Dear Everyone;
If anyone gets this same e-mail twice it's the screwed
up Yahoo groups. I originally sent it out as a reply this morning
about 10:30ish and it never got posted. So I'm trying again.
I also noticed the one Richard Newell posted around 1:30ish finally
got forwarded 7 hours later!!!
What's with Yahoo Groups???
Hey Hey Hey - How About Them Steelers!!!
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
Dear Starchild;
One person I know said under the circumstances you could try to find
out who the Asst DA is assigned to the case and ask them what type
of a plea bargain they would consider for a first-time offender
under any prostitution diversion programs etc etc etc - if it
included community service and/or a fine and record expunged upon
successful completion of the program. While it should be a
misdemeanor you don't want that lurking about with California's
three strikes law hanging over your head.
The plea bargain in order to save the people's and the courts time
of course. ( yeah right )
Otherwise as the judge duly noted self-representation is nice but
the dice are loaded against you in a criminal case enacted by the
Fremont PD - you could try entrapment but fat chances to slim to
none. Snowball in hell???
All the standard Libertarian points of police state, bad uses of
resources, police time etc etc etc are immaterial and irrelevant.
The Fremont PD put too much time and effort into their case to let
it slide. The results have to justify the resources expended.
If you were to hire an attorney you would need a criminal attorney
(oxymoron) who is familiar with how criminal justice is handled in
the Fremont courts the criminal court judges and how the game is
played over there and who the players are.....
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
To those who've been asking me over the past few days what
happened at
my hearing on Thursday, sorry for the delay in responding. It's
just
that I don't want to have to keep repeating all the details over
and
over, and it takes a while to write up these emails properly.
Court is
also rather draining, and after I get home I usually prefer to
just put
it out of mind for a bit.
Anyway, the big news this time is I have a trial date: March
6. There
are also two more pretrial hearings. Since I did not waive my
right to
a speedy trial (more on that later), the time frame is fairly
short:
---------------------------------------------------------
February 23 (Thurs.) - Pretrial Conference
March 1 (Weds.) - Readiness Hearing
March 6 (Mon.) - Trial
---------------------------------------------------------
So I definitely will have my work cut out for me, and
hopefully some
legal help will materialize. But first a bit about how Thursday
went.
My loyal court support contingent this time around included Allen
Rice,
Ervan Darnell, and Maxine Dugan. My sincere thanks to all three.
Judge Keith Fudenna, on the other hand, was a no-show. At
least he
made no appearance in Department 602 while we were there. But
that
didn't stop the wheels from grinding forward with the court
assistant
doing the judge's job, or most of it anyway. I guess one advantage
of
processing people through there like parts on an assembly line is
that
treating the defendants as interchangeable makes it easier to use
interchangeable workers too. In my fantasy, there was a big
stadium-style electronic scoreboard in the courtroom showing the
rising
total of money the taxpayers were saving that day as each hour of
the
judge's absence went by. However I'm sure in reality he was
drawing his
full salary, wherever he was.
When I was called forward, I told the clerk I wanted to
represent
myself. As related in a previous email, I had previously obtained
a
Feretta form, the questionnaire that they want people to fill out
in
order to represent themselves. However they obviously wanted it
filled
out a certain way. I said I couldn't honestly answer yes to all
the
questions on the form, which had a bunch of questions which you
were
supposed to answer yes or no, with a space for you to initial next
to
each answer. I asked the clerk about this form and a few other
things,
none of which were answered to my satisfaction:
- Am I legally required to fill out this form in order to
represent
myself? (yes)
-What are the judge's sentencing practices? [I don't know, each
judge
is different (duh!)]
-Is there any guide listing the motions that are allowed? (you can
look
it up in a law library)
-Does Alameda County have a diversion program for prostitution?
["I
don't know" (yeah, sure)]
-What further steps or appearances should I expect before trial?
("I
can't give you legal advice.")
-I want to get a copy of my police report and anything else I'm
entitled to receive under discovery (you have to fill out the form
to
represent yourself first)
I was particularly annoyed that they wouldn't even tell me
what other
steps I could expect in the process. Telling me that simple,
basic
information constitutes giving me "legal advice?" Give me a
fucking
break. My mood was lightened somewhat after I sat down, when some
guy
came over and whispered that I was doing good, to keep putting the
heat
on them. He might have been a lawyer, I'm not sure; he looked
older and
(frankly) more intelligent than most of the people hanging around,
but
I didn't have a chance to talk with him before he left the room.
I still didn't like filling out the form without being able
to first
talk to the judge about my answers, and what the consequences
would be
of filling it out "wrong." But I wasn't going to lie just to
conform to
a poorly-written form, and it seemed like nothing else would
happen
that day unless I filled out the form. So I answered the
questions
honestly, but not without a feeling of trepidation that I was
setting
myself up to be yelled at by some "supervisor" for putting parts
on the
assembly line incorrectly and fouling up the machine. Of course
the
judge wasn't there to sign off on the form even after I'd filled
it
out, so they told me I'd have to go to another department across
the
hall. The four of us exited the room and headed over to Department
607.
Was this the start of a new pinball game bouncing around the
building?
After a few minutes in Dept. 607, the assistant D.A. came
over from
next door with the paperwork (naturally I couldn't be trusted to
carry
the form I'd filled out over there myself) and handed it to the
court
assistant. "Somebody who allegedly wants to represent himself,"
we
heard her tell the court clerk. "Oh god," said the clerk receiving
the
file. How encouraging. Amusingly enough, this department's judge
was
absent too. There must have been a long wait for tee time down at
the
country club that morning or something. I overheard a lawyer say
a
substitute was coming, but the sub wasn't there yet either, so we
sat
around and waited for another hour or so, during which time Ervan
had
to leave to go to work.
Meanwhile, the clerk rolled several defendants with more
routine
matters through the judicial assembly line. Three guys in a row
pled
guilty to "driving under the influence" and were given a standard
offer
which went something like this: Three days in jail (or in the
sheriff's
work program cleaning streets and such if the defendant qualified,
a
fine of around $1000, three years probation, and a bunch of other
conditions such as being required to submit to any breathalyzer
tests
requested, etc. All this of course in addition to the negative
consequences to their driving records and cost of insurance, which
went
unmentioned by the court. Allen later noted that under probation
the
authorities can also come and search your house whenever they feel
like
it. As far as I could tell, these were first-time offenders. In
one
case, the judge mentioned during his monologue about the plea
requirements that "the knife seized from you in connection with
your
arrest is now ordered destroyed." On what grounds, I wondered? It
doesn't take much alcohol to put you over the legal driving limit
these
days, but even if the guy had been flat-out drunk behind the
wheel, why
should that negate his right to self-defense? Neither the
defendant nor
his attorney bothered to ask.
Eventually the substitute judge arrived, and my turn came.
As I
expected, the judge looked over the form and asked me about each
of the
questions to which I had given an answer other than the desired
one.
Below are the questions on the Feretta form, my answers (in
parenthesis), and the explanations I gave the judge for each
answer,