Posted on 01/05/2007 4:48:08 PM PST by BenLurkin
A final attempt by two defense attorneys to have criminal charges against their juvenile clients thrown out was rejected by a Long Beach Superior Court judge Thursday. Kathleen Moreno and Stephanie Sauter argued the same basic principles in their motions to dismiss the case against their clients - two teen girls who are among 10 black youths charged with beating three young white women on Halloween.
The lawyers said the evidence against their clients was not sufficient for the case to continue and the charges - or petition as it is called in juvenile court - should be dropped.
The similarities in their approach ended there, however.
Moreno - who is representing an 18-year-old Long Beach girl who was 17 at the time of the incident - took only a few minutes to point out that her arguments had already been made by eight other defense lawyers who proceeded her.
She added only that her client had been identified and linked to the attack by just two things, "a jacket she wore and a pair of earrings.
"With that, your honor, I'm going to submit," Moreno said.
Sauter had joked to other attorneys and court staff that they should make some popcorn and get settled in for a long argument on behalf of her client - the 13-year-old sister of Moreno's client.
Coverage criticized Sauter made good on her promise, arguing for close to two hours that her client and the other nine youths on trial - or adjudication - were there because of the failure of the Police Department and the Long Beach district attorney's office to properly investigate the crime, and because of the Press-Telegram's coverage.
"That's what started this entire thing," Sauter declared, referring specifically to the Press-Telegram.
"The Telegram (sic) decided these horrible 10 black kids attacked these three little white girls," she said.
"It was easy for the Long Beach Police Department to say `Yeah! The Long Beach Press-Telegram is right."
"It was the easy thing for the Long Beach district attorney to file against these 10 kids ... because the Long Beach Press-Telegram said these 10 kids were guilty," she said
The first story on the incident, which occurred at about 9 p.m. on Oct. 31 in the 3800 block of Linden Avenue, ran in the Press-Telegram on Nov. 2.
In the eight-inch article, Long Beach Police Officer Jackie Bezart said 10 black youths, nine girls and one boy age 12 to 17, were arrested on suspicion of a hate-crime attack.
Bezart said the attack began with a verbal assault as a group of black youths taunted three white victims with racial slurs. The attack then turned physical, Bezart said, and the victims sustained substantial injuries.
A follow-up story from a lengthy interview with the three victims ran on Nov. 4, in which the three victims - two 19-year-olds and a 21-year-old - described the beating and their injuries in detail.
It is presumably that article that Sauter was referencing in her arguments Thursday. She could not be reached for comment after court.
Credibility questioned Sauter used a timeline she sketched out on a poster-sized sheet of paper to point out inconsistencies she found in the statements by prosecution witnesses.
She tried to cast doubt on the testimony of an 18-year-old black witness, saying the girl could not have seen everything she testified to due to the lack of light and chaos that evening.
"She's not lying," Sauter told the court. "She doesn't have it right because that night was chaotic."
Sauter referred to the testimony of a good Samaritan as being "out there."
The one time he appeared to be most truthful was when he described the scene as a schoolyard fight, she said.
She also seemed to accept his testimony that it was two white cars and one red car that fled the scene of the crime, unlike the two red cars described by other witnesses and later stopped by police.
Sauter attacked the credibility of one of the victims, 21-year-old Loren, bringing up an emergency room doctor's testimony that the victims had been drinking that night. He added that Loren would not account for on the stand what she and her friends did between 8 and 9 p.m. and insisted she had not drank any alcohol.
The attorney focused on portions of Loren's testimony that did not match that of the 18-year-old black girl or the good Samaritan - including their recollections that Loren was kicked by someone, then hit one of the black youths.
Loren testified that she was kicked and swung her arms out, but said it was her friend Laura who was hit first and that is why she ran toward the crowd.
Throughout her review of the witnesses' testimony, Sauter continued to skewer the media, the police and the DA.
Police, she said, failed to properly investigate the crime after they found 10 black kids near the scene of the beating.
"The moment they got that call they decided they had 10 kids ... and 10 kids were good enough," Sauter said.
The DA, she said, brought her case to court too quickly to thoroughly investigate the 10 accused minors, then took too long to garner certain evidence and share it with the defense.
That included blood splatters found on the pants of her client, she said, which were not revealed to the defense until Dec. 14 - when they were confirmed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Crime Lab.
The late addition of evidence, she said, constituted a violation of her client's right to due process.
And the blood evidence, she added, proved nothing other than blood from anyone or anything could have gotten on the accused minor's pants at any time.
"That blood could have come from anyone, from anything and from any age ... up to 10 years," she said, referring to the criminalist's testimony that stains can be found many years after they are made.
After Sauter was finished, Bouas rose to her feet and loudly fired back.
"There's been an allegation by counsel that there was a rush to judgment in filing ... and on the other hand we were too late to file a hate-crime enhancement," Bouas said. "You can't have it both ways."
Bouas described Sauter's attack on the witnesses, the media and law enforcement as a diversion tactic to draw the judge's attention away from the facts of the case, including the blood evidence.
"If she wants to say the blood was there 10 years ago, I think (the minor's) pants would have been a different size back then," Bouas cracked.
Witness statements often don't match, Bouas went on to say. If the 18-year-old witness had collaborated with the victims prior to the trial on what happened that night - as Sauter alleged - then why did their testimony conflict, the DA asked.
"You know based on your experience that every witness sees things ... from their own perspective," Bouas implored. "It's doesn't mean there's a sinister conspiracy."
Nearly shouting, Bouas charged that if anyone had been manipulated by the media it was the defense attorneys.
They have talked to the media regularly, she said, going on to claim police reports given to the defense were illegally leaked to the Los Angeles Times.
Samaritan may return When one of the witnesses, the good Samaritan, was recently visited at home by a Times reporter, he discovered his address and personal information were included on the leaked reports, Bouas said.
"(The good Samaritan) is talking about wanting to flee the jurisdiction," the DA said.
The good Samaritan already refused to make any identifications in court after hearing about alleged witness intimidation carried out against the 18-year-old black girl who testified before him.
Police charge that members of the Baby Insane Crips waited on the witness' car on her second day of testimony, leading her to sneak out of her home and call police for an escort.
From then on, the 18-year-old was escorted by police to court. But as she testified on her final day on the stand, police said, members of the same gang went back to her neighborhood and rammed into her car, totalling it.
Bouas argued the police reports - which include addresses and phone numbers for the victims and witnesses - are confidential and can only be released on the authority of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court's presiding judge, Michael Nash.
Was action legal? By giving those documents to the families of the minors, she said, defense attorneys violated the court's confidentiality order.
That charge drew strong objections from several attorneys, including John Schmocker.
Schmocker said parents of accused minors are legally entitled to police reports involving their children. To assume the report was given to the media by an attorney, or that the reports should never have been given to the minors' parents is wrong, Schmocker argued.
In the end, Judge Gibson Lee set a hearing for today in an effort to determine how the documents were leaked and whether any laws were violated.
The judge also agreed to defense attorney Frank Williams Jr.'s request that Bouas call the frightened good Samaritan back to court today so that the judge can order him to appear for the defense's portion of the case if they choose to question him again.
In addition to the hearing and the appearance of the good Samaritan, defense attorney Clive Martin plans to to call a defense witness to testify, a friend of the 18-year-old black girl who testified for the prosecution and who was in that girl's car at the time of the attack.
The teen sat in the hallway outside of Department D with her grandmother for two days waiting to testify. She left in tears late Thursday afternoon when the judge apologized, explaining they would not get to her testimony that day and she would have to return a third time.
Martin would not reveal what the witness is expected to say, other than her version of what occurred that night was different from that of her friend.
"They were there," Martin said outside court, "They just saw different things."
A total of 12 witnesses are expected to be called and shared among the 10 defense attorneys, lawyers said.
Sauter, Moreno and Goss did win a round against the DA when the judge agreed it was inappropriate for the prosecutor to change the petition against three of the charged minors.
Bouas said afterward the changes, which she sought in a motion filed on Dec. 27, were a technicality and that the judge's denial would have little impact on her case.
Court is expected to resume today at 1 p.m.
Hey! YOU'RE now a part of the Media!!!
Grrrrrrrrrrr
Good that they're covering it. Bad that they can't write a correct English sentence.
This stuff irks me. Not only did the writer get it wrong, it got past and editor! Or maybe it was written correctly and the editor changed it!
heh -from the headline I thought they were referring to John Zeigler excellent reportage on KFI
"Baby Insane Crips"
Is that like the Cub Scouts? Do you get to move up to the regular Crips after successfully acquiring all your merit badges?
Another few hearings like this and those three white girls will get what's coming to them.
"Not only did the writer get it wrong, it got past and editor!"
"...and editor?"
"Baby Insane Crips"
It's time to buy more ammo.
I'm with you. I've been doing well stocking away scary rifles.
Need to start putting away ammo.
I don't write (or type) for a living.
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