From Nesler's Judge to the Smoky Halls of Congress
I'm getting searches on Ellie Nesler again. No new news, so I'll just present what I know about the Tuolumne County Court.
First, according to an article that I had previously referenced (primarily for the Ellie Nesler content), William Nesler's case is scheduled to begin on May 11:
Willie Nesler will stand trial on a murder charge in Tuolumne County....
Nesler's lawyer had asked for the trial to be moved to a different county because of the notoriety of the Nesler name and pretrial publicity of last summer's killing.
But Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eric DuTemple ruled that media coverage of Willie Nesler's case has not been so overwhelming that an impartial jury could not be found.
"Most people in the state have heard of his mother, but the defendant has no particular standing in the community as far as I know," DuTemple said when he denied the motion.
Nesler, 23, is accused of beating David Davis, 45, to death at Nesler's family property on Shaws Flat Road. The killing occurred less than an hour after Nesler was released from the Tuolumne County Jail after serving time for beating Davis earlier in the year....
DuTemple did agree that Willie Nesler's lawyer, Donald Martell, and the Tuolumne County District Attorney's Office could question prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case.
Willie Nesler's trial is to start May 11. A co-defendant, Dean Dee Phillips, is charged with being an accessory to the murder after the fact. Phillips' lawyer, Sonora defense attorney Hal Channell, wanted the two men tried separately.
"The case against Mr. Phillips is weak as cited by Judge Boyack during the preliminary hearing," Channell said. "The only reason they (district attorney's office) want the cases together is that the people are hoping the case against Nesler will bleed over into the Phillips' case."
DuTemple ordered that Phillips and Nesler stand trial together since the witnesses for both cases would likely be the same and the circumstances regarding Nesler and Phillips being accused are the same....
When first arrested, Phillips was also charged with murder, but the charge against him was later reduced to being an accessory. Phillips is free on $50,000 bail.
Nesler is held without bail....
Now that we know the dates and the players, let's look at information about the Tuolumne County Superior Court:
Tuolumne County is located in the Central Sierra portion of California approximately 130 miles northeast of San Francisco. The county covers approximately 2,229 square miles and a population of over 54,500.
The mission of the The Superior Court of California, County of Tuolumne is to resolve disputes and apply the law fairly and efficiently providing equal access to all in a manner that will cultivate respect and understanding in the community for courts and the judicial process.
The bench is comprised of four judges and a commissioner.
Hon. Eric L. DuTemple is the current Presiding Judge.
The other bench officers are:
Hon. Douglas C. Boyack -- Department 3
Hon. William G. Polley -- Department 1
Hon. Eleanor Provost -- Department 4
Commissioner James Boscoe -- Dept 5
The Court Executive Officer is Fran Jurcso....
The Court has two separate physical locations for its five operating departments:
Historic Courthouse (housing Departments 1, 2 and 5)
41 West Yaney Street Sonora, CA 95370
Branch Location (housing departments 3 and 4)
60 North Washington Street Sonora, CA 95370....
I don't know if DuTemple is going to pull rank and take this case himself. If William is a pothead, he doesn't stand a chance:
At 5 a.m. on a Friday morning in late September [1998], Tod Mikuriya, MD, leaves his house in the Berkeley hills to drive to Sonora to testify in what he sarcastically calls "a wrong metabolite syndrome case." The defendant, Robert Hemstalk...is a man in his 50s who tested positive for cannabinoids back in March, one day after Mikuriya had recommended that he use marijuana for relief of chronic pain and as an alternative to alcohol. "He suffers encephalopathy, including cerebellar degeneration with obvious ataxia when he walks," says Mikuriya, who interviewed Hemstalk at the Oakland cannabis Co-op last spring. (You may have heard the condition described as "wet brain.")...
Mikuriya was not keen to make the three-hour drive to the Sierra foothills. He’s had to cancel appointments because Tuolomne County Superior Court Judge Eric DuTemple—a Republican, like every superior court judge appointed in California in the last 16 years— had refused to accept into evidence a written declaration confirming and explaining Mikuriya’s recommendation of marijuana to Hemstalk. DuTemple had also rebuffed the public defender’s attempt to have Mikuriya designated an expert witness—which would have meant remuneration of $400 an hour, the going rate for medical expert testimony....
The courthouse in Sonora is a solid, old three-story building made out of yellow brick, with big windows and high ceilings—the kind they used to build before all the money disappeared. The handsome oak door leading to Judge Eric DuTemple’s courtroom has been retrofitted to accommodate a big, ugly metal detector—three girders in an inverted U. DuTemple looks like Mr. Burns [from the prime-time television cartoon The Simpsons] in his 40s—your basic, mean, white man with hair a slightly unnatural rust color....
The prosecutor summed up: Hemstalk had simply paid $150 for a recommendation to use marijuana. He and Mikuriya did not have a "legitimate doctor-patient relationship as contemplated by 11362.5." Mikuriya’s recommendation was based on "a very superficial examination."...[He] argued that Hemstalk had tested clean for eight months and assumed he was in compliance with the law by getting a doctor’s approval. He added that Mikuriya’s recommendation reminded him of "the way in which my own doctor has said, ‘we’ll try this and see if it works.’"
Judge DuTemple said he would consider the matter and rule in a week....
A week after the trip to Sonora Mikuriya called Kahl and was informed that the judge was not going to send Hemstalk to prison. Nevertheless, Mikuriya has filed a complaint against DuTemple with the Commission on Judicial Performance. He charges that the judge with wrongfully insisting that he testify in person and then wrongfully denying him expert witness status. It’s the principle of the thing, says Mikuriya.
As it turns out, medical marijuana made today's news, with two Republican congressmen (Dana Rohrabacher being one of them) defending state laws allowing its use:
With a key Supreme Court decision on medical marijuana pending, advocates pleaded with Congress on Wednesday to let patients use the drug without fear of federal prosecution.
"It is absolutely cruel that the federal government does not allow us the right to use this medicine," said Angel Raich of Oakland, Calif., who began using marijuana to combat the pain of a brain tumor and filed the lawsuit that's before the court....
Raich was joined at a Capitol Hill news conference by talk show host Montel Williams, who said legal painkillers don't help his multiple sclerosis, and by a bipartisan group of lawmakers who endorsed legislation allowing states to make their own rules on medical marijuana.
Ten states have laws that allow residents to use marijuana for medical purposes - California, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Maine, Montana, Hawaii and Vermont....
Now justices are deliberating whether federal drug agents can go after patients in the states where the drug is allowed for medical purposes. That's the case Raich and another California woman, Diane Monson, brought after federal agents confiscated marijuana plants from Monson's yard.
A ruling could come as early as May 16, and while Raich and others hope it will be favorable they also want Congress to act. Past attempts to pass legislation allowing states to make their own medical marijuana laws have not succeeded, but five lawmakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum said Wednesday they'd keep trying.
"The notion that a state-sanctioned practice of medicine ought to be criminalized really makes no sense," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who said he was reintroducing the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.
Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said they would offer an amendment to a spending bill on the House floor to bar the Justice Department from using federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana use.
"It makes no sense at all to have the federal government overriding a vote of the people of a state on what should be criminalized and what shouldn't be criminalized in terms of personal consumption," Rohrabacher said.
Also supporting the legislative moves were Reps. Sam Farr, D-Calif., and Ron Paul, R-Texas....
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