Yolo County

Juan Meléndez-Colón Speaks of Faith and Redemption and the Corrupt Justice System He Fought Against for 17 Years – It was hard to imagine that on May 2, 1984 when Juan Melendez was first arrested, not only was he wrongly accused of murder and eventually sentenced to be executed by the state of Florida, but he could neither speak or read English, other than a few swear words.

It took him 17 years, 8 months, and one day to be, not only exonerated, but to find his voice.  Despite his heavy accent, Mr. Meléndez gave a powerful and spellbinding speech for an hour on Sunday afternoon, depicting how he survived and many others, through execution or suicide or neglect, did not.

The three strikes law was a reaction to heinous crimes such as Richard Allen Davis’ murder of young Polly Klaas back in the early 1990s.  Mr. Davis was a lifetime offender who had just been released.

Three strikes laws were designed to keep those dangerous criminals locked away.  But the reality is that most of the people actually caught in this net are not the Richard Allen Davis’ of the world.

The headline reads: “Anaheim Mayor Wants Citizen Oversight of Police.”  This is the Orange County Register writing, “Mayor Tom Tait has asked the city’s top administrator to move forward with plans to establish a citizens’ committee to review police actions and misconduct allegations.  Community leaders called for such a committee over the summer after police shootings killed two Latino men and sparked weeks of unrest.”

“The time has come,” Mayor Tait said. “It would be good for the city to have a trusted group of citizens look into any allegations of misconduct.”

If attorneys for the family of Luis Gutiérrez, shot and killed in Woodland on April 30, 2009, by three Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputies, are to make their case, three independent witnesses for the plaintiffs, who witnessed various stages of the pursuit and eventual shooting, will be critical.

On Thursday, two of those critical witnesses, along with the first of the three deputies, would testify.

Long-Awaited Civil Rights Trial Opened Wednesday, Nearly Three and a Half Years After Deadly Shooting on Gum Ave in Woodland –

Nearly three and a half years after the April 30, 2009 tragedy that saw Luis Gutierrez, a 26-year-old farm worker, shot and killed by three plain-clothed sheriff’s deputies working with the Yolo County Gang Task Force, the civil rights trial opened on Wednesday.

The start of the trial was delayed after attorneys for the defense alerted the judge to the planned protest and demonstration outside of the Federal Court Building.  Defense attorney Bruce Kilday told the court that this was a highly unusual situation and he, along with attorneys for the plaintiff, were concerned about the potential for prejudicial impacts on the jury.

Research Inconclusive and Claim Ignores Problems with Coercive Plea Bargaining and Wrongful Convictions –

Political campaigns, unfortunately, are times when exaggerated political claims trump the need for truthful and honest discussions.  Such is the case in the recent column by Debra Saunders, dubbed the “Token Conservative,” in the San Francisco Chronicle.

After her account of Marc Klaas, she notes, “Thanks to a highly successful defense lobby and federal judges who have stalled the enforcement of California law, only 13 of the state’s death row inmates have been executed since 1992.”

It was obvious from the start that the police – no matter what the other investigations found – would not be prosecuted criminally in this case.  The question was how to do so in a politically expedient matter.  They got their first break when the internal investigation was significantly divergent from the public Kroll Report.

Ten months and a day after the November 18, 2011, incident that brought world-wide scrutiny, the Yolo County District Attorney’s office did what everyone figured they would do and declined to file charges against Lt. John Pike and other officers who pepper sprayed seated protesters on the UC Davis Quad.

In a letter to UC Davis Police Chief Matt Carmichael, Assistant Chief Deputy DA Michael Cabral wrote, “Civil liability, tactics, and departmental policies and procedures were not considered. We address only whether or not there is sufficient evidence to support the filing of criminal charges in connection with the use of pepper spray by police personnel on November 18, 2011.”

DA’s Comment Ironic and Telling at the Same Time –

Every so often in a public records request for emails, you get a nugget that is priceless beyond the scope of your immediate inquiry.  The Sacramento Bee reporters who uncovered and reported on UC Davis Campus Counsel communications with the Yolo County DA’s office probably had no idea what they had just uncovered and reported.

The Bee reported yesterday that Senior Campus Counsel Michael Sweeney sought input from Yolo County’s Chief Deputy DA Jonathan Raven.

By now, most know the story of Luis Gutierrez-Navarro, who on April 30, 2009, was walking home from the DMV on East Gum Avenue in Woodland, when he encountered what turned out to be three plain-clothed officers, Dale Johnson, Herman Oviedo and Hector Bautista in an unmarked Yolo County Sheriff’s Department vehicle.

What happened next is subject to dispute.  However, there seems to have been an attempt to contact Mr. Gutierrez, who had no real criminal record aside from some vehicle code violations. Mr. Gutierrez, for reasons that are unclear, fled the scene, the officers pursued him, and eventually at the top of the overpass there was a final confrontation in which the officers claim he pulled a knife and he was shot and killed.

Plaintiffs Allege Police Intentionally Inflicted Serious Bodily Injury on Brothers in 2005 Confrontation –

It has been over seven years since Ernesto Galvan’s life was changed dramatically with a beating in the early morning hours in June 14,  2005 at approximately 3:20 a.m. or shortly after.  Police beat Mr. Galvan, and to a lesser extent his brother Fermin, after they claim he resisted arrest near a West Sacramento Park.

Updated Study Indicates Five Billion Dollars in Costs if System Maintained

Monday’s ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler simply acknowledged the current state of affairs, as he was asked by LA County prosecutors to allow the execution of two longtime death row inmates, both of whom exhausted their legal appeals.

Judge Fidler agreed with the prosecution who argued that the “state is going as slow as they can and calling it progress.”   However, he said that as a trial judge, he lacked “the authority to override a civil court order in Marin County or the California State Legislature’s direction that a long administrative process is necessary to vet any lethal injection method.”

West Sacramento and Other Local Jurisdictions Need to Revisit Vehicle Pursuit Policies –

Imagine, a 17-year-old juvenile steals a car and leads the police on a high speed chase in one end of town, and on the other end of town, a police car turns on its lights and heads off to join the chase.  But just as it does so, it strikes a man crossing the street and hits him so hard that it severs the man’s body at the torso.

This is what happened this week in West Sacramento.  The Yolo County DA’s office would charge the teen, who was arrested after crashing into a parked car, with vehicle theft, felony possession of stolen property, and misdemeanor allegations of evading a police officer, resisting arrest and driving without a license.