Yolo County

The Vanguard has learned that Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig lifted huge portions of his op-ed last week from an op-ed entitled “Justice for crime victims demands death penalty,” written by Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully with Phyllis Loya, the mother of a Pittsburg police officer whose son was murdered.

While the piece written last week by Mr. Reisig is twice the length, at least six paragraphs are directly lifted and another six are slightly altered from the piece written by Jan Scully.

One of the more interesting debates that is emerging is over the issue of stop and frisk as a crime control policy.  The policy began in New York by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Depite the controversy and complaints from rights groups and minorities, the mayor continues to support it, arguing as he did in June, “that it had helped make New York the safest big city in the country, while acknowledging that the police needed to treat those whom they stopped with greater respect.”

You will have to forgive us for focusing a bit on the death penalty this week. After all, this evening five of the leading spokespeople on the issue will be coming to Woodland for a Vanguard event.

In any event, Yolo County DA Jeff Reisig gave us a month’s worth of material.  Mr. Reisig was making the argument that the system works, after all, as he writes, “Each of them received due process through the many checks and balances of the criminal justice system and were justly convicted and sentenced to death.”

Franky Carrillo spent two decades in prison after he was convicted of a drive-by shooting in 1992 and sentenced in 1992 to one life term and 30 years to life in prison.  Critical to his conviction was the testimony of five eyewitnesses who said that they saw him pull the trigger.

Had we known then what we know now about the fallibility of eyewitness identification, particularly under poor lighting conditions, this travesty of justice may have been avoided.

Last week, the Davis Enterprise kindly ran a story about the Vanguard‘s Death Penalty Event on their front page.  That apparently was enough to prompt former Judge Jim Stevens to object.

He wrote in a letter to the editor, “Your recent article on the meeting of death penalty opponents was interesting but full of humbug. I respect the right of others to work for and express their opinion but reserve my right to tell them they are full of garbage.”

Pitchess Motion Revealing of Charges and Defense in Bank Blocking Case –

Defense for the 11 students and one professor charged with numerous misdemeanors for their alleged role in blocking the US Bank in UC Davis’ Memorial Union in January and February this year filed a Pitchess motion on Friday.

At a brief hearing they scheduled Judge David Reed to hear motions on August 24, 2012.

In two weeks, at the Vanguard’s Dinner and Awards Ceremony, the work of the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) will be honored with a Vanguard Award.  On hand to personally receive that award with be NCIP Executive Director Cookie Ridolfi and Legal Director Linda Starr.

The immediate benefit of the work NCIP and other branches of the Innocence Project across the nation is to exonerate those who have been wrongfully imprisoned like Franky Carrillo, who spent 20 years in custody before his 2011 release.  Mr. Carrillo will be one of the featured speakers at this year’s event and will present the Vanguard Award to the organization and individuals who helped to exonerate him.

Flawed Work by FBI Led to At Least One Wrongful Execution Paper Reports

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that the Justice Department and FBI “have launched a review of thousands of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted or deserve a new trial because of flawed forensic evidence”

They report this is the largest undertaking of post-conviction review ever done by the FBI.

Cruz Reynoso to Present Award to Pepper Sprayed Students; Northern California Innocence Project Honored

As if the amazing line up of speakers at the Vanguard Dinner and Awards Ceremony was not enough, the Davis Vanguard announces its six annual awards.  The Vanguard Awards honor the work of individuals and organizations on behalf of social justice.

In a few weeks, Franky Carrillo will speak at the Vanguard‘s annual Dinner and Awards ceremony.  His wrongful conviction, that cost him 20 years in custody, was based not just on the faulty memory of the witnesses but also intentional manipulation by law enforcement.

Carrillo was sentenced in 1992 to one life term and 30 years to life in prison after being convicted of one count of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder in a fatal drive-by shooting.

Maurice Possley, Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize To Speak at Vanguard Event

In November, California voters will be asked to decide whether to keep the death penalty in place or convert the sentences to life without parole.  Proponents of the effort to repeal the state’s death penalty point to the fact that the state has only executed 13 people since the death penalty was reinstated at a cost of $184 million per year, according to a recent study.