New 26feb02
Subpoena to San Diego DA to provide information regarding an assistant DA tampering with a Small-Claims action as a favor to a lady friend. ... Page 1 ... Page 2
Note, of course, that the DA ignored the Superior Court subpoena. Note further that the person the assistant DA was assisting in this Small-Claims case also ignored all subpoenas.
Citizen's Complaint of misconduct, including criminal misconduct on the part of the above assistant DA and an additional assistant DA, officially served on the San Diego DA ... Page 1 ... Page 2 ... Page 3 ... Page 4 ... Page 5 ... Page 6
Proof of service of the above 2 items on the DA by a professional process server ... Service
Note further that the San Diego DA refused to acknowledge or reply to any of the above.
San Diego, 26 February 2002 - letter to various media. As usual, we do not hold our breath awaiting publication. As can be stated here in San Diego, the mainstream media can be considered to be "Huevos devoid".
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Regarding the DA race and allegations of Paul Pfingst's "insufficiencies".
We see a lot of bland and general comments and allegations thrown about, yet none with any real substance.
All of the candidates have my story in significant detail as does the main-line news media in San Diego, yet you have not seen it covered. In this case the office of DA, under Paul Pfingst, condones the conviction of an innocent person simply to cover for a Sheriff deputy attack on that person and head off a lawsuit. I guess this is standard DA "politics".
The Longanbach case is not the only case where DA staff was engaged in personal business while on the payroll, had the information reported to the DA, had the DA cover and/or ignore the incident. See the below web page for a summary of an assistant DA engaging in efforts to have a lady friend released from responsibility for paying past-due rent as a personal/political favor, apparently while being paid by the County.
The mainstream media has lost the will to present truth and controversial issues, even when supported by a lot of documentation. The internet is about the only place to acquire the full story, in this case see http://www.itsforthekids.com.
A simple web search for "prosecutorial misconduct" or the large number of innocence projects will frighten you with their stories of innocent people in prison and the statistics on prosecutorial misconduct.
The DA was provided my official complaint of a series of events of ethical and criminal misconduct in sufficient detail, yet has refused to even respond to that complaint. Note that there appears to be no place to report, and expect action on, crimes committed by the members of the DA staff.
When catching the DA in acts of misconduct even criminal misconduct, the standard legal reply from them is:
"In addressing the issue of whether common law immunities should apply to prosecutorial conduct that is alleged to be improper, unethical and perhaps even criminal, the U.S. Supreme Court in Imbler, 424 U.S. at 427, 428 held in favor of absolute immunity."
So we have a group of people, without any civilian oversight or review, having the power and willingness to pursue the convictions of innocent people, being blessed with the ability to engage in criminal events to gain that conviction and having no fear of being held accountable for that criminal activity. This is the office of the District Attorney, aggravated here by the presence of Paul Pfingst who is not interested in making the difficult decisions necessary to restore integrity and honesty to the office. Hey, that 92% looks good, don't want to mess with that!
Paul Pfingst extols the 92% conviction rate. What we need to know is how many of these have been overturned on appeal. The real question is how many of these were convictions of innocent people just to drive up the conviction statistics.
Paul Pfingst has made the statement that he "Will never seek a conviction simply because he can get away with it". These are empty words overshadowed by prosecutor activity on a regular basis, much too often to not be condoned by Paul Pfingst.
I cannot remember the learned individual who made the statement similar to “Better a hundred guilty go free than we convict a single innocent man”. These days this has been changed to be “So what if we convict a few innocent people, we are keeping our jobs and the statistics look good.” Yes, Mr. Pfingst, that 92% looks real good.
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resume the normal page
Facts
The role of the prosecutor is to make a criminal out of a citizen.
The Real World
The district attorney wields a tremendous amount of power and considers the office and all associates to be totally above the law and immune from any action that a normal citizen would be subject to.
The district attorney is a clear violation of the California and United States Constitution prohibitions on the creation of a class of people with privileges not available to the normal, law-abiding citizen. As far as can be discovered, there is absolutely no citizen oversight of the DA nor any method of handling citizen complaints.
The district attorney will argue in a court of law that it is quite appropriate for a district attorney to break the law if they can get a conviction and extends this demand of immunity to all witnesses they might call. Be very concerned, the district attorney demands that they be allowed to commit criminal offenses if it will enable them to get a criminal conviction of an innocent citizen. Here is a direct quote from a Federal Civil Rights lawsuit against the Sheriff/DA (a conspiracy between 2 San Diego Sheriff Deputies, a Sheriff detective, a Sheriff Lieutenant and an Assistant DA to cover the felony attack of one of the Sheriff deputies on a citizen):
“In addressing the issue of whether common law immunities should apply to prosecutorial conduct that is alleged to be improper, unethical and perhaps even criminal, the U.S. Supreme Court in Imbler, 424 U.S. at 427, 428 held in favor of absolute immunity."
The above quote is directly from case # 99-CV-1824-J(JFS) in US District Court San Diego. Based on these arguments by the San Diego County counsel protecting the criminal Sheriff/DA, the case was dismissed and is on appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as docket #00-56944. The argument is that, contrary to Sheriff/DA policy and practice, "It is not proper for the DA or the Sheriff to be able to frame a person for crimes that did not occur simply to cover the felony actions of the Sheriff's deputy". The San Diego DA, Paul Pfingst, has had criminal conduct on the part of his staff reported (and served by a professional process server) to him. Evidently, due to his lack of response to the complaint, he considers this to be normal and appropriate behavior.
An official Citizen's Complaint (well, as official as can be because the DA does not publish their methods of handling citizens' complaints despite it being required by California Penal Code 832.5) spelling out numerous ethical and criminal events engaged in by members of the DA staff was served on the DA by a professional process server and has not been responded to in any way (documents above).
You will see the DA look right in the camera and state that he or she will not tolerate professional or ethical transgressions in their departments. It kinda takes you back to another recent event where a public figure looked directly into the camera, wagged his finger, and stated "I did not have sex with that woman ..." (you know the rest) Come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing DA Paul (never seen a cop shooting a citizen event I did NOT like) Pfingst state that he would not condone criminal activity, Hmmmm, gotta watch closer.
The members of the DA staff will do whatever it takes to get a conviction to include making accusations where there are absolutely no facts or evidence to substantiate, bribe witnesses with personal or monetary favors to lie to support the DA's case. It is a personal battle and game for them and they have little care or concern for the person that they may unjustifiably be turning into a criminal. They just do not care and bask in the realm of complete immunity for anything they do.
The words about being "Innocent until proven guilty" are mouthed, but the DA has no qualms in throwing out a large quantity of falsehoods and just force the citizen to somehow defend and explain them away. The only statistics of importance to the DA is convictions, he/she has little concern about how the convictions were gained.
We have entered the 2002 election year, so we have a little hope in getting a new DA in San Diego that actually cares about the law. Then, of course, we see that the only hope of an outsider replacing Paul Pfingst was lost in the primaries. Paul Pfingst's opponent in the November elections is a former assistant DA who is now a judge; Bonnie Dumanis has received the DA complaint listed above and of course has ignored it ... business as usual in the office of DA ... despite election claims there appears to be no interest in curtailing criminal activities in the office of the DA.
The power of the closing arguments.
The process in criminal courts in closing arguments is that the prosecutor makes his or her closing arguments, then the defense makes their closing arguments, then the prosecutor makes more arguments. It is at this stage, where the defense is not allowed to respond, that the prosecutor will launch into some of the most egregious falsehoods, claims of things not shown by evidence, emotional pleas for conviction. You heard right, the defense is not allowed to respond to this activity and the jury is left with the ringing of these falsehoods when they go to deliberate.
This is defined as prosecutorial misconduct, but the issue cannot be addressed except on appeal which most cannot afford.
LA case where the DA got mad about losing a case, framed the defense attorney for various things, got him convicted and sent to prison, case overturned, allowed to sue DA, but only partially.
Leonard Milstein, a lawyer has been victimized by criminals in the DA's office.
More as it occurs.
