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http://covid19.ca.gov

– Office of the Governor of California (Gavin Newsom)

@CAgovernor

https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1312437371460173825

please, oh please, recall this vile clown

San Jose: Astronomical bail challenged for suspect held in mayor’s house vandalism

An arrest in the August vandalism of San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo’s house is eliciting outcry because of the $500,000 bail amount set for the suspect, an amount 50 times the normal maximum bail for such a crime and one that flies in the face of the court’s bail amnesty policy for nonviolent offenses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The arrest in the home vandalism — for which one more person is being sought — was announced Monday by San Jose police, along with two arrests in a separate incident involving the defacing of the Thomas Fallon monument in downtown San Jose.

Hailey Scimone, 23, was arrested Saturday in Santa Clara by a heavy police contingent composed of San Jose and Santa Clara police officers, in connection with the Aug. 28 defacing of Liccardo’s home. Scimone’s arrest, on suspicion of felony vandalism, came amid protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin; demonstrators outside Liccardo’s home spray-painted critical messages on the house, threw eggs, and burned flags.

The maximum bail for felony vandalism is $10,000, according to the current Santa Clara County Superior Court criminal bail schedule. But because of concerns about crowding jails amid the pandemic, starting in April the state Judicial Council waived bail for people arrested on suspicion of many misdemeanors and nonviolent or low-level felonies.

When the high court’s emergency $0 bail order lapsed over the summer, the local Superior Court issued two subsequent orders extending the bail relief to the end of January 2021. That emergency order, however, is subject to petitions for exceptions and judicial discretion.

When asked if the police department had any role in recommending the half-million-dollar bail, an SJPD spokesperson stated only that a judge had set the bail amount when issuing the warrant. Superior Court officials declined specific comment about the bail amount, but issued a statement to this news organization.

“The canons of judicial ethics preclude the court from commenting on a pending matter,” read a statement from the court. “As a general matter, all bail schedules, including the emergency bail schedule the court has adopted, are discretionary, not mandatory. The setting of bail remains in the discretion of the judicial officer reviewing the case.”

That assertion incensed Carlie Ware, a county deputy public defender who said she found herself spending the weekend trying to defend her client against what until Monday was a mysterious charge.

Ware objected to how when Scimone was arrested over the weekend using a Ramey warrant — a pre-charge arrest warrant where police present probable cause directly to a judge — a legal move that prevented her client from seeing the actual warrant or notifying them of the specific crime of which they were being accused.

“It’s not fair for a judge to authorize public resources like this without being known,” said Ware, who challenged the bail with a habeas corpus petition filed Monday. “It’s an abuse of power.”

Liccardo found himself on the same side of many of his critics in questioning the high bail.

“I don’t know anything about the specific details about the arrest or the defendant, but I don’t understand why bail would have been set so high by the court — in my days as a prosecutor, I saw much lower bail amounts set on people charged with violent assault,” he said in a statement Monday.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/05/san-jose-astronomical-bail-challenged-for-suspect-held-in-mayors-house-vandalism/

Newsom nominates Oakland man to serve as California Supreme Court’s first openly gay justice

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday introduced Oakland resident Justice Martin Jenkins as his nominee to become the California Supreme Court’s first openly gay justice, calling him a champion of equality across racial and gender divides.

If appointed, Jenkins also would be the third Black man ever to serve on the state’s highest court.

“Martin Jenkins is both a product and a protector of the California dream,” Newsom said during a news briefing on Monday, adding that Jenkins has “spent a lifetime overcoming odds, breaking down barriers and blazing new trails.”

“As a lawyer and a judge, he’s built an irreproachable reputation as a person of fortitude and fairness, a man of inner strength, grace and compassion who knows that despite what the Declaration says — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not simply inalienable,” the governor added. “They must be relentlessly protected and defended.”

Jenkins would fill the vacancy created by California Supreme Court Justice Ming W. Chin — the first Chinese-American justice on the court and its most conservative member — who retired on Aug. 28 at the age of 78. As a Democrat, Jenkins would bolster the Democratic majority on the state’s seven-member Supreme Court.

Then-President Bill Clinton nominated him in 1997 to serve on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and later former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nominated him to to serve on California’s First District Court of Appeals. He was appointed each time.

He came out of retirement to serve as Newsom’s judicial appointments secretary, where he appointed 45 jurists with the goal of helping to promote diversity and build a judiciary that reflects the populations in those communities and played an integral role in promoting transparency so that for the first time in state history, the individuals who provide feedback on judicial candidates for nomination and appointment will be known to the public.

Jenkin’s nomination will be submitted to the State Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and must be confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. The annual compensation for the position is $261,949.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/05/newsom-nominates-first-openly-gay-person-to-serve-on-californias-supreme-court/