By Alexander Ramirez
SACRAMENTO – It appeared to be a semi-normal pandemic day of case hearings and continuances Wednesday in Sacramento County Superior Court, and included a high number of defendants absent because of medical reasons—which may be related to COVID, releases on pre-trial conditions, and an exoneration of bail.
But there were several cases involving alleged serious domestic violence.
Six cases on Judge Scott Tedmon’s schedule had to be continued because the defendants were not able to be present for medical reasons. This is on top of two other cases on Judge Tedmon’s Monday schedule that were also rescheduled due to medical reasons on part of the defendants.
It would be easy to attribute this toward the increase of COVID-19 cases in California, but no explicit medical illness was given for the absence of these defendants.
However, cases heard led to Judge Tedmon finding enough reasons to release the defendants for the purpose of rehabilitation. One such case involved counts of disobedience of court order, and trespassing. There were also examples of harassment by the defendant.
Judge Tedmon noted he believed there were some mental health issues with the defendant that needed to be addressed, and the defendant was released on conditions that involved counseling and pre-trial orders. The defendant was ordered to personally be present in court on March 10 for further proceedings.
But a couple of other cases involved intense situations.
One case involved defendant Adan Herrera, charged with ignoring a domestic violence-related court order, stalking to cause fear, and possession of narcotics.
Per the statement read during the case, “Everyone is going to get f***ed up, teeth are going to fly.” The victim was also reported to be in constant fear due to Herrera’s stalking.
Given Herrera’s poor financial situation as a handyman, no new convictions since 2008, concerns of threats to the family in question, and the drugs found in the case, Herrera was released on pre-trial conditions.
These included weekly check-ins and further monitoring, subject to day-or-night search seizures, prohibition from drugs, and the inability to contact the family in the case. Judge Tedmon noted that if Herrera were to come back to court, bail could be significantly higher than it was before. He’s due back in court Feb. 17.
A case that did not receive the same release conditions was one of DeLeon Stewart, who was charged with corporal injury to a spouse, threat to commit crime resulting in injury or death, firearm possession, child endangerment, and removing or destroying a wireless device.
Per the neighbor statement read in court, Stewart threatened a neighbor of the victim after the neighbor took in the victim’s kids out of fear for their safety while Stewart beat the victim “out front.”
“I ran out and got the minor and the other minor and brought them into my house to protect them,” said the neighbor.
“I also saw him punch her (the spouse) 15-20 times in the face and body area. Then he said he was going to “blow my m*****f***ing head off and kick in my door if I didn’t give him his kids back. “I don’t know him, so I believe him. Before any of this happened, (the victim) came to my door and showed me a gun and asked if she could leave the gun here to hide it. She said he threatened to kill her and she was scared.”
Due to two prior state prison commitments and the facts cited or alleged, there was enough to find reason for the court to reset bail to $100,000 and set further proceedings on Feb. 24 at 8:30 a.m.
Alexander Ramirez is a third-year Political Science major at the University of California, Davis. He hopes to hone his writing skills in preparation for the inevitable time of graduation.
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