In Court Fight With Occupy L.A., City Attorney Carmen Trutanich Sees Many Cases Dismissed

By Gene Maddaus Wed., Jan. 4 2012 at 4:33 PM

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich wants to teach Occupy L.A. a lesson about the First Amendment. But as the first wave of failure-to-disperse cases goes to court, the Occupiers are teaching him about the Sixth Amendment.

That's the one that guarantees a speedy trial, as well as the right to confront witnesses. The Occupiers are refusing to waive those rights, which has led to a slew of dismissals.

So far, 11 cases have been thrown out -- mostly due to insufficient evidence. Occupy court-watchers say that prosecutors are having a hard time tracking down their witnesses and getting their paperwork together in time to proceed with jury trials.

"It seems like everything is going in favor of the Occupiers," said Patti Beers, an Occupy legal observer.

In the wake of the Nov. 30 raid on the Occupy L.A. camp, Trutanich filed 50 misdemeanor cases. Most of those demonstrators wanted to be arrested, so the cases should be relatively easy to prove.

But so far, according to the City Attorney's Office, Trutanich's prosecutors have obtained three convictions, all via plea deals. Another two cases were deferred for six months. At the same time, seven cases were dismissed for lack of evidence, and another four were dropped in exchange for pleas to probation violations. The rest are pending.

Cheryl Jones, division chief with the L.A. County Public Defender's Office, declined to discuss the office's strategy while Occupy cases are still pending.

But Nicol Piras, an Occupy arrestee, said that Occupiers had made a "political decision" to clog up the system by refusing to agree to delays. The City Attorney's Office seems to have been hampered by the holidays, when many people are on vacation, she said.

"They're really short-staffed right now," she said. "Getting the specific officer who arrested the defendant has been an issue for the prosecution."

There have also been paperwork problems. On Tuesday, a judge dismissed the case against activist Martha Lewis. According to Patti Beers, who attended the trial, Lewis' public defender argued that the arresting officer should not be allowed to testify because his name had not been turned over to the defense beforehand. The deputy city attorney objected, but the judge sided with the defense and threw out the case.

Lawrence Ziese, 40, said the City Attorney's Office dropped the case against him for lack of evidence last week. Ziese, a legal observer for Occupy, said he was picked up at First Street and Broadway -- a block away from City Hall -- while trying to leave the demonstration. Ziese was held for 10 days on an outstanding warrant.

"I don't know why I was arrested," Ziese said. "The LAPD made a huge mistake."

Before the case was dropped, Ziese got a chance to see the evidence against him, which consisted of mostly photographs of signs that indicate the hours at City Hall Park.

Frank Mateljan, the City Attorney's spokesman, argued that the rate of dismissals is not unusual.

"The pattern appears to be consistent with what we typically see with mass arrests of this type," he said in an email.

Some Occupy activists, however, believe Trutanich rushed to file charges in order to make a political statement.

"The prosecution is concerned politically with bringing these cases," said Leone Hankey, an Occupy legal observer. "They're not supposed to bring a case to a jury trial if they don't believe they have the evidence."

Judie Woodworth, 22, was also about a block away from City Hall when she was arrested on Nov. 30. Woodworth, who is homeless, said she got conflicting instructions from different officers about whether she could stay on the sidewalk. The judge dismissed her misdemeanor case last week in the middle of jury selection.

"We chose as a group to do the speedy trial," Woodworth said. "I feel they did file the charges so they could get more money and make it look like they were doing their job."

Tags:

Carmen Trutanich, Occupy L.A.

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Kurt

I voted for Carmen Trutanich, one of the few things a TRUly regret. I will not make the same mistake again. I have been an attorney for 20 years and cut my teeth prosecuting minor crimes like trespassing. It's where you learn to do the job, it is basic stuff, simple, a law school graduate should be able to do it in their sleep. Regardless of my personal belief that prosecution of the Occupy LA protesters was unnecessary as the time they spent in jail was punishment enough, if Trutanich was hell bent on prosecuting these people for over staying their welcome on the city hall lawn, then he should have been prepared. Instead, Trutanich was too busy giving interviews and campaigning for his next job, to do the job he is paid to do. He had over a month to prepare his staff to handle this trials. Trials that would not have lasted a couple of days. But as we see, when it comes to actually doing the job, this man is incapable of doing it, incapable or organizing his staff properly, and according to his latest statement, all to ready to blame LAPD instead of his own office.

The DA's office, where Truanich dreams of going next, will remain a dream for him. After this debacle, he is unfit for any office.

JohnnyHaze

The city's threat to sue Occupy for alleged damages is yet another feather plucked from this guy's asshat. Seems they want to make a pre-emptive strike against potential lawsuits from Occupiers against the city.

Hmmm... whose side would most people take:

The side of the well-off, politically connected and corrupted officials who get the police to do their bidding -- including the absurd overkill of excess storm troopers in riot gear and hazmat suits, who have selected a "media pool" of reporters working for major corporations to cover their sanitized insanity in the raid against Occupy Los Angeles...

OR:

The side of a bunch of non-violent protesters who represent a (growing) microcosm of society, complete with its "problematic people": its helpless, homeless, heartbroken, abused, addicted, assaulted, disabled, disenfranchised, dismissed, foreclosed, forgotten -- but fired-up and fighting back, without the benefit of wealth, weapons and winning smiles? A bunch of average people, many of whom were left in too-tight cuffs for hours, without a restroom break or water, without a phone call, while many of their cohort were attacked by police blocks away from the Occupation site, away from the major media?

Clearing out the encampment didn't get rid of the problems in our city and our greater society. If anything, Occupy Los Angeles made things easy for the cops by being RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET and AROUND CITY HALL! The alleged health and safety issues were a ruse to dupe the less-than-observant public into thinking the powers-that-be had a right to trample on our rights to peaceably assemble and seek a redress of our grievances. Free speech, like the economy, like the police, like everything in our world, is a 24/7 thing in the USA... for the time being, anyway.

Any health and safety concerns in the encampment weren't "cured" by the raid. We have a sick society, largely fostered by the influence of "corruporations" on our economy, our media, our military, our government, our food, our work, our medical system, and on and on...

Using the death of the unsustainable gardening around City Hall -- known as a water-sucking lawn -- as another excuse to taint the Occupation is a weak offense, as well. GET RID OF THE LAWN/GET OFF THE GRASS! Occupiers pointed this out long ago, and had solutions to the non-problem, which they would have implemented if given the opportunity. But no, the officials decided to kick Occupiers out and erect a wall/fence around the park -- including a large, paved plaza area on the south side of City Hall, which could and should have been left open to the public. This ugly insult to freedom of assembly and speech is an eyesore and harkens back to other infamous walls in our collective history.

Mr. Villaraigosa: "Tear down that wall!"

Dkshaman

Tear down Villagrosa is more like it.

andrew

What a fraud Carmen Trutanich is. The last thing we need is somebody so incompetent in the DA's office. Instead of prosecuting criminals, he's going after peaceful protesters and failing miserably at that to even make a case against the occupiers. Go after REAL criminals! You're a joke Carmen Trutanich!!

Brian S.

Looks like there are some people inside the CA's office who must have leaked this information to the press. It is exactly what happened with Rocky Delgadillo. At the moment the staff at the CA's office are demoralized. They have been forced to take a 15% pay cut thanks to Trutanich's mismanagement and wasteful polices. While they suffer, he refuses to take a pay cut and has a few of his elite 'essential' inner circle who also are immune from the pay cuts. It hardly leads to a productive work environment, and certainly explains why so many of his own staff are happy to leak embarrassing information, like messing up the Occupy cases. There are, however, many more instances of mistakes made by Trutanich's people, especially the volunteers who don't really know what they are doing and have angered judges on the 7th floor numerous times. Trutanich does not know how to lead a government office, he acts like he's a solo practitioner with a bunch of lap dogs to do his bidding. It's a dictatorial management style that he likes, but we can all now see how it's failing and falling apart.

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Che

It's no surprise that people are finally seeing Trutanich for the phony empty suit that he is. Why don't you look at who and what he was before he became city attorney - an ambulance chaser. A guy who sued companies over slip and fall injuries. He doesn't know how to try a case, he just wants to shakedown whoever he can for a settlement, but he got outsmarted by a bunch of OccupyLA protestrs who probably had the sense to read a law book - which is more than Trutanich did. Thank you LA Weekly for exposing Trutanich, where is the rest of the media on this?

Truth In Reporting

The rest of the media is still at the Rose Parade-- noit covering the Occupy Octopus.

William

What a surprise to find Carmen Trutanich is full of crap! All the tough talk and he hasn't even got the ability to prosecute the simplest of trespass cases. I mean for goodness sake, how hard is it to prosecute an Occupy LA protester? It's a freakin' simple misdemeanor. Trutanich for DA? Yeah right, we don't need to let this CLOWN anywhere near serious crimes, he should be thrown out of office at the first opportunity.

beenthere

@William Everyone should look at case 8CA10541 . That case alone typifies the kind of madhouse that is the current City Attorneys office. The meida's silence on that case is a crime.