our lips are sealed

pre-trial questions...

Is this America?? do we have a justice system? then where the hell is it??
it barely showed up Tuesday... instead I got to see a three ring circus!

so I show up at the Courthouse at about 1:00 PM for the 1:30 PM trial..actually it's the preliminary hearing..it's a hot and sunny day and I wore pants.. I'm trying to keep cool but there's no way...the first beads of sweat start dripping....why am I not at the beach??

there's Cam Sanchez's pal Wayne Scoles in shorts..the first words outta Wayne's mouth when he talks to someone is the "SB COPS ARE CORRUPT AND I PROVED IT" and he was carrying on about other cops in the lobby....ok dude, relax, the whole world is corrupt, deal with it....

hey, there's Paula Lopez coming out of hubby Frank Ochoa's chambers...don't worry Paula, our lips are sealed!!

next I see Scott Steepleton from the News-Press who was limping, very polite and sans beard...he was looking at me like a little kid looks at cotton candy at a carnival...then I see a bunch of babes..hot babes..there's Kasi Beutel..she's a very good looking woman and I can't believe she frightens these grown men...there is no way she's a "rogue cop" running around abusing drunks as I concluded rather quickly...discipline maybe, but not abuse.
this is a just a very sloppy story cooked up by Lance and the News-Press...

it's time to go inside the court room..but first you have to pass through a metal detector..empty the pockets..I stand in line gabbing with some folks..some short skinny gal with stringy hair starts telling me her life story and how Kasi Beutel is a liar..she says she was stopped by Kasi but never filed a complaint and doesn't know what to do now..then she starts in about her rent being too high...WTF am I supposed to do about it?? who are these people??

Scoles is still gabbing about how wonderful the News-Press is until I tell the skinny girl that the News-Press sucks and will print anything..Scoles hears me...looks confused and shuts up... we all go in the courtroom.. I look around and there's the college girls sitting in the front row....turns out they are witnesses for Lance..oh my this should be good..

My Cousin Vinny

well the judge comes out and sits down..Brian Hill is his name...boy, this guy really knows how to waste time...he rambled on and on about the gag order and the T-waivers...and the alleged forgery by a Santa Barbara cop.....when Hill tried to explain, in very lengthy fashion, the gag order he orally placed on Lance and the News-Press, Lance jumped up and started yelling at him.... bringing up the Pentagon papers and the First Amendment..for the first 15 minutes, Lance and his attorney Darryl Genis steamrolled the judge..Genis claimed he couldn't get a word in edgewise and the judge was filibustering....

Judge Hill just sat there and took it..and finally wimped out on the gag order, declaring that since Lance got sealed information legally from the Courts, he could print it.....actually the series in the News-Press may come back to bite Lance in the ass as it contains so much hearsay and BS!

well, Hill was losing patience with the antics of Lance and Genis..they were smiling and looking back at the audience like a couple of middle aged frat boys....and Lance with his black cowboy boots looked like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny...it was really quite funny!

but after a while, and more Lance interruptions, Judge Hill finally told him "enough" or "I'll throw you out of the courtroom"...Lance kept quiet after that...
but these guys spent all their energy showboating in front of the judge and audience that they fizzled out at the end of the day and Kasi's lawyers took full advantage of that....

4&20 Blackbirds

Lance and Genis are trying to prove that Kasi or some SB cop forged their signatures on a DUI ticket waiver, so the next session revolved around the handwriting experts... Lance had about 4 or 5 college kids, guys and girls, who were busted for drunk driving as witnesses...

after the questioning, the kids had to write their names TWENTY TIMES on a waiver form so the handwriting experts could at some other time determine what signatures were forged..these examples were called "exemplars" by the court..well, should the kids have signed twenty times drunk, as they were on the night of their arrest??

this was Hill's idea and he messed up bad..this whole notion of forgery should be thrown out..it was a silly exercise and many judges today are simply not dealing with handwriting experts anymore..it's quackery!!

so two college kids took the witness stand..without lawyer representation!!! Judge Hill advised them not to speak without a lawyer and warned about perjury, but they said they didn't want one..the first kid said he blew a .15 after having a few drinks when he was arrested...he said his dad called Lance to include the kid in the News-Press series..

the second kid also said he didn't want a lawyer but after Kasi's lawyers peppered him with questions that confused him, he said that Darryl Genis was his lawyer...at least he thought so!! Genis and Lance were wincing more than once while these kids were on the stand as was the judge..it was a major blunder asking them to testify....Kasi's lawyers caught them in at least two lies each!!
I swear to God these kids looked absolutely clueless and scared and simply not credible...and the slacker parents want to blame the cops for their kids' DUI!! I mean really, junior out joy riding in mommy's car drinking VODKA and it's the cops fault....Lance et al are just the worst enablers..

the prelim continues Friday at 9:00 AM.....if it gets to a trial, I hope I'm on the jury..really! but at this rate with Brian Hill as judge, it may take forever....