well, it was interesting day at the courthouse...Judge Hill after all this time dismissed the DUI case against Peter Lance due to his nutty reading of the 4th Amendment regarding searches and seizures...after sitting thru this fiasco for months, I went outside and almost had a seizure..man I was pissed...from the start Judge Hill had no control over his courtroom, and now he caves on the DUI charge against Lance..not because Lance was sober that night, but because when the light turned green, Lance only waited about five seconds before proceeding....and the cops should have just let him go.... how many seconds do you wait when the light turns green....I don't wait, I go..that's what a green light means.....
let's start at the beginning of the day.. I got to the courthouse at 8:15 AM and got coffee at the Presidio Deli...what a cool little market! Lance's hearing was on the calendar but a bunch of other matters were also..the first was a briefing on the Denunzio case...Denunzio was not in court but the gist was Denunzio's blood sample that Genis wanted and the County wouldn't turn over without a court order...Denunzio was stopped and allegedly beaten by an SB cop...what came to light was Denunzio is being investigated for domestic violence but no complaint has been filed yet... I think I heard that right but could barely believe it....
Kate Smith was in court with her public defender..Kate was pretty in red sweater and will be on trial next week for something..Kate is an outspoken critic of government but today she was very demure and motherly...we're all Jekyll and Hyde to some degree!
more folks came into the court...Officer Beutel and her husband, all the lawyers in suits, Scott Steepleton from the News-Press....Lance et al
a few more short hearings/cases moved quickly thru the court and finally we came to Lance..Judge Hill was hearing a motion to suppress and dismiss the case.....I didn't expect everything to end today, but it did in Lance's favor...not because he wasn't DUI that night in January, but because of Judge Hill's interpretation of the 4th Amendment!!
Hill says the two cops Peterson and Clark didn't have reasonable suspicion to stop Lance!! that's right..not because he was sober or a good guy, but the cops saw LAnce at a green light and he wasn't proceeding forward until about five seconds later....then Hill cited some cases out of state to support his dismissal of the case against Lance...
I found this absolutely unbelievable...so what were the cops doing, just picking on people on New Year's...do ya think maybe some folks were DUI that night, Judge Hill?? you know, with all the toasts going down the hatch!!!!
and the actual stop had NOTHING to do with Officer Kasi Beutel, but rather the two other cops who stopped Lance! so Lance tries to fry Beutel in the News-Press for no reason!!
good God Almighty.... LANCE WENT AFTER THE WRONG COP!! I mean if you follow the logic, he should have written an expose in the News-Press how the other two cops who stopped him, violated his 4th Amendemnt rights, but he didn't...he went on a wild goose chase..the Trombetta waivers, the tapes, the forgeries, the handwrting experts..all a bunch of bullshit..if LAnce is such a brilliant reporter and Genis is such a good lawyer, why wasn't the 4th Amendment issue pursued up front??
I do hope Officer Beutel gets some justice from the News-Press..like a one with six zeros!!
WTF is wrong with Judge Hill???? what a waste of time this was...Hill should resign from being a judge and go back to sweeping the court house floors..
you got lucky Lance, but you didn't win a thing...
5 comments:
Wow! WTF Mick??!!
So let me get this right, two well trained police officers see Lance stopped at a green light (a violation of 21451VC) with another car waiting for him to proceed (a violation of 22400VC). The cops pull up along side of him and see him looking downward, perhaps asleep, texting or just a wee bit wasted. They shine a spot light on him and he slowly pulls his head out of his ass and proceeds. Are you with me so far? Now it just happens to be New Years at 1AM....any rookie cop would conclude that this should at least be looked into!
But not Judge Hill, he thinks the cops should have ignored this, ignored their instincts, ignored the oath they took to protect us from idiots like Lance and just let him go.
I have a question for Judge Hill.... If Lance would've plowed into someone in your family's car....would that be sufficient to hold him over for a trial by a jury of his peers?
Bad day for justice Mick.....bad effin' day!
I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto
What a coincidence,
Lance was arrested for DUI and domestic violence and so was Denunzio.
I guess birds of a feather....
Maybe the Judge will let Denunzio off too.
Genis must be so proud.
I wonder what Genis would say if Lance or Denunzio kills someone in the future while driving DUI?
Keep up the good work counselor.
I arrested several DUI's back in the day for failure to proceed on a green light. After all, Who else does not go on a green?
In fact, I never went to court on any DUI. They were all filed and all pled. It just isn't that tough. But then I cleaned what I caugth, something Santa Barbara does not always do.
Judge Hill is a chicken shit and just wanted this case to go away because he was afraid it would expose his continuing ineptness in case law interpretation. We actually are in Kansas, Toto. This is small town baby shit. If this was in LA, Lance would be serving his sentence by now with a DUI on his record like he deserves.
SB is a place for weenies, drunks, and vagrants because nobody here has any balls.
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