By Lovepreet Dhinsa
SACRAMENTO – Defendant Gary Davis needed answers here in Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday—but he didn’t get them.
It appeared Judge Kara K. Ueda, Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Aarseth, Assistant Public Defender Damien Jovel, and even the court reporter couldn’t and didn’t want to help a frustrated Davis.
In the hearing, defendant Davis joined the Zoom court conference from work, and he was shut down repeatedly by various members of the court.
Jovel and Aarseth were ready to resolve the case and negotiate further to get an offer that was satisfactory to all parties.
But the defendant immediately stopped the conversation from going further, and requested that the court retrieve more information from another jurisdiction.
Defendant Davis stated that he was incarcerated in a different county, and argued his time in jail there should count toward “credits” to Sacramento County. He recalled serving more than 60 days in another county, and requested that the Court get access to those records before his next hearing.
PD Joval attempted to silence his client but the defendant asked if he could finish his statement.
The judge then asked the clerk for further information about Davis’ custody in Sacramento County, and the clerk reported to the judge that the defendant had 72 days of credit.
Defendant Davis explained that he was incarcerated from Nov. 21 and released Jan. 31 in Sacramento County, but he was then transferred to a Contra Costa County jail in Martinez, where he served time from Jan. 31 through April 29.
That would mean, Davis insisted, between both jails, he would have completed over half of the total 210 days the DDA had offered in the current case.
He missed his Sacramento court date because of CC County jail time, and then missed his Sacramento court date again so his bail was increased from $50,000 to $100,000. Davis said the mistake was Sacramento’s.
The judge noted the court only had the 72 days on record from Sacramento County, and not any other records from another county. The defendant once again requested that the court subpoena these documents, and stated that “I cannot go get them. Only the courts can do that.”
The judge then told Davis he should speak with his attorney and refused to listen to the defendant’s request.
Davis explained that this was exactly what happened at his last hearing, where the judge did not listen to him and ended the Zoom meeting, and “today we are sitting here and nobody knows anything, nobody did anything.”
The court reporter interrupted Davis, explaining she had difficulty hearing, upon which his own attorney, Joval, stated that the defendant was saying that “he is saying he does not have time for this.”
Davis then began asking his attorney if that was all he heard, among all of the requests that Davis had made. The defendant asked the attorney why he was being mocked by him, and why his attorney failed to represent him properly.
The judge completely ignored Davis and scheduled the next hearing for March 23 at 8:30 a.m.
Once again, as the defendant said happened last time, he was left with his questions unanswered and the judge ending the Zoom meeting.
Lovepreet Dhinsa is a junior undergraduate student at the University of San Francisco, pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Politics with a minor in Legal Studies. She has a passion for criminal defense law, and strives to go to law school to fight for indigent clients. As such, she is also involved in her university’s mock trial program and student government.
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