Comments by OldSchool
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Posted on August 9 at 8:25 p.m.
Innuendo and presumption are squishy and feel good as they slip through our lives; facts are stubborn, sticky, hard, and not nearly as comforting. Learn them before arriving at "seems to me..." positions...
Posted on August 9 at 8:15 p.m.
Sanchez is a tool. Someone please help him find the job he's looking for out of this town.
Posted on August 9 at 8:12 p.m.
The good die young...and Matt was the best. Some people DO make a difference...and their loss will make a difference too.
Posted on August 6 at 10:25 p.m.
While loss of money doesn't justify any woman-bashing, neither does a john's refusal to be a victim of theft give her additional rights to make any claim under the sun or to protect her initial set of lies with another set of lies which the D.A. has suggestively "approved" for testimonial purposes.
D.A.s get away with a wide range of ethical abuses, including prosecutorial misconduct, which is taking place in the United States every day.
If the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence showing that the accused did not commit the crime, she doesn't tell the arraignment court judge about such evidence, and the judge rubber stamps the complaint without any further bench inquiry.
The prosecutor's interest in the prosecution is to win, and for the unscrupulous, unethical prosecutor (read Waldman here in this case) to win regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused.
The loss of a criminal case can cause a reversal in a prosecutor's career, and with such pressure to succeed, what difference does it make if the prosecutor cuts a few corners here and there?
As is obvious this week, a prosecutor like Waldman wants publicity more than truth. Have you ever seen Joyce Dudley or lizard-lipped Waldman pass a video camera without stopping to "comment"? It's the Howdy Doody Show all over again, kids! And...when they stop to provide local news with "a story" (why do you think they use the word "Stripper" in all the articles about this case?) the prosecutor is rewarded with favorable publicity.
Judges are there ostensibly to protect you and me from oppression, but prosecutorial oppression occurs without any adversary, and any efforts to expose combat prosecutorial oppression can be expected to result in even more oppression, more prejudicial, illegal activity, a greater chance for conviction, and a longer sentence.
Those in Santa Barbara working in the criminal justice system "know" that a person is not charged unless he/she is guilty, especially when provided reports from the media or clumsy police. If you're a defendant in SB, your guilt is very much presumed...and while the judge may refute that by admonishing all in the courtroom that innocence is the presumption, the actions of bailiffs and court staff in full view of the jury belies that shibboleth.
When a defendant dares to complain about prosecutorial misconduct, it's just one more pain-in-the-butt matter for the judge to deal with. If the complaint is dismissed immediately, there is less work to be done on the matter, and the defendant gets trotted off to prison; but if the complaint of prosecutorial misconduct is handled properly, there might be actual hearings to schedule and conduct, discovery to review, and decisions to write - all of which would take the judge away from the other pressures of his caseload, or have him getting home late for dinner like most of the rest of the working world.
You want justice? Stay out of our Santa Barbara courts!
Posted on August 6 at 3:28 p.m.
1. Sanger's a defense attorney providing his clients access to their Constitutional right to a fair trial in our adversary system of justice. Attorneys are not to be judged by their defendants' character or crimes; if that were the case, lawyers would only take on the defense of purely "innocent" clients, and the Police State would hold sway over us all.
2. Get your hands on this police report. You'll wonder why the DA went forward with this case in the first place. This defendant was trying to stop someone from stealing his money; purely a hooker/pimp setup to rip off a drunk.
3. This defendant's "prior criminal history" is at this point only an allegation, has not been adjudicated, and is not the proper subject of the SB DA's speculation, as she is not party to something outside of this county. Her media releases and comments about out-of-jurisdiction matters, as a matter of fact, open her up to charges of improper conduct to to a mistrial.
Loonpt, you make a great point. Prostitution should be legalized...as well as most drugs. But that would be bad for the liquor and prison business, wouldn't it? It's always about...the money.
Posted on August 5 at 4:34 p.m.
Amigo, she ripped the guy off and tried to split with his money. Even the arresting cop said that this defendant showed no physical signs of ever having hit anyone, but that he'd been scratched and bitten.
The lesson: if a woman steals money from you, it's hers and you're the problem.
The SB courts & juries are quite amusing...and dangerous.
Posted on August 5 at 4:15 p.m.
Court transcripts aren't as free as the opinions of people who read blogs and then feel entitled to slander/libel those of whom they make moral judgments, that is true. But get the police report; that's free if you know where to look. In it, you'll discover that the complaining witness fled the scene before the defendant did, in the company of her companion (read "pimp"), and was not located by police for 2+ hours, and then was contacted at the 7-11 at Montecito & Carrillo (shooter's alley)...at 4:00 a.m., following personal contact with yet another pimp at her home. The fact that the defendant was verifiably relieved of $400 cash which was never found--because the cops never looked for it--and that the complaining witness has a 20-year history of this kind of stuff was somehow disregarded by the DA/jury. Titanium "plates", by the way, are 1mm thick, 3mm long. More like...filaments, certainly not what the word "plates" conjures up.
Oh...and let's not forget the police interview recordings of the defendant which the DA successfully excluded from jury evidence. Why would she do that? Because it may be patently exculpatory and did not support her version of the "facts" for this verdict. Justice? Questionable at best, and certainly the evidence was rife with reasonable doubt, a concept with which this jury appears to have been sadly unfamiliar.
And...as one who seems to comment frequently in this town, I'd suggest that you look twice at everything that seems "cut-and-dry" in a media release.
For example, the police shootings in Santa Maria of late seem "cut-and-dry" too...but why did the police chief there abandon ship so quickly?
And Ken--if you were at all familiar with the "victim" in the stripper case, you'd realize she's far more than a "girl working her way through college doing a little exotic dancing"; she is, in fact, a 40-year-old heroin addict and convicted serial thief and admitted perjurer...who's biggest fan this week is DA Waldman. Birds of a feather.
Posted on August 5 at 3:33 p.m.
Mr. Clausen et al: suggest that you read something more meaningful than Walden's press release statements, i.e., the trial transcript wherein the complaining witness perjured herself repeatedly in open court while admitting to having committed more than 100 felony thefts and to being an active heroin addict...all pursuant to repeated and varying lies she told to police and DA investigators for the purpose of distracting them from the fact that she robbed this man of $400 cash prior to their physical altercation.
Why did she risk perjury? Because the DA promised to get her med bills paid and not to prosecute her and the other prosecution witnesses, each of whom has a far greater criminal history and convictions than this gentleman (who has no prior convictions of any kind).
Why did this trial take "a month" as this article states? It was actually 8 days of testimony...interrupted by repeated DA delays (Waldman takes a vacation while the defendant waits in jail...and the jury grows bored & restless? The right to a speedy/fair trial here was clearly ignored.)
Your reactionary sympathies are transparent; you--like the sleepy jury impatient to reach a 90-minute verdict so that they could wrap things up in time for Fiesta-- will no doubt believe that the DA actually had a case, when, in fact, all she had was a blizzard of accusations, defective police work (i.e., zero crime scene investigation, zero physical evidence of this man having hit anyone), and a series of witnesses willing to lie on the stand to avoid prosecution themselves. The corruption and "win at any cost" mentality of the DA in this case is apparent in her quickly slandering the defendant in the press as broadly and quickly as possible to further her own win-loss record. The entire transcript is a shameful read...and I recommend it to those of you who pop off in public.
Posted on July 7 at 8:47 p.m.
Eric, Jeremy, and Kyle personally serviced my home network PCs and Macs since...well, since before there was such a thing as MIW, and when Gateway and IBM computers were the bomb.
Once MIW came along, I enjoyed many, many years as one of their "original" in-home customers.
The financial demise of MIW does not mean the demise of these guys. They are smart, personable, creative, and energetic; they'll bounce higher than before once the smoke clears.
Look, it's just business...and they aren't the first tech-driven enterprise to suffer at the hands of the scandalous national economy. Bankruptcy laws are there to protect the entrepreneurial spirit, and there is no shame in failing.
I, for one, will keep my eye on these very resourceful guys and will put my money in wherever they go.
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Posted on September 13 at 10:16 p.m.
Pablo was one of the best. A gracious host and the consummately creative bartender! Generous beyond all reason, one of the best days on the water I've ever known in over 50 years of surfing was with Paul on a perfect day at Loons. Pristine head-high rollers with less than a handful of "mature" surfers and our sons. Paul and I goofed on most waves, but I could never keep up with his double-cutbacks as he toyed with me by passing me top and bottom, casually touching my back as he pulled up next to me and guided me into the sweet spot of waves that were really his to ride.
And when not on the water, he was eager to share his art, his music, and his home. Just a great, loveable guy who always had a wry "aside" and an ironic point of view. The Rose Cafe on Haley will never be the same without him, and he will always and forever be missed by all who were blessed to know him.
On Obituary for Paul Hunter Turpin