watchpaul: Keeping up with the Bodhi Tree proceedings... Jury selection complete

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Keeping up with the Bodhi Tree proceedings... Jury selection complete - Opening arguments

Today, opening statements will begin in the double murder trial for Bodhi Tree, who is accused of killing Christina Schwarz, 18, and Alan "Sunshine" Marcet, 27, in a home on Eye Street on May 18, 2013. Tree also allegedly shot Rhett August in Eureka on May 15, 2013. August survived.

Tree pleaded not guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges. He faces 50 years to life in prison, if convicted. The district attorney's office will not seek the death penalty even though the case is eligible because more than one person died.

Jury selection for the trial began the second week of April, and concluded Friday, Deputy District Attorney Elan Firpo said....

Questions about Firpo, who is a district attorney candidate, are included in the final section. They range from whether potential jurors are considering voting for Firpo and whether her candidacy would influence how jurors view the case....

...Tree, an ex-convict who court documents indicate has a history of mental illness and had been released from prison just six weeks before he is alleged to have opened fire in a Eureka neighborhood. The court documents also indicate Tree confessed to the Arcata killings, telling a friend he'd “just shot two people.”

◼ Officials: Bodhi Tree is 'person of interest' in last week's Eureka shooting - Times-Standard 5/23/13
◼ Police Looking at Bodhi Tree as a ‘Person of Interest’ in Eureka Shooting Last Week - Hank Sims/Lost Coast Outpost 5/23/13
◼ Arcata double homicide suspect pleads not guilty: Case eligible for the death penalty - Lorna Rodriguez/The Times-Standard 5/23/13

◼ Officials: Looking for gun used in weekend's double homicide - The Times-Standard 5/21

◼ DOUBLE HOMICIDE ON EYE STREET (Update 2) - Kevin Hoover/Arcata Eye 5/18/2013 (image source)
◼ Homicide Suspect in Custody (Updated) - Kevin Hoover/Arcata Eye 5/18/2013
◼ Bodhi Tree, 28, arrested in connection with this morning's double homicide. - Kevin Hoover/Arcata Eye 5/18/13
◼ Bodhi Tree Booked On Two Counts Of Murder - Kevin Hoover/Arcata Eye 5/18/13
◼ FOURTH UPDATE: No bail for double homicide suspect - The Times-Standard 5/18
◼ ~~THIRD~~ FOURTH UPDATE: APD details search, arrest of double homicide suspect - Times Standard 5/18/13
◼ SECOND UPDATE: Police ID suspect arrested in double homicide - Times Standard 5/18/13
◼ Update: Police searching for Arcata double homicide suspect - Times Standard - 5/18/13

◼ Suspected Double Homicide in Arcata This Morning (UPDATING) - Hank Sims/Lost Coast Outpost 5/18/13 (image source)

◼ A footnote to history: Bodhi Tree is used to being arrested, sometimes with the aid of APD K-9 officers. He has a history of petty crime in Arcata and elsewhere.... - Arcata Eye Facebook (LINK EXPIRED)
◼ BODHI TREE'S HISTORY: High Speed Chase Ends with Officers uh…Treeing Suspect (click here for previous arrest information) - Kym Kemp/Lost Coast Outpost 10/5/11

◼ Parents of Murder Victim: ‘Her Light Will Always Shine’ - Ryan Burns/The Journal (image source) 5/20/13

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Paul Gallegos

The Humboldt County Grand Jury found that "Weak leadership and poor managerial practices" have undermined the office... Implicit in all evidence gathered by the Grand Jury - including interviews with the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) - is the unfortunate truth that the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) exhibits a limited understanding of how things are done in the department" Gallegos "lacks the global perspective needed to keep the department operating efficiently," and quotes an unnamed staff member as saying, "The D.A. (Paul Gallegos) does not fully understand the functionality of many of the things we do here" - Years later, in his own words: "I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs..."

Douglas & Zanotti

CASE TOSSED The district attorney misrepresented the law and failed to provide evidence of former Eureka Police Chief David Douglas' and Lt. Tony Zanotti's innocence during a criminal grand jury inquiry into the 2006 shooting death of Cheri Lyn Moore, defense attorneys argued in court documents filed Thursday... ”Our judicial system stands as a real and necessary check on the grand jury indictment process,” one of the documents states. “This court has the authority and the means by which to halt this prosecution, which is justified neither by the undisputed facts, nor by the law.”

Gallegos has taken what was "arguably the state's best small DA's office, with a cutting edge CAST program that "trained the trainers"... into a bunch of time serving bureaucratic wannabee brown nosers, lightly sprinkled with a couple of earnest learners who are sure to split as soon as possible.

One weeps for Max Cardoza who won Angellel, and for Maggie Fleming who won so many impossible victories. Mired in Humboldt for personal reasons, they have to suffer the ignominy of working for Paul, with Yougo, yes, yougo who has freed more people as a prosecutor than he did as a defense attorney. As has Paul. Anonymous comment

Gallegos has answers for everything. I’ve never met anyone whose answers came so quickly, with such polish - except about his law school(s). He likely sounded the same way when promising to get prosecutors off their anachronistic “at will” status and onto civil service status. It never happened. Indeed, he told them, “Disloyalty will not be tolerated” – a real morale builder.

He sounds great. What progressive doesn’t want to believe in him? But it’s a myth. He’s an intellectual lightweight and self-aggrandizer who tries to please everybody with glib answers. Jim Fahey for The Arcata Eye

The Humboldt County DA's office is one of the most exciting prosecutorial
offices in California.

Its District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, is willing to charge anyone who commits
wrongdoing--no matter how wealthy, sacrosanct, or ruthless. He believes in total equality before the law. He also plans to be innovative in promoting programs of prevention and treatment. He wants to make it the best prosecutorial office of its size in the nation.... Gallegos' Help Wanted ad

Gallegos' OWN Quotes

★ ...District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he believes the statute of limitations clock, even on misdemeanors, doesn't start running until law enforcement knows or reasonably should have known of the offense. In this case, Gallegos said, that means the statute of limitations would not run out at least until Feb. 8, 2009, or one year after Gundersen's arrest and the discovery of the photographs in question...

★ "...some people actually molest out of different feelings, some times out of feelings of love....” DA Gallegos explaining why Child Abuse prosecutions were down

★ “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” Paul Gallegos to the Times Standard 5/25/07

★ ...“One is that I do everything to make people happy which means I don’t stand for anything except for just something,” he said. “The other is I stand for something and I try to be a leader and take some people, a group of people, a community someplace and I say guess what folks, this is who I am. I stand for your beliefs. We share these beliefs or we don’t. You get the option to judge that. This is who I am and I am committed to leading us this place, wherever it is...." Eureka Reporter Gallegos defends record, looks ahead 7/3/2005

★ Note the difference between what he SAID, and what he DOES..."...So what are these issues? Top on Gallegos' list is the proliferation of "garbage cases," small-time crimes and overcharged cases that he said are clogging up the court system.

Garbage cases, said Gallegos, come in two forms: Cases that would lose if actually brought to trial and cases that are overcharged for the crimes committed. The idea behind filing both kinds of garbage, he said, is to get the defendant to plead guilty, netting a conviction without having to go into court.

Again, the IRONY is astounding! Look at what he SAYS, and then think about what he DOES! "Probably 95 percent of the cases that are filed plead guilty. In fact, there are a lot of cases that are filed on the assumption they will plead guilty, because of the time and expense involved in defending them. But these cases shouldn't even be filed in the first place, because if they were challenged, they would lose," Gallegos said. Better yet: If they weren't filed at all, it would save the county time and money...." North Coast Journal 2/21/02 Too bad he didn't take his own advice.

★ “Tim’s a stud,” he said. “He really is; anyone would be stoked to have him.” Gallegos on his second in command right hand man Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen. (Former second in command right hand man to Jim Jones/People's Temple.)

NOTE:

"Helping Crush Progressivism" - ie: exposing the predatory litigious orgs and those who seek power for power's sake.... The original purpose of watchpaul is to post important documents relating to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his handlers who seek to gain power through the acquisition of political offices. This includes, but is not limited to, the manipulations of "Humboldt Watershed Council," "EPIC," "Baykeeper," and other activist groups - the unregulated orgs. It also includes the master manipulators, such as Richard Salzman and Ken Miller.

Links to key stories and documents are also included in the sidebar, so that you do not have to try to scroll back through what has become a lengthy series of posts. I encourage you to use the Search and Labels features as well.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Keeping up with the Bodhi Tree proceedings... Jury selection complete - Opening arguments

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