It’s looking more and more every day like District Attorney John
Sarsfield is San Benito County’s equivalent to Gray Davis. This guy
spent thousands of tax dollars looking backwards at something that
was not charged and not prosecuted.
He then uses something called the
”
Brady
”
law to call into question the legitimate murder convictions, all
the while having full knowledge that
”
Brady
”
does not apply.
It’s looking more and more every day like District Attorney John Sarsfield is San Benito County’s equivalent to Gray Davis. This guy spent thousands of tax dollars looking backwards at something that was not charged and not prosecuted.
He then uses something called the “Brady” law to call into question the legitimate murder convictions, all the while having full knowledge that “Brady” does not apply.
Is this guy nuts? From what I’ve read, the “Brady” law only applies in the minds of Sheriff Hill and District Attorney Sarsfield. We also learned that, earlier this year, Salinas attorney Miguel Hernandez, with the help and encouragement of DA Gray Sarsfield, used this alleged “Brady” violation in court and the court rejected it. Sarsfield knew this and yet still went forward with his press conference.
The question is if Sarsfield already knew “Brady” had been rejected, why did he go forward with the press conference? The obvious answer is political payback.
Suspicious, I made some phone calls and discovered that, Harry Damkar, Greg LaForge, Dennis Stafford and Richard Boomer openly supported Sarsfield’s political, and now adversary, attorney Art Cantu. Stafford even went so far as to donate $250 to Cantu’s campaign.
These are also the same defense teams that have been beating the pants off of the DA’s deputies in court.
Sounds like motive to me.
Hill and Sarsfield do like to grandstand.
The last time you saw those two mo-mo’s patting each other on the back saying what a great job they had done was after the arrests in the Santos murder case … and you know how that’s turned out. As you saw Friday, the second confession from that “great case” is about to be thrown out of court right along with the first one.
The most shocking information to come out of all of this was the revelation that Sheriff Hill himself had been charged and tried twice for the beating of three handcuffed prisoners.
Were Hill and Sarsfield so stupid as to think this wouldn’t come out? Did Sarsfield even know about the two trials? During Hill’s elections why didn’t the media do a FULL story on the beatings? Is Sarsfield now going to waste more tax dollars to pull up and investigate every case Hill worked on? Will he thrown another press conference to announce to the world his finding? Will he contact all the attorneys involved in those cases and advise them of Hill’s numerous potential Brady violations?
If Sarsfield is being truthful, you need only to read his quote in Thursday’s Free Lance: “Once a prosecutor learns of information that a defendant could use at trial, the prosecutor is legally required and compelled to turn it over. There is no discretion in that regard.”
What are you going to do Mr. Ethics? To quote you, “… the obligation of a criminal prosecutor is clear.” You’ve put yourself between a rock and a hard place.
If you don’t investigate Hill, you’re guilty of an obvious vendetta and a double standard.
If you do investigate him, you’ll open an industrial-size can of worms because Hill was charged and was in fact tried and “Brady” truly does apply to him.
The old saw seems to be true … What goes around … comes around.
Bruce Kiefert, Hollister
