Eastern District of California Blog

McDavid's Attorney Moves EDCA Court To Order Government To Explain Withholding of Exculpatory Documents

Yesterday, Eric McDavid's attorney, Mark Reichel, filed this Motion asking the Court to issue an order to show cause to prosecutors to explain how and why they withheld critical exculpatory evidence from the defense before trial. TakePart.com, an investigative journalism website, has a lengthy feature on the motion, excerpted below:

McDavid was released in January after serving nine years of a 20-year sentence on federal charges related to an alleged ecoterrorism conspiracy. Documents had emerged, two months earlier, that were absent at his trial, including correspondence supporting his claim that he had been entrapped by an FBI operation involving a paid informant.

U.S. attorneys new to the case had discovered the documents during a search through their predecessors’ file, which they performed in response to a habeas corpus petition challenging the government’s right to hold McDavid. At a court hearing in January, they said the failure to produce the 13 love letters between McDavid and an informant known as Anna—along with almost 3,000 other documents, including an email showing the government had asked to polygraph-test Anna and evidence that she had been coached in the love affair by a Behavioral Analysis Unit—was “inadvertent” and “a mistake.”

Six months later, Reichel was still screaming about the loss—or deliberate withholding—of the documents. He’s a big man, passionate about justice, and he gets worked up: “Who is going to believe they fucking misplaced that shit? I mean, seriously! And then, after he’s convicted nine years later you say, ‘Oh, here they are.’ Do they get that much deference?”

He may soon find out. On July 30, Reichel filed a 28-page motion in federal court in Sacramento asking U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England Jr. to order the government to explain itself. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI would be required to detail how and why the evidence went missing. The motion also asks the judge to “grant such further relief as the Court deems appropriate.” Maybe someone will be punished. Maybe more transparency can be introduced.

Senior Judges Play Big Role In EDCA Court

Here are some tidbits from John Ellis's piece in yesterday's Fresno Bee:

In California’s eastern federal judicial district — which includes courthouses in Fresno and Sacramento — the numbers were even higher. Senior judges here closed out almost 34% of cases in 2014. According to TRAC data, active Eastern District judges adjudicated 2,836 cases last year, while senior judges handled 1,446.

Nationally, the reason is simple, TRAC researchers say: Court cases are growing, but Congress has failed to add additional judge positions. Lawmakers are also slow to fill open positions.

 Taken together, it “clearly exacerbates the workload crisis in our district,” said federal judge Anthony W. Ishii, who retired and moved to senior status in October 2012. “This, in turn, places greater emphasis on the need for our senior district judges to continue to carry a substantial caseload.”

 

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The Eastern District of California currently has six authorized district judge positions. Four of those are in Sacramento and two are in Fresno. Bills pushed by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to increase that number have gone nowhere in Congress.

In Fresno, Lawrence J. O’Neill is the only active district judge. Though Ishii moved to senior status more than two-and-a-half years ago, he is still waiting for his replacement to be approved. Dale A. Drozd, a magistrate judge in Sacramento, has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee to replace Ishii, but he still awaits final Senate approval. When, and if, approval comes, Drozd will set up shop as a full-time district judge in Fresno.

EDCA Lawsuit Alleges Rocklin Police Targeted African-American Athlete

Here is an excerpt from Denny Walsh's Sacramento Bee story on a lawsuit filed by local attorney Stewart Katz against Rocklin police officers: 

The late-night disturbance apparently was too much for one resident, who summoned Rocklin police.

What happened over the next couple of hours is now the subject of explosive allegations in a civil rights lawsuit against Rocklin officers that claims Huggins, who is African American, was singled out for harassment and intimidation by three white police officers because of his race.

The suit, filed in federal court in Sacramento this month, claims police forced Huggins and Rylee, his white roommate, to the ground, handcuffed them and kicked Huggins in the face when he asked an officer why he had drawn his pistol out of its holster. Then, both sides agree, the handcuffed pair were driven away to a dark, empty parking lot a mile away for more questioning.

“I’m like, ‘Why are we in a vacant parking lot? Why aren’t we going to the precinct?’ ” Huggins said this month in an interview at the office of his Sacramento attorney, Stewart Katz. “I thought I was going to die, basically.”

Huggins’ lawsuit says that at the parking lot, he was taken out of the car and questioned by an officer, who made it clear he needed to answer questions the way police wanted.

“In particular, Huggins was told to say he had consumed a significant quantity of alcohol, and that had affected his actions,” the lawsuit claims. Huggins said he didn’t drink that night, and in fact doesn’t drink at all.

The case was dropped after he spent 23 hours in jail on charges of resisting arrest, obstructing an officer and being drunk in public. Huggins’ lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages and names as defendants the city of Rocklin and three officers. It alleges violations of Huggins’ rights guaranteed by federal and state constitutional, statutory and common law, including the rights to be free from unreasonable seizure, excessive force, false arrest and malicious prosecution.

Rocklin police, in statements issued to The Sacramento Bee and in crime reports filed by officers involved in the arrests, dispute the claims in the lawsuit. Police say their original review of the incident showed “there were no violations of department policy, state or federal laws.”

Feds Charge Marijuana Cultivation in Sierra National Forest

A Mexican citizen was indicted Thursday for alleged marijuana cultivation on Chowchilla Mountain, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said.

Juan Pedro Jimenez, 39, of Ensenada, Mexico, was found at the cultivation site on Chowchilla Mountain in the Sierra National Forest in Mariposa County on July 8. Federal agents removed 6,919 marijuana plants from the site and found fertilizer, water lines, propane tanks, trash, and other environmentally harmful material. The cultivation allegedly caused extensive damage to the land. Native trees were cut down and hillsides were terraced to plant the marijuana and water was diverted from a nearby creek to irrigate the plants.

Fresno Bee, 7/23/15

 

Ninth Circuit Reverses EDCA Court's Summary Judgment On Prisoner's Excessive Force Claim

In Shepard v. Bass, No. 13-15032 (9th Cir. July 23, 2015), the Ninth Circuit reversed the Fresno district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the officer on a prisoner's claim that the officer used excessive force, including pepper spray, because the prisoner argued with the officer after a prison rules violation hearing. 

EDCA Court Dismisses Sexual Harrassment Suit Against Yolo County Sheriff

A sexual harassment lawsuit targeting Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto has been thrown out of court by a Sacramento federal judge.

Yolo sheriff’s Deputy Robin Gonzalez claimed Prieto sexually harassed her over several years, but U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller said she found holes in the complaint that would not allow her to let the matter go forward as viable litigation.

In the lawsuit, filed in July 2013, Gonzalez described incidents she said occurred before March 2012, and thus fell outside the legally mandated limitations period, Muller ruled.

The facts show that “the pre-2012 conduct was not part of the same continuing practice as the post-2012 conduct,” Mueller wrote. “After March 2012, within the limitations period, only a few allegations remain,” the judge said in a 19-page order filed Friday.

Sac Bee, 7/20/15

 

More On Raids Of Tribal Marijuana Growing Operation

Here are the first few paragraphs from today's Sac Bee front-page piece, "Pot raid shatters tribal dreams":

Wendy Del Rosa, one of two warring siblings claiming to lead a tiny Indian band just south of the Oregon border, began urgently writing to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento in early May.

The Alturas Rancheria – totaling three members or nine, depending on which faction one believes – had not been content with the earnings from its humble wood-plank gambling house, the Desert Rose Casino. It had pursued various ill-fated ventures, including payday lending and manufacturing cigarettes.

Now, Del Rosa warned in a series of letters to authorities, the tribe was converting a cavernous, tented event center on the reservation into a huge facility for growing marijuana.

“The tribe is acting as a beard for private operators who are attempting to use the medical marijuana law of this state and tribal sovereignty for massive personal profit,” Del Rosa wrote Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Ferrari in a letter dated May 27.

On July 8, federal and state agents and the Modoc County Sheriff’s Department raided vast marijuana cultivation operations at the Alturas Rancheria and on the neighboring land of a larger sister tribe, the Pit River Tribe. The enforcement actions, which so far have not resulted in criminal charges, revealed an audacious effort to capitalize on the California marijuana market.

 

Mexican Farmworkers Paid After 7 Years Of Litigation

After seven years of legal battling, 66 farmworkers from Mexico’s Colima state have been fully paid for work in orchards and vineyards in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Even though the workers’ claims have been settled, a farm labor contractor and four growers continue to deny allegations the workers made in lawsuits that they were cheated out of pay and subjected to inhumane conditions.

The last of the settlements was reached in April, and two lawsuits in Sacramento federal court were dismissed last month. The final tally: $685,000 paid by the defendants; $491,871 to the workers as wages, penalties and interest, and $193,129 to their attorneys as fees and expenses.

Sac Bee, 7/18/15

Ninth Circuit Reverses EDCA Order, Finding Attorney's Conduct Excuses Failure to Timely Appeal

In Foley v. Biter, 12-17724, the Ninth Circuit Tuesday reversed the EDCA court's order denying a motion to reopen the judgment to file a late notice of appeal. Foley had filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in 2001; the court denied the petition in 2004.  But Foley's counsel never told him that the petition had been denied so he didn't file a notice of appeal until years later.  The attorney candidly admitted it was his screw up; he somehow forgot he represented Foley. The Ninth Circuit found this attorney abandonment excused Foley's failure to timely appeal.   Congrats to Assistant Federal Defender Carolyn Wiggin for the appellate win.

In an unrelated matter, the ACLU has filed a suit in Fresno County Superior Court alleging that the Fresno County Public Defender's Office is woefully underfunded and carries far too many cases to provide adequate representation, violating the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel and other constitutional requirements.  Fresno Bee, 7/15/15.  The lawsuit is here. 

Sacramento Jury Finds Four Guilty Of Mortgage Fraud

On Monday, a Sacramento jury found four defendants guilty of various mortgage fraud offenses after a three-week trial before Judge Nunley.  Daily Democrat, 7/14/15