Legal Pad

Cal Supremes OK "John Doe" Warrants

The California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that an arrest warrant can be issued for an unknown suspect on the basis of DNA evidence.

The ruling, which the Sacramento Bee called "groundbreaking," enables law enforcement to beat filing deadlines in criminal cases without having the name of a suspect in the case. Justice Carlos Moreno, in a dissent, called this a "clever artifice intended solely to satisfy the statute of limitations until the identity of the perpetrator could be discovered."

The opinion affirmed the conviction of a rapist who was named after the six-year statute of limitations for rape had expired. Prior to his identification, the warrant issued for the rapist's arrest had read "John Doe, male black."

— Cynthia Foster

Judge Says She's Retiring After Courtroom Attack

Judge Cinda Fox is retiring from the San Joaquin County Superior Court bench, reportedly because she’s too scarred from a defendant’s attack on her during a trial last year to keep working.

The Record, a Stockton newspaper, has the whole story on her retirement.

If you don’t recall the details offhand, the defendant had been testifying when he lunged at Fox with a shiv and stabbed her, reportedly leaving her with minor injuries. (One of The Record’s reporters recounts the event in this video.) Fox and at least four others have filed claims against the county over the incident.

— Pam Smith

Law Firm's Former Bookkeeper Sentenced

Two recent developments in law firm/lawyer embezzlement news …

A former bookkeeper at San Francisco medical malpractice and personal injury firm Bostwick, Peterson & Mitchell was sentenced just before Christmas for helping himself to $9 million of the firm’s funds over about nine years.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Kay Tsenin sentenced the former bookkeeper, Richard Thomas, to 10 years in state prison. He’ll also have to pay $8.7 million in restitution.

When audits are really helpful, after the jump ...

Illegal Alien Still Fighting 1986 Cocaine Plea

Cocaine! Courtesy of your Dept. o' Justice.

Some people just can’t let go of things.

Take Roy Cupis, who — 23 years after the fact — is still trying to withdraw his plea in a San Mateo County criminal case.

Earlier today, San Francisco’s First District Court of Appeal rejected the guy’s efforts, even though Cupis argued he didn’t understand the immigration consequences for pleading no contest to possessing cocaine for sale. Cupis was an illegal alien when he pled on Nov. 10, 1986, and today’s ruling doesn’t make clear his current status.

The court’s unpublished ruling held that Cupis’ motion wasn’t timely and his arguments had no merit.

Okay ... but who the hell is "Sherel Ann"?

New Mehserle Judge Best Known for Anna Nicole Smith Trial

Local news station KTVU is reporting that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry has been assigned to the Johannes Mehserle BART shooting trial.

Perry is currently presiding over the Anna Nicole Smith felony death case, which is scheduled to go to trial next week. Not date has been set yet for the Mehserle trial, which was moved from Alameda County to LA County in October.

According to KTVU, Perry is "known for his experience in presiding over high-profile criminal cases."

— Cynthia Foster

Safire's P.I. Indicted, Arrested, Over Voice Mail to Crime Victim

Criminal defense investigator Steve Vender has run afoul of the law, but the defense lawyer he was working with in the case that landed him in hot water is adamant that Vender did nothing wrong.

While working for San Francisco defense lawyer Eric Safire, Vender called the victim in the case and left a message the D.A.’s office said encouraged the man to leave town before testifying against Safire’s client.

Vender didn’t break any laws and the District Attorney’s office should have handed any case on him to another office, Safire said. He compared the prosecutors investigating the defense to a football game in which one team also acts as the referee.

“If I had the ability to prosecute them, would I?” Safire said. “I wouldn’t, because it would create a conflict of interest. It’s improper for an opponent to investigate another opponent. Think of the chilling effect it has on all our other cases.”

Chilling with Vender, after the jump.

Cop Union Endorses Challenger in Santa Clara DA Election

The city of Santa Clara’s police union is saying it wants to shake things up in the district attorney’s office.

A Friday alert from Jeff Rosen, the prosecutor challenging incumbent District Attorney Dolores Carr in the June election, announced that the Santa Clara Police Officers’ Association has endorsed him. He had formally announced his campaign earlier this month.

The union turns fickle on Carr, after the jump ...

If Fresno Had a Riviera, Safire's P.I. Would Be Kinda Sleazy

Eric Safire is sticking by his embattled private investigator.

San Francisco criminal defense lawyer Eric Safire has attracted attention for two recent episodes that the prosecution — and in the latest case, the judge — slammed.

This week, the San Francisco district attorney’s office said it’s investigating Steve Vender, a private investigator who worked with Safire on his defense of Philip Pitney, 19, an alleged Eddy Rock gang member on trial now for attempted murder in the shooting of Ladarius Greer, 21, near McAllister and Fillmore streets on Easter Sunday.

Greer disappeared before the trial started. Vender had called him from Safire’s law office, the Chronicle reported yesterday, leaving one voicemail in which he told Greer that he would be arrested if he showed up in court, adding: “It’s October and it’s a good time to visit the Fresno Riviera…and stay well.” Judge Garrett Wong found that call to be “reprehensible and disturbing” but wouldn’t allow Greer’s statement to police to be admitted in Pitney’s trial, according to the Chronicle.

If Fresno has no Riviera, how can there be a problem here? Seriously …

That's One Loooong Carjacking Prosecution

The San Francisco DA’s office recently celebrated a long carjacking sentence — for a prosecution that was more than four years in the making.

San Francisco Judge Jerome Benson sentenced David Perryman, 47, to 29 years and eight months in state prison on Friday — close to the maximum of 31 years and 8 months — following six felony convictions the DA secured last April for three separate and terrifying carjackings.

Part of the reason the case took so long, according to the prosecution, is that Perryman cycled through three different lawyers plus himself (he went pro per twice).

“He seemed not to get along with his attorneys,” said prosecutor Jerry Coleman. “That would be the most charitable way of putting it.”

Even the post-trial sentencing phase alone took six months, Coleman said, after Perryman mounted three challenges against the trial judge, sued him in federal court, and took a writ to the appellate court. All led nowhere.

After the jump, jurors hit replay on some video footage ...

Alameda DA O'Malley Talks Death, Victims’ Rights

In front of a roomful of Democratic lawyers today, Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley tackled the prickly issue of when and how her office seeks the death penalty –- a topic that quite a few people had voiced concerns about at the September hearing when the county’s Board of Supervisors appointed her DA. She’d been invited to the meeting of the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club as part of a regular speaker series.

Responding at one point to questions from the audience about the county’s use of the death penalty, O’Malley said it’s rare: In the past 6 ½ years, she said, the office has charged about 350 murder cases, 106 of which had special circumstances, and it made the recommendation for the death penalty three times. “If the recommendation is made, it’s made rarely,” she said. “It’s a task that nobody takes more seriously than I.”

Sue Kleebauer, managing attorney of Alameda’s Court Appointed Attorney’s Program, asked O’Malley if the DA’s office will start to decide earlier whether a case is a death penalty case, in order to save the county money. “There is a huge cost up front to the county,” she said. O’Malley answered that she and Kleebauer and other members of the defense bar should get together to talk about it.

“She gave me a glimmer of hope by saying she wanted to meet with us and figure out a strategy,” Kleebauer said later.

The DA gets into victims' rights, too, after the jump ...