We have spent a lot of time on these pages looking at issues like burden of proof and burden shifting, the overcharging by prosecutors, the overly-stringent and harsh mandatory sentencing laws, but fo ...

On December 5, 2009, Miguel Ruiz and Tiffany Dougherty entered the West Sacramento Wal Mart among other things, Mr. Ruiz purchased with cash a stereo, a game, and a Wii game controller.  Moments later ...

One day after his 18th birthday, Jesus Arias got a visit from the Yolo County Gang Task Force.  By now, many are familiar with Sargent Dale Johnson, along with Hernan Oviedo and Hector Bautista.  They ...

At a time when teachers and schools are being cut to the bone, the Governor's idea of taking $65 million out of the state's general fund to construct a new wing with 1152 beds for San Quentin's death ...

On June 17, the Vanguard reported that, despite all of the attention that Arizona's immigration laws were receiving, in our own neighborhood, in fact,  similar tactics are being used.A lawsuit has mov ...

Yolo County Judge Stephen Mock sentenced Rudy Ornelas on Thursday morning to 45 years in prison following his July jury trial in which he was found guilty of unpremeditated attempted murder, use and p ...

The West Sacramento Gang Injunction trial took an interesting turn late Wednesday afternoon when Judge Kathleen White, as the proceedings were wrapping up, suddenly admonished the plaintiffs.  Thus fa ...

DA Frequently Shown to Give No Prison Time in Exchange For Gang Admissions - In watching what has developed into an excruciating third week of gang injunction testimony, one thing is becoming more and ...

DA Shows Hand: Gang Injunction Prioritized Over Justice for Victims of Attack It was supposed to be one of the seminal cases for the Yolo County District Attorney's office.  On March 19, 2010, the Dis ...

On August 4, a story ran in the Woodland Daily Democrat entitled, "West Sacramento gang member sentenced in domestic violence case," and once again it was a strange title for a case that had nothing w ...

When Jeff Reisig ran for re-election this year, part of his focus had been on "increased conviction rates."  He writes on his webpage, "Jeff has improved efficiency in the District Attorney’s Office, ...

I was going through the list of hearings scheduled for today in the Yolo County Superior Court.  On a daily basis we have our interns watching these cases and it just struck me how many of them are no ...

The juvenile justice system, as well as the entire criminal justice system, have swung too far in the estimations of many toward long and harsh sentences.  Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has int ...

Last week, a Yolo County jury hung on all 12 counts for a man who was accused of and admitted on the stand to having actually made inappropriate sexual contact with a minor under the age of 14.  The i ...

Last week the second week of the gang injunction trial slogged on with even Judge Kathleen White getting a bit impatient with both the pace of the trial and also the fact that the plaintiffs, the Yolo ...

Juan Garcia lived in Long Beach with his common-law wife and three children, the youngest of which is only two weeks old.  He has been with her for five and a half years.  On June 4, 2010 according to ...

Guilty Verdict Raises Serious Questions About Priorities During Budget Crisis - Next time you hear Sheriff Ed Prieto or District Attorney Jeff Reisig complaining about their lack of resources to fight ...

On a night in November, 50 students took over the Mrak Hall at UC Davis.  Brie Holmes was never in the building.  Instead she was described by her Attorney Stewart Katz as being outside Mrak Hall - cl ...