Will Operation "Strike Force" save the courts?

“The killing of Kathryn Johnston by Atlanta police officers was a horrible and unnecessary tragedy. While the police officers involved were attempting to rid the streets of drug dealers, their means toward that end violated their oath, the Constitution, and the civil rights of the citizens they are sworn to protect, and it was inevitable that one day someone would get seriously hurt. This conduct demands accountability. Beyond holding the officers responsible for their crimes, however, Ms. Johnston’s family has made clear that they want some good to come out of her death. We are committed to working with the FBI to find out just how wide the culture of misconduct that led to this tragedy extends within APD and to bring any other officers who have violated the law to justice.”


--- David E. Nahmias, United States Attorney's office about the shooting of Kathryn Johnston, 92, where narcotics detectives had already broken the law before breaking into her house.


"A government can't be harmed by democracy."


---Ken Stansbury, after hearing the decision of the Court of Appeals on his case.



"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."


--Lewis Carroll



"Rumble, Whoooosh. Rumble, Rumble, Whooosh"


---DHL freight planes taking off from MARB and flying over Riverside just after midnight.






The judicial crisis is deepening in Riverside County to epic proportions. After Operation: Strike Force, which included the deployment of an experienced team of judicial officers from less problematic jurisdictions into the troubled area, was activated, it was hoped that the crisis would lessen.

Alas, little has really changed because you can't solve a long-standing problem with a Bandaid or two or even a dozen. But that's what the county's been doing anyway relying on quick fixes rather than focusing on addressing the serious underlying problems which lie buried underneath all of the egos involved belonging to individuals who spend most of their time pointing fingers at one another.



In Riverside County, judges were forced to dismiss two cases including one felony yesterday due to the shortage of judges to hear those cases. More felony cases are scheduled to be dismissed today, according to the Press Enterprise.

Hopefully, the Riverside County District Attorney's office will not punish these judges as they apparently did Judge Gary Tranbarger, who alas, isn't allowed to try cases by this office without being papered off of them and in fact, wasn't hit by a swarm of papers until after he made these dismissals. Did he sit idle in a courtroom twiddling his fingers while these cases were dismissed? Which judge will be blamed for not packing family courts, probate courts and juvenile courts with more trials when there is no clear legal information on how to do so?

Even adding a "strike force" of a dozen judges to hear cases has done little to lessen the tremendous backlog. In fact, it's grown because even before the rescue team got here, it had already taken on a life of its own.


(excerpt)


Riverside County has a case overload of about 1,265 pending criminal trials. For months all available judges, including judges from outside the county and judges assigned to civil courts, have been hearing criminal cases.

There were about 35 trial judges on duty Monday throughout the county, but all of them had assigned cases. "No room at the inn," said Riverside County Superior Court Judge Helios J. Hernandez II.

"It had to hit the wall," Hernandez, the supervising judge for the downtown Hall of Justice's criminal division, said after Monday's court session.

"We had thought we would have dismissals in April or May. The fact that we didn't is a testament to the work ethic of our judges," he said.

Prosecutors were considering their options, said Chief Assistant District Attorney Sue F. Steding.

Hernandez declined on Monday to send the about-to-be dismissed cases to probate, juvenile or family law courts.

"The penal code says criminal cases take precedence over civil matters, and there is not a clear definition under the law of what civil courts are," Steding said.



Okay, so maybe Hernandez will be the next judge on the list to be papered following Tranbarger. The supervising judge of Riverside County Superior Court has this response to give.


(excerpt)


Riverside County Superior Court Presiding Judge Richard T. Fields said Monday he was certain the court "has done everything possible to avoid dismissal of cases. We have every single courtroom filled. We have sent jurors to the Banning Court as late as 4:30 p.m. to start a trial."

Attorneys for the two defendants in the dismissed cases argued that all time had run out for their clients to get a constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial.

Criminal cases must go to trial by the 10th day after both prosecution and defense attorneys declare they are ready.

"There is a rule in place that dictates when the prosecution must end, and if the accused is not brought to trial in that time frame, his rights are violated," said attorney Jeff G. Moore, who argued for the assault case dismissal.

His client, Sammy Craft, 40, of Banning, was immediately re-charged, arraigned and entered a new plea of not guilty, Moore said by telephone.




Moore, a former prosecutor, was also one of the attorneys in Dept. 61 who Presiding Judge Richard Couzens, a "strike force" member assigned to clear really old cases, said had "seven of ten" day cases and would have to come back the day before the last day to find out if they could be assigned a courtroom.

Many of the oldest cases also promise some of the longest trials with many estimated to take three months or longer to try. And the lives of everyone involved, victims, their families, defendants and their families are put on hold while the parties that are both responsible for causing the problems and for solving them spend their time bickering and blaming each other.

It's interesting watching the reactions of the members of the "strike force" team, most of whom are from Los Angeles County, to the actions and words of both the prosecutors and the defense attorneys. Sometimes, it appears they want to send them to do a time out. Other times, the judges look as if they wish they could go back to whence they came and leave the mess behind back in River City County.





Up in Sacramento, the governor's office signed a bill that will bring seven more judges to Riverside County to alleviate this crisis which has been blamed on everything from a failure to add judges to match rapid growth in the county, to the District Attorney's office changing its rules on filing cases, to judges giving attorneys too many continuances. But this is called providing a Bandaid solution to a problem which went ignored by the court system as well as Sacramento for years. It's getting the attention now that it needed then.

However, all the parties talk about these problems while still acting like they don't exist. The "strike force" are treated as if they are expected to be miracle workers but they can only do so much. What this judicial system needs is a consent decree.




At the slightly less crowded Court of Appeals, the justices handed a decision to the city on its SLAPP suit against Ken Stansbury who along with the Riversiders for Property Rights tried to put eminent domain on the ballot.

The decision's not surprising but the key to this case is to exhaust the state court's remedies and move it to federal court where constitutional issues including the First Amendment right are more key and local politics can be left behind.

The city will discuss the case in closed session today, according to the agenda for this week's city council meeting.


City Attorney Gregory Priamos said in the news article that the city may never actually seek attorney's fees from Stansbury, but at this point it doesn't have to do so since threatening to do so in its law suit has already achieved the desired effect which was to break the will of the organization filing the law suit if not the only member of it still standing.

The city also has a law suit sitting in civil court somewhere which it might get back to after it's done with this one, but given that there really is no civil court system at the moment, it probably won't go to trial until oh, about 2010.



Also off of the governor's desk, is vetoed legislation that has the Press Enterprise's editorial board up in arms.


(excerpt)


The governor last week vetoed SB 964, by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles. Romero's bill would have closed a loophole that a state court decision punched last year in California's open-meeting law. The Legislature will now have to try again to amend the law, because the court unacceptably invited widespread official secrecy.

The Brown Act, the state's open-meeting law, prohibits a majority of any elected body from conferring privately on issues in a series of individual meetings outside of public view. That provision represents sound public policy: Government functions best when it operates in the open, subject to public review and scrutiny.

But a state appeals court -- putting a new twist on the law -- last year said that such private discussion among elected officials is legal as long as the group does not develop a consensus on issues.

The court's view, however, emphasizes the result of private meetings rather than the secrecy itself. So a city council or school board, for example, could address issues outside of public view, provided the group does not reach agreement during those discussions on how to proceed.

Yet the whole point of precluding officials from discussing public business among themselves in private is to ensure that government decisions and debate happen in full public view. The court's approach allows widespread secret discussion, robbing voters of information crucial to judging elected officials' performance. And requiring public debate discourages bad decisions and helps deter official misbehavior.





The growing foreclosure crisis in the Inland Empire has catalyzed the Jurupa Unified School District to force property owners to pay up special taxes.




The novel is safe, according to Riverside school officials who swear that this is indeed the truth, according to the Press Enterprise and the demise of the novel in the city's classrooms has been greatly exaggerated.



(excerpt)


That assurance comes after what district officials say was a misunderstanding when school started last month that left some students and parents believing novels had been outlawed in English classes.

Not so, said Jacquie Paul, a spokeswoman for the district.

"Students are reading novels in classes and (teachers) are teaching novels in classes," Paul said.

First, however, middle and high school students must complete course work from assigned textbooks and prove they have grasped the lessons before they can move on to the longer books as part of regular class work.

The anthology textbooks include poems, short stories and excerpts from longer works.

Paul said the policy -- adopted this year by the district -- aims to ensure that all students are meeting testing standards set by the state. Riverside Unified is one of four Inland districts identified this year as needing improvement based on results from state tests.

"Once students have mastered these standards and benchmarks, they're free to study novels," Paul said.




That's reassuring. Now if the Riverside Unified School District would reverse its ban on one novel, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier and return it back into service including inside the schools' libraries. For an upcoming posting on politics, what they are and who the designated experts are, reading this book is a good place to start.

The book is still on sale at book stores and available at the public library.




Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein is on the case trying to resolve an issue of conflicting information provided by the Riverside County Voters' Registrar on what type of writing implement must be used on filling out absentee ballots.

For those voting in the upcoming elections to fill city council and school board positions, this is especially critical information so read Bernstein's column and write it down.

Using the proper writing implement of course.




Meanwhile, some Atlanta, Georgia residents headed off to the NACOLE conference to learn more about civilian oversight, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Atlanta's getting a new civilian review board, which is partially in response to the latest scandals to rock its police department, scandals which have led even the United States Attorney's office to admit that the department was suffering from wide-spread corruption. It's become the department that's unfortunately known for shooting elderly Black women to death in their own homes or threatening to do so.

The city's planned commission handles complaints, can initiate its own investigations and can issue subpoenas. On paper at least. Whether or not it will be allowed to do so remains to be seen. If so, that will put it one step ahead of many cities including Riverside.

Even while corruption was rampant in the department or perhaps as a sign of it, the complaint sustain rate in Atlanta's police department was a mere 2.5% of all complaints. Perhaps that's why among the many changes that this police department was urged to make was to restaff its Internal Affairs Division.

Still, the public isn't convinced that the department is serious about turning itself around, hopefully before a federal consent decree is imposed on it. Hence, the creation and implementation of civilian oversight in Atlanta.





In Houston, a police officer prosecuted and convicted of negligent homicide failed a bunch of tests required to be a law enforcement officer, according to the Houston Chronicle.


(excerpt)


The rookie Houston Police Department officer who shot and killed a 14-year-old special education student in one of the decade's most controversial shootings earned his badge and gun despite flunking a crucial test of firearms handling as well as initial police field training, according to documents recently made public as part of a civil rights lawsuit.

Officer Arthur J. Carbonneau also failed 16 of 30 subjects in his mandatory Texas peace officers' test, including "use-of-force law," "use-of-force concepts" and "arrest, search and seizure," records show.

In field training, records show, he repeatedly got lost trying to find locations he was called to and became so rattled that trainers had to take over his calls. When the 23-year-old rookie was assigned to remedial training because of the problems, he mishandled the subduing of an agitated person — a mistake his instructor said could have cost lives.

Yet, Carbonneau still became a full-fledged officer in December 2002. Eleven months later, he killed Eli Escobar II, 14.

Revelations about Carbonneau's previous mistakes come in personnel documents made public only because of the civil suit. The Escobars' lawyers argue that Carbonneau was not a rogue officer as HPD claims, but rather the product of inadequate firearms training, supervision and screening by the department.

Carbonneau was convicted of negligent homicide for the Nov. 21, 2003, shooting of Escobar, who was being held down by another officer at the time. Escobar, a middle school student, was unarmed and not involved in the playground petty crime that Carbonneau had gone to investigate.

Just before being shot, Escobar called out "Mama, come and get me! Mama!" according to police records.





A law suit filed by Escobar's family is what is bringing all this information to light and the department and city is given the unenviable task of trying to explain why an officer who clearly failed to make the grade was given a badge and a gun. Explain way, Houston because "Houston, we have a problem here".

This isn't uncommon as it turns out.

A New York City Police Department officer kills his girlfriend because she won't agree to set a wedding date and it turned out that his own instructor at the academy fought a losing battle with administators to kick him out of the program.

An off-duty law enforcement officer in Wisconsin kills six people including an ex-girlfriend in a jealous rage and it turns out that he never received a pyschological evaluation because one was not required. One wonders how well he could have scored on it in retrospect.

The link for the article above provides a list of other interesting articles including a series on officer-involved shootings which includes this article.





$2.5 million is the price tag put on the city of Anaheim to pay out an excessive force law suit involving a police officer who ran a man over with his squad car, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


Jose L. Muñoz had his hands in the air and was facing a police officer who approached him on foot when Officer Eddie Ruiz drove a cruiser on the sidewalk and hit him from behind at 32 mph, the lawsuit alleges.

Muñoz, of Anaheim, ended up underneath the car with his abdomen ripped open and internal organs exposed, according to court records.

The Anaheim City Council agreed to the payoff during its meeting last week.

"My client wasn't a threat to the officers," said Montebello attorney Arnoldo Casillas. "He was giving up. This was clearly a case of excessive force. Our hope is that this award will help Jose turn his life around."




Here's hopes that it helps the city and department deal with some of their issues as well. But given that most of the time settlements like this one are handed on the condition that the government agency doesn't have to admit any responsibility, that's unlikely but the size of the settlement does speak for itself. In technicolor.




Meanwhile, in a parallel universe far, far away...



Bert Diablo kept walking, trying to ignore the footsteps behind him, but when he would stop, they would too as if someone was standing just inside the shadows cast by the imitation gas lights. He sighed and leaned on the facade of the building to rest. It had been a long journey filled with betrayal and power plays to get where he was, the new king of the pack.

Like a butterfly shed its pupae, Diablo had emerged from his own cocoon a new man. No longer did he resemble the ardent, diligent grass-roots hero of what was left of River Bottom's upper class of one side of the white picket fence. He had ridded himself of that old, tired skin three years years ago. Now, along with his shadow council, he was king of the roost. Lord over Where-Eminent-Domain-is-King and co-chairing(for now) with Royce Greater School of Learning, Diablo had at least a portion of this corner of River Bottom at his feet.

But here he was, walking through his kingdom in various states of realization, hearing footsteps made by someone he could never see. The shadow of what once had been but was no longer. Still, it clung behind him like a second skin especially during days like this one.

"Hey, is that you Diablo," a voice roared from the fog, which had begun to shroud Diablo's kingdom without him noticing it. He looked up and saw Sampson Franelli his better half. Initially adversaries when Diablo had been elected, they were now closer than most brothers. All he had to do was nudge his rival Gary Ashton out of the way and take his spot as the new kid on the bloc.

"What's up, Sammy?"

Frenelli sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

"What isn't," he said, "I was trying out the new babe."

Diablo looked confused. Frenelli changed girlfriends like most men changed suits.

"My new Porche, just off the assembly line last week," Frenelli said.

"Where'd you go?"

"Around town. Bleevins Lake and back," Frenelli yawned.

"You know they say the lake is haunted," Diablo said.

That gave Frenelli a jolt, once he remembered what he had seen at the lake tonight. But if he told Diablo about seeing the White Rabbit and his friends, Diablo might take it to The Boss. He wasn't quite ready for that conversation yet.

"That's just an old wives' tale," Frenelli said and left it at that. He didn't really like Diablo all that much as he pretended. It was just that it was important to always keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Frenelli was almost certain that Diablo was thinking the same thing.

With that thought in mind, Frenelli returned to his Porche, apple red and glistening under a street lamp. Where it sat and waited for him to turn the key and take it and him on a new adventure.

Frenelli got behind the wheel, turned on the radio and took off towards Bleevins lake, with "American Pie" wafting behind him in the blanket of fog which shrounded the city on a warm summer night.




>