Wednesday, March 28, 2007

We agree wholeheartedly on this one w/update

"As we approach the first anniversary of Moore's death, many questions still await answers, but there has been silence from the district attorney's office.

Silence will not make the questions go away, and the citizens of this city and this county -- as well as Moore's family -- deserve closure.

TS - Silence deafening as shooting anniversary nears

I'll go one step further, though, and say that Gallegos has no business making a decsion in this case. He should have kicked it up to the Attorney General long ago. He cannot be trusted to make the right decsion with regards to law enforcement. His attitude towards law enforcement was made quite clear during the recent election.

UPDATE:
Ahhh, the Dandy's take:
"Last week, we asked the question: What ever became of that? Specifically, we wondered what had become of several riveting events and controversies that dominated the headlines approximately 12 months ago, one of them the possibility of criminal charges being filed against members of the Eureka Police Department in connection with the shooting of Cheri Lyn Moore last April.

What, we wondered, was the hold-up? Either District Attorney Paul Gallegos will charge the officers with a crime, or he will not. He has yet to definitively do either. He has not charged, and he has not said he will not charge. And this is more than a little puzzling. The police stand-off with Moore, which ended with her death, lasted a little longer than two hours. There was a thorough, inter-agency investigation into the shooting, the results of which are on Gallegos' desk. There was a public inquest into the matter six months ago, at which nearly all the officers concerned, as well as others connected to the incident, testified under oath.

There are two matters for a prosecutor to consider when charging a crime, I'm told -- the facts and the law. It truly stretches one's credulity to imagine that either would take a year to research. In the case of the facts, the great bulk of the work has already been done -- forensic reports completed, witnesses interviewed, sworn testimony taken. It's not inconceivable that there would be a follow-up question or three, but it should hardly take six months to ask them. You'd think. The law, then? But this is an attorney's office. Great bound books detailing all the relevant statutory and case law lay at Gallegos' fingertips, and the DA bears a certificate from the state bar association which assures us that he knows how to read them.

We sought answers in an e-mail to Gallegos last week. We didn't hear back until after deadline. Here's his response, in toto: "All I can tell you is that we are evaluating the evidence that we have and will render an opinion on it as soon as we are able to."

The charitable onlooker might focus on the final phrase -- "as soon as we are able to." Having fired or otherwise driven off most of his experienced staff, Gallegos' office now suffers from terminal short-handedness, and what hands there are are mostly green. Therefore, perhaps even a case with as high a public profile as this one must sit on the backburner, waiting for ... something.

The onlooker not inclined to charity might say that Gallegos is a political creature first and foremost, and is simply sitting on the thing because he's unwilling to make a decision one way or the other for fear that it might piss off either a) his left-of-center base or b) the police. That's what an uncharitable onlooker might say."

***
(read the full column in this week's Journal.)

Hank reiterates on Eric's post: "Every person involved with the shooting has been interviewed by the Critical Incident Response Team, the inter-agency investigative squad lead by the District Attorney's Office. The CIRT report has been complete for over six months -- it was complete before the inquest and before the election, contrary to what you might have been led to believe.

Every single officer involved that day with the exception of one testified under oath during the coroner's inquest. All the information and the testimony from that proceeding has been on Gallegos' desk since September."

***

Well, I definitely qualify as an uncharitable onlooker, and my take is that anyone who watches Paul knows exactly what is going on - he always hesitates when he is being pushed to do something he knows is wrong and indefensible - and he doesn't have Stoen here to help him make this one fly. He can't come up with the equivalent of "the right to lie" rhetoric. So he drags his feet until he is pushed into a corner, and then he'll do as he was told.

If he had all the courage all his devotees gave him credit for, he would buck Ken Miller and say, "Look, Ken, I'm sorry, but there's just nothing there. It's tragic. It is sad. And there's nothing there for you to gnash your teeth on anymore."

It'll be interesting to see what he chooses. Most likely, as others have said, he will take the Grand Jury "out."

12 comments:

  1. Well said here Rose.And kudos to the standard for their write-up.The case should have been sent to AG's office many months ago.Rose may disagree here though,as I fear that his handlers in this case are the Eureka police department,and that doesn't bode well for the friends and family of Cherie Moore.Get this thing to AG's office A.S.A.P

    ReplyDelete
  2. The notion that EPD is handling PG is ludicrous.

    C'mon, Mark, PG the thought that PG is taking any advice from any law enforcement, based on HIS track record is mind boggling.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mresquan - are you for real?

    Dikeman said in May that PG couldn't make a decision here because it was too political and that the matter had to go to the AG. Did you just forget that piece of history.

    Paul hasn't done anything because he can't. 1) there is nothing to charge and 2) he will piss off his backers (definitely not the cops who hate him) if he doesn't charge. this is a lose lose situation for him.

    He probably has gotten a Grand Jury empanelled or is about to in order for them to do his bidding. You know that most people say that a grand jury would indict a shoe....

    that way he can say it was the GJ (shades of debi august) and try to say that he is only doing the GJ's bidding. Won't work if his office is the one presenting it to the GJ.

    No - Dikeman had it correct and the whole goddamn thing ought to go to the AG.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sorry, mresquan, but the notion that Paul hired a couple of guys from EPD and that he is now acting at their direction is just not plausible. And I'm putting it kindly deliberately.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The former EPD guys sold their souls for a cush do nothing job with a take home car. What does a Humboldt DA investigator do? Really?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Like the good prosecutors, the good ones do alot. But the good ones have all been, or are being, driven out.

    All the new Blackberries in the world can't help them now.

    ReplyDelete
  7. So you heard about the blackberries?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I heard the DA's office finally won a jury trial!

    Funny how in most counties the prosecution almost always wins but it's different here in Humboldt.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous said...So you heard about the blackberries?

    Weeks ago. Lots of money for new toys, but...

    ReplyDelete
  10. I guess there is plenty of money from salary savings from the empty Deputy DA's positions.

    Come to think of it there are almost as many DA investigators as there are DA attorneys? Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The "Ecological Rights Foundation" now has more attorneys than Humboldt County has prosecutors.

    You wonder why they need Paul at all. He is useless to them now.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hank Sims wrote: "Having fired or otherwise driven off most of his experienced staff, Gallegos' office now suffers from terminal short-handedness, and what hands there are are mostly green."

    Someone finally said it.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are closed for the time-being.