I was surprised when I heard that the Santa Ana Police Officer’s Association (SAPOA) pulled their endorsement for Hunt. Something in this story just didn’t sound right so I called Bill this morning to get his take.
Bill was hired by attorney Ricardo Nicol to help look at a criminal defense case of Victor Manuel Lua who is charged with a Santa Ana assault and robbery. Early on Nicol and Hunt found holes in the prosecutor’s case. The suspect was a known gang associate of the Santa Ana street gang known as F-Troop who has a prior conviction on his record. Right there most of us would say case closed, guilty as charged. However, the justice system doesn’t work that way. In this case, Nicol and Hunt had to look a little deeper. The suspect had completed his four years of probation without any further legal troubles and appeared to be getting his life together. Ok, no violins please. At the time the crime occurred, the suspect was not in the vicinity. Hunt says the cell phone records don’t lie. Further the original description was of two shaven head Latinos in blue jeans on a single bicycle. The suspect on trial was wearing basketball shorts and slippers (us older folks might remember them as thongs or shower shoes). A gun was used during the crime and no gun has been found since. Lua was in his truck just 400 feet from the crime scene when the officers decided he looked like he could be one of the described perpetrators because his head was shaven much like many other Latinos in Santa Ana and he had a criminal record. Also worth noting is that Lua was “caught” in what many describe as a rival gangs turf, implying that Lua isn’t actually in a gang nor was he associating with a gang at the time the assault and robbery occurred. Simply put, this is a case of mistaken identity which the evidence in the case proves.
R. Scott Moxley reported via OC Weekly that
“But Hunt disputes the assertion, saying that he was hired to work on a robbery case and recently attended a preliminary hearing but did not testify. He also says that his client, Victor Manuel Lua, is innocent of the charges based on evidence he's developed and that the gang allegation is tenuous at best: The 20-year-old Lua, he says, grew up in a Santa Ana neighborhood controlled by a criminal street gang and thus knows members but is not one himself.”
Hunt goes on to connect the dots for us. He thinks the DA began getting nervous when he started putting the pieces together and blowing up the prosecutions sure conviction. And we all know who the number two person at the DA’s Office is, Susan Schroeder, wife of Mike Schroeder. Yes, the same Mike Schroeder that gave us convicted felon Mike Carona; the same Mike Schroeder who is pushing hard to give us Craig Hunter, an Anaheim PD deputy chief. It’s obvious at this point that it looks like the Santa Ana PD dropped the ball with their due diligence and investigation. And everyone knows when the PD looks bad the chief looks bad and so enters SAPD Chief Paul Walters, possibly still disgruntled former sheriff’s candidate who appears to have finally given up on running and is now supporting Hutchens. You heard me correctly, he supports Hutchens.
Moxley reports this quote, "'Our members are very upset with Mr. Hunt,' one officer told the Weekly on condition of anonymity. 'He testified against us in court.'" Why do you suppose the anonymity? Is he or she afraid of something? What could a police officer be scared of?
No doubt Santa Ana police officers are upset and embarrassed for being called out in court over what appears to be a rush to judgment by the officers and investigators.
The real irony rests in two final thoughts. First, Bill Hunt has caught a lot of flack from immigrant rights folks who say he is a racist and anti-Mexican. This case alone clearly debunks that myth. Second, SAPOA provides assistance to its members who are charged with breaches in departmental policy and crimes. Their defense attorneys rely on private investigators to dig for the truth and protect them from wrongful prosecution and punishment. It seems highly hypocritical that this association would use their misguided logic to fulfill the political agenda of a handful of miscreants who are only concerned with their consulting contracts and political livelihood. You would think that it would have occurred to someone in the SAPOA that Hunt, as a PI, might work on criminal cases. But I suppose the SAPOA board members were too wrapped up in other matters or just didn’t care to know.
An interesting side note to the SAPOA and Chief Walters is that the SAPOA supported Hunt and the Walters supports Hutchens. Why not endorse the same candidate? Assuming the SAPOA endorses another candidate, who will they choose? Will they go against their chief by supporting the card-carrying union member Craig Hunter or will they fall in lockstep with their boss? You would think the SAPOA would realize the error of their decision and help the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS) elect their candidate Bill Hunt. I suppose the various OC law enforcement associations, though, are truly disconnected from one another and don’t see eye to eye except where wages and retirement are concerned.
UPDATE:
I was able to speak with the defense attorney on the Lua case, Ric Nicol. He said that in most cases that involve Bill Hunt, Bill comes back from his fact finding missions with a recommendation that the defendant plead guilty and spare everyone the cost of a trial. Ric also said that the majority of defendants that he represents are minorities. Again, there goes the racism myth.
Ric went on to explain the role of the private investigator in cases like Lua’s. The PI is a fact gatherer. Their job is to collect evidence that the DA doesn’t bother to look for. In this case it was Lua’s alibi together with the mismatched descriptions that the DA saw fit to ignore. After all, it is up to the defendant to disprove the People’s case. In Lua’s case, the cell phone records, numerous friends and family, his clothing, facial hair, etc. are fairly conclusive evidence that he isn’t the perpetrator, all of which were disregarded by the prosecution.
There were two OC cases which Ric sited as being noteworthy because the defendants were found guilty solely on eyewitness testimony and whom were later vindicated. The first is the story of Arthur Carmona, a 16-year old kid who was wrongfully convicted of a robbery in the late 1990s, due to bad witnesses and a shoddy defense lawyer (Larry Agran). Read more about Carmona’s battle:
http://www.ocweekly.com/2000-08-31/news/the-kid-is-free
The second case was that of Dwayne McKinney. ABCNews.com reported this on October 8, 2008:
“He was arrested for car theft and also jailed for attempted robbery. When he was 19, in November 1980, he was shot in the leg by a rival gang in what he said was one of the first drive-by shootings in Los Angeles' notorious South Central neighborhood.
In December 1980, McKinney's life took a turn for the worse. He was pulled over for a routine traffic violation, but what happened next was anything but routine. McKinney was accused of a much more serious crime: first degree murder.”
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5987657&page=1
The story continues…:
“Twenty-five years ago, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas was the young deputy district attorney assigned to the Burger King case. Armed with eyewitness testimony, he never doubted McKinney was the cold-blooded assailant sought for the killing.
‘The people who were put into a meat cooler by the assailant, and looked at him, told me that was him,’ Rackauckas said.
Rackauckas went on to describe the horrible scene that faced the surviving Burger King workers.
When they emerged from the meat cooler, Rackauckas said, ‘They saw the young manager there with his head on his desk in a pool of blood.’
Rackauckas asked the jury to make McKinney pay with his own life.
But McKinney was nowhere near the Burger King that night, and even presented witnesses who had seen him elsewhere during the time of the robbery. McKinney tried to point out that his injured leg would have made it impossible for him to leap over the restaurant counter, as witnesses described.
But, he said, ‘No matter how loud I yelled or how loud I screamed, no one really heard me because my lifestyle basically said just the opposite.’
The jury didn't believe McKinney's words or his witnesses. They found him guilty. Although McKinney escaped the death penalty, he was ultimately sentenced to life without parole.”
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5987657&page=2
In the latter case you have suspect who already has a criminal record. This helps plant a seed in the mind of the officers of suspicion and prejudice. For the street cop, this is that gut feeling that keeps you alive, day in and day out. It is a necessary tool that is developed quickly out of the police academy. However, for the police department investigators and DA investigators this prejudice should take a back seat to the facts of the case. The element of time is now on your side. There is no looming danger, no more car stops. This is where their fact-finding job begins.
Ric Nicol went on to explain that the DA has their own investigators who are supposed to go find all of the facts. Because relying on them alone does not give a defendant a much confidence that someone is looking out for their rights because the prosecutor may not like the evidence that the investigator conjures up, the Public Defender’s Office also has their own investigators. These are sworn police officers whose soul purpose when they get to work is to uphold the constitution. However, some of us have the resources to pay for our own defense attorney rather than rely on the Public Defender’s Office. That defense attorney doesn’t have an army of cops available to investigate their cases, so they must hire their own investigators, like Bill Hunt. According to several sources, PI work is the number one job of “retired” cops. With that in mind, are all of those cops who retired on sweetheart pensions all bad guys simply because their clients may be found guilty? Of course not! In fact there are few jobs a retired cop could do that would still be with the spirit of upholding the constitution.
As Ric points out, it isn’t (usually) the job of the street cop to go and conduct a lengthy investigation and verify alibis. Their job is to hook and book, refereeing to handcuffing them and booking them into the jail facility. Leave the other stuff, the detail work, to the professional and licensed investigators.
Ric wrapped up our discussion with a profound thought. The Santa Ana Police Officer’s Association is doing exactly what many accuse Arizona’s new law of condoning: racial profiling of Lua with a smattering of criminal profiling. They assume he is guilty and therefore any defense to the contrary is unacceptable. I hope the SAPOA will rethink their knee-jerk pull of their endorsement, but I have little faith that logic will prevail.
