efforts to impose a death sentence on Marco Topete, when his now three-year-old case comes to trial again next month, running up against a strong current against the death penalty?

Last week, the ACLU reported that just three death sentences were handed down in California from January to June 2011 compared with the same period last year when there were 13.

Those who were around probably remember the sob story from Daily Democrat Jim Smith, who suddenly found himself and his paper under fire when they decided to run verbatim a press release that, at best, distorted a court case and, at worst, outright deceived the public.

In running a story on the Michael Artz trial, the DA’s office sent their typical press release which made it sound like the defendant had been convicted of certain crimes that he was not even charged with, at the same time omitting the fact that he was acquitted of the main charges.

Following a preliminary hearing last week, Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg has allowed the case against Cafe Mediterranee owner Ashot Manukyan to move forward and stand trial on charges that include a felony count of assault with intent to commit sexual penetration, penetration with a foreign object and false imprisonment, and a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery.

The alleged victim had worked at the popular Davis restaurant for five months prior to the January 31, 2011, alleged incident.

The movie “A Time To Kill” I saw for the first time as a new graduate student in the Chemistry Building, back in 1996.  It featured the story of a black man in Alabama, whose 11-year-old daughter was brutally raped by two white men.  Rather than leaving their fate up to an all-white jury, the father shot and killed both men.

Now he faced his own all-white jury, that he derisively asked, “This is a jury of my peers?”  In his closing statement, his defense attorney tried to flip the race card, drawing up a vivid picture of the attack on the daughter.

The trial that will not end is apparently not over, as the jury hung basically right down the middle on all charges against both Dom and Anthony Kalah, while they convicted Saengphet Onsri of all charges.

During the trial, Judge Fall dismissed charges against a fourth co-defendant, Det Kalah, on a 1118.1 motion.  Det Kalah had been in custody for six months, refusing to take a plea agreement that would have released him early, based on the fact that he maintained his innocence.

The traditional view of the death qualification process is that death-qualified juries tend to be more likely to convict.  The death qualification process is one where prospective jurors are put through a rather intensive interview process to gauge their views about the death penalty.

Those who oppose the death penalty are not qualified to serve.  Those who would consider the death penalty are qualified to serve.

Last week, Charles Rios and his codefendant Benito Morales were sentenced to 16 months in prison for their role in an attack on a solider in West Sacramento that left him beaten and robbed on the night of March 12, 2008.

Mr. Rios was just 15 years old at the time and the case lasted so long that Mr. Rios had long since been released on his own recognizance.  The 16-month prison sentence was a mere paper sentence, as both Mr. Rios and Mr. Morales were instructed to go directly to the parole office, a move that was highly unusual.

The media was quick to act as judge, jury and executioner of Casey Anthony.  To them, there seemed no possibility of a not-guilty verdict, no presumption of innocence, no need indeed for the prosecution to actually prove their case.

“The devil is dancing,” said Nancy Grace, the former prosecutor turned commentator on CNN Headline News, who in many respects led the media lynching before the verdict even came in. “There’s no way this verdict speaks to the truth.”

Senator Hanock chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee and the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Corrections, which oversees all funding for the prison system.

Oddly enough, he paid for everyone else except for the cheese that was in his pants. When confronted by the Loss Prevention Officer, Robert Ferguson attempted to flee and then was taken down to the ground. The Nugget Market worker described Ferguson as “embarrassed and remorseful.” The cheese had only cost 3.99, and he had nine dollars on him.

It has been a three-week trial that has dragged out longer, due to the peculiarities of the court calendar, which has necessitated one week on, one week off.  The final decision rests in the hands of the jury, and on one hand you have the prosecution alleging a dangerous fledgling gang that has engaged in drug dealing and criminal conspiracy.

The defense argues that you have two small time drug dealers, dealing on their own, and several largely innocent bystanders who got caught up in the web.

A recent federal raid on a Davis home has raised serious questions, after resulting in a pregnant woman’s miscarriage and property damage that is still unaccounted for. The raid, conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outfitted in paramilitary gear, was part of an ongoing child pornography investigation.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on April 26, eight to 12 ICE agents busted into an Oak Avenue home, destroying doors and denting floors with a battering ram. Although the agents announced upon entering that they were police and had a warrant, several residents of the home spoke limited English and hid from what they thought were attackers or terrorists. At gunpoint, the agents ordered the residents on the ground and handcuffed them. One terrified resident, a visiting scholar from Vietnam who was pregnant, suffered a miscarriage three days later.

Two weeks ago, in the Kalah trial, Deputy DA Ryan Couzens spawned accusations and anger as he attempted to get in testimony from Officer Duggins of the West Sacramento Police Department about a conversation he had with Marco Benitez.

Mr. Couzens attempted to establish that Mr. Benitez, a witness for the defense, was assaulted by Tommy Kalah, a brother and son to some of the defendants.  The implication here was that Mr. Kalah had done this to intimidate the witness.

It was a study that occurred in Illinois, but it could have been written about any state at any time.  The Center on Wrongful Convictions, based at Northwestern University, is one of many such centers that have popped up in recent years as researchers and attorneys become more aware of the problems of wrongful convictions.

This study, conducted by John Conroy of the Better Government Association and Rob Warden, the executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law, focused on the costs of such convictions.