On February 25, 2016, California criminal defense attorney James Crawford obtained a retrial for his client in a criminal case where the judge ruled the unfair use by the Orange County police and prosecution of a jailhouse informant has robbed the defendant of a fair trial.
The use of jailhouse snitches by the Orange County police and DA's office has hit the press long prior to that, and became a media scandal.
On March 9, 2016 attorney James Crawford who won the retrial of Henry Rodriguez, was reportedly beaten up, severely, IN THE COURTHOUSE by the Orange County District Attorney investigator Dillon Alley, right under the security cameras.
That happened just before the jury selection in another criminal case where Mr. Crawford came to advise a witness.
Even though the brawl was clearly in front of court security officers, no arrests for the brawl was made - and the initial report on the brawl clearly raises an issue of selective non-enforcement of laws against the DA's investigator, because had the defense attorney been the initiator of the brawl, he would have been arrested for sure.
On March 17, 2016 it was reported that the prosecution is claiming that their investigator was acting in "self-defense" and that the defense attorney - just before he was about to start picking the jury - punched the investigator in the face first.
Of course.
If that happened though, the defense attorney would surely have been arrested. The court security officers though did not want to arrest their "brother", the DA investigator.
Not to mention that the Orange County Sheriff's Department, the same Department that is in charge of the jail where informants were illegally used, are also in charge of courthouse security. Talking about conflicts of interest.
And, prosecutor's and defense counsel's stories "significantly differ".
Now, all of this was happening IN THE COURTHOUSE.
Are we living in the 19th century?
Do they not have security cameras in the courthouse to verify what exactly happened. Why do they have to rely on verbal accounts that "significantly differ"?
Or, did security officers from the Orange County Sheriff's Department make sure that the tapes are overwritten, not available, equipment broken, is not working - etc., that's the usual excuses of New York Court Administration not to provide security video tapes from courthouses when such videotapes can reveal misconduct of public officials in New York.
I recently wrote an article about being criminal defense attorney as a disqualification from public office and as a danger to the attorney's life.
Being a criminal defense attorney, especially a good one, is somehow considered a disreputable profession in the United States - even President Obama caved in and did not nominate a female federal judge, former federal public defender, when #JudgeJaneKelly was viciously - and falsely - attacked verbally in a smear campaign for doing her job.
#JudgeJaneKelly was also viciously attacked physically in the middle of her 19-year career as a public defender, and left bleeding and unconscious in the park.
Only that was in the park, with nobody around to see the attacker (and, obviously, the government did not try to knock themselves out to find the attacker, the attacker is still not found).
Here, whether Investigator Alley attacked Attorney Crawford or whether, as the prosecution now claims, the Investigator acted in self-defense, should be clearly visible on security tapes.
Using witnesses to verify what happened under court security cameras (operated by individuals with a distinct conflict of interest in the matter), as it is reportedly planned now in the forthcoming hearing, as I understand, verifying whether the DA's office should be disqualified from the case, is completely inadequate.
Once again - where are the court security videos?
#CriminalDefenseAttorneyLivesMatter
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