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December 2011 Edition: Follow the DDAA on Facebook and the Web
Have a Safe and Peaceful Holiday Season
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
By Robert Hickey
In Memoriam
Deputy District Attorney Christine Trevino lived life with a spark that shined upon and brightened many lives for many years. Her recent passing has dimmed our lives and left many with feelings of loss and sadness. We will miss her smile, her passion, and her sometimes biting humor. Please remember that we, the DDAA Board of Directors, are here to assist you and are available to discuss any issuein confidence at any time. Please do not hesitate to come to our meetings, call us, stop by our offices, or send us an e-mail. The DA Peer Support Team -your co-workers, friends, and associates who have volunteered to assist in times of need - is there for all of us, at any time, day or night. We may not always have an answer, but will work with you and for you to find a solution.
1. Office Holiday Party -Tomorrow night - Friday, December 9, 2011-5:30 p.m.–10:30 p.m.: The 2011 Holiday Party will be held tomorrow night at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. Over 450 members of the office plan on attending, and it promises to be a great event. Remember to drink responsibly. A cab ride is far less dangerous or expensive than a DUI. Thanks to Chantal de Mauregne, Patty Ramirez, Marcy Martinez, and consultant Janay Kruger for all their work on this event!
2. Many Thanks to Janay Kruger: We thank Janay Kruger for her many years of dedicated service to the DDAA. Janay provided us sage advice and wise counsel, in good times and bad, for more than sixteenyears. She will remain our friend and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors.
3. Topics for the Annual Retreat: Each year in January, the DDAA and PAC Boards meet jointly to discuss issues of mutual benefit and plan long term strategies for both the Association and the PAC. If you have any ideas or issues which you think should be discussed this year, please send to them to me by January 10, 2012:
4. 2012 San Diego County Bar Association Service Awards: Each year, the San Diego County Bar Association recognizes deserving members of the legal community in May as part of Law Week. For many years, members of the District Attorney’s Office have received awards in recognition for their professional efforts and community service. I encourage you to nominate a deserving colleague. Nomination forms and supporting materials must be received by e-mail by January 31, 2012. The nomination form, award criteria, and list of the Service Award winners can be accessed by clicking on the link:
5. Health Plan Task Force - UPDATE: On December 7, 2011, the Health Plan Task Force, comprised of representatives of Labor (DDAA; DAI; SEIU; DSA; CC; etc.) and the County met.
Proposed health plan changes for 2013 were discussed, including possible elimination of the Anthem Full Access HMO. The viability of a Health Spending Account was discussed, which would allow employees to use pre-tax dollars to fund an account for use on health plan and medical costs. The Health Plan Task Force will continue to meet in the months ahead in order to identify ways to make the health plans more affordable. Contact DDAs Brent Neck or Jim Koerber for further information.
6. Attack on Public Employee Pensions - UPDATE: On November 8, 2011, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office issued a mixed review of Governor Jerry Brown’s recent 12 point proposal to reform public employee pensions in the State of California. In summary, the LAO report concludes it will be difficult to mandate changes for pension benefits for current public employees. (Further analysis and a link to the LAO report are included later in the newsletter.) On December 1, 2011, the Legislature’snewly-created Conference Committee on Public Employee Pensionsheld the second in a series of hearings. Governor Brown appeared before the committee to make the case for his plan. We will keep you informed.
7. DDAs on Facebook: Control + Click on the link to read about the cases being handled by your fellow DDAs: Facebook. If you “Like” the page, you will receive case updates when new case information is posted.
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEYS ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES OF 12/6/11
Officers andSteve WalterBryn KirvinAdam Gordon
DirectorsRobert HickeyCari Philpott
Present:Patrick OjeilDavid Williams III
James Koerber Chantal de Mauregne
Members Present:Lisa Weinreb, Chris Lawson, Ramin Tohidi, Lauren Ogata
DDAA Board Consultant Janay Kruger
John Wainio [potential Consultant]
1.Call to Order: President Hickey called the meeting to order at 5:07 p.m.
2.Association Comment: None.
3.Holiday Party Update: The Holiday Party will be on December 9, 2011 at the San Diego Natural History Museumfrom 5:30 – 10:30 pm. The cost is$20.00, if you did not RSVP by December 2, 2011. Several retired DDAs will be attending the party as well.
4.Thanks and Farewell to Consultant Janay Kruger: Janay has been with the DDAA Board as our consultant for more than 16 years. We are grateful for all of her time, support, and expertise. She will be missed very much.
5.Judicial Candidate Terrie Roberts – Judicial Endorsement: Commissioner Terrie Roberts met with the Board seeking an endorsement for judge. Matter discussed in Executive Session. Endorsement declined.
6.4th DCA Applicant Howard Wayne Seeking a Request Letter of Support: The Board decided not to make an endorsement for anyone seeking an appellate court position.
7.Cal Western LL.M. Intern Proposal – DDA Lisa Weinreb: Ms. Weinreb discussed a proposal to allow candidates in a new Cal Western School of Law Prosecution LLM program to serve an internship in the District Attorney’s Office. The LLM program would be 2 years. These students will have already passed the bar prior to being accepted into the program. The first year would be taking classes at the law school and the second year would be working in the DA’s office. The discussions about possible participation by our office in the program are on-going.
8.PAC Update: San Diegans Against Crime’s annual meeting, open to PAC members only, will be on December 9, 2011 at the San Diego Natural History Museum from 4:45 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. The meeting is on the Atrium level floor, which is the level as the Office Holiday Party. The meeting room is called the “Smargon” classroom. You need to identify yourself as someone coming to the PAC board meeting, and not as someone coming to the Holiday Party, since they will not let regular Holiday Party attendees in until 5:30 p.m.
On November 19, 2011, a committee of DDAA Board and PAC members interviewed multiple potential candidates to fill the consultant position. A decision will be made by the PAC at their meeting on December 9th.
9.Treasurer’s Report:
Primary Savings: $****
Money Market:$****
Litigation Money Market: $****
Certificate: $****
Checking: $****
As always, if any member desires to see an itemized list of our spending and savings, it is always available by contacting Treasurer Cari Philpott.
10.President’s Report:The DDAA/SDAC Retreat will be on January 28, 2012 at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club.
11.New Business: President Hickey will be discussing with the Administration the timeline for the promotional process for the DDA IIs to IIIs, as they should be eligible in July 2011. Also several DDA retirees have expressed interest in being mentors to new DDAs. The Board will look into this possibility. In November, the Board voted by e-mail to send flowers to the Memorial Service for DDA Christine Trevino and to assist in payment for an obituary in the San Diego Union Tribune. In November, the Board voted by e-mail to send flowers to DDA Chryseis Starros, whose father passed away recently.
12.Old Business: None.
13.Executive Session: The Board met in Executive Session and voted to hire John Wainio as our consultant. Discussion not reported.
14.Adjournment: 7:45 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted, Chantal de Mauregne, Secretary
November 8, 2011
Analyst: Jerry Brown pension plan a 'bold' start -- with gaps
The Legislative Analyst's Office has published its review of Gov.Jerry Brown'spension plan, concluding that it is "a bold, excellent starting point" for changing public pensions, but that it also "leaves many questions unanswered."
In particular, we do not understand key details of how his hybrid benefit and retirement age proposals would work. Moreover, the Governor's plan leaves unaddressed many important pension and retiree health issues, including how to address the huge funding problems facing the state's teachers' retirement fund, the University of California's (UC's) significant pension funding problem, retiree health benefit liabilities, and other issues. In making significant changes to pension and retiree health benefits, we would urge the Legislature also to tackle these very difficult issues concerning the funding of benefits.
The report also cautions that Brown's plan to mandate current employees pay more toward their retirement accounts is a "legal and collective bargaining minefield." Ditto for suggestions by The Little Hoover Commission and others (not Brown) that current employees' accrued benefits could be frozen and then reduced going forward:
Our reading of California's pension case law is that it will be very difficult--perhaps impossible--for the Legislature, local governments, or voters to mandate such changes for many current public workers and retirees. Moreover, employer savings from these changes likely will be offset to some extent by higher salaries or other benefits for affected workers. Given all of these challenges, we advise the Legislature to focus primarily on changes to future workers' benefits. Such changes should produce net taxpayer savings only over the long run but are certain to be legally viable.
To read the LAO report:
November 8, 2011
Labor responds to assessment of Jerry Brown's pension plan
Californians for Retirement Security, a labor coalition representing 1.5 million state and local public employees, has issued a statement in response to this morning's LAO review of Gov.Jerry Brown's pension reform package. Here's the statement emailed to media a few minutes ago quoting Dave Low, the coalition's chairman:
The LAO's mixed assessment of the Governor's pension proposals hits the nail on the head when it says that the Legislature should move forward in a deliberate and reasoned fashion to craft solutions to California's complex pension systems. There are far too many unanswered questions and lack of details to fairly and accurately evaluate the impact of these proposals. Those proposals that impair the negotiated benefits of current employees are a legal dead end. As the report points out, these are matters that should be settled at the bargaining table, not in courtrooms. We will continue to work in the upcoming Legislative session, just as we have for the past several years, to achieve the spirit of the Governor's reforms without taking a wrecking ball to the retirement security of California's teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public workers.
Published November 20, 2011
CHRISTINE TREVINO
Christine left us suddenly on November 10, 2011. She was born in Oak Harbor, Washington on May 18, 1960. She obtained her B.A. from San Diego State University, and her law degree from Western State School of Law. She was a Deputy District Attorney for 21 years for the County of San Diego. She is survived by her parents, Pat and John Iliff, her husband, Rick Trevino, her sister, Michelle Check, her two sons, Jason Pettine and Joey Trevino, and her stepchildren Candice, Kristine, Anthony and Thomas. Christine was passionate about everything she did. She was a dedicated public servant, who sought justice for all of her crime victims. She enjoyed riding her motorcycle, baking, spending time with her children and pampering her dog Xena. Her warmth, beauty and keen sense of humor will be greatly missed by the many people whose lives she touched. A memorial service, celebrating her life, was held in her honor on November 15, 2011.
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Note: The following story discusses one of the many cases prosecuted by DDA Christine Trevino.
Jury calls for death, but killer gets life
LESLIE WOLF, STAFF WRITER
October 10, 1996
A man who set fire to a transient and then boasted that he "cooked like a hot dog" escaped the death penalty yesterday when a judge took the highly unusual action of overturning a jury's verdict for execution.
As shocked jurors and prosecutors looked on in dismay, San Diego Superior Court Judge John M. Thompson reduced the sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole, turning a
routine sentencing hearing into a riveting exercise in judicial independence that the district attorney immediately vowed to appeal.
"This was a sadistic murder by torture, and that's about as horrible and painful a way to die as anyone can imagine," said District Attorney Paul Pfingst, arguing that the death penalty was well-deserved in the case of Antonio Madrid. Pfingst said it was the first time a death penalty verdict had ever been modified by a judge in San Diego County, and only the sixth time in state history.
Madrid, a drifter known on the streets by the nickname "Crazy," killed Tracy Dean Foose two years ago in a gruesome fashion: He doused Foose with lighter fluid and set him on fire in a transients' encampment in a Chula Vista riverbed. Later he made the callous remark to police that the victim "cooked like a hot dog."
On Sept. 11, a jury recommended that Madrid die for his crime.
Thompson disagreed. "If executing Antonio Madrid would bring Tracy back, I'd put a gun to his head and blow his brains out today, but I can't do that," Thompson said. He added that he was "utterly loath to modify a decision by a jury that worked so long and hard" and said he had agonized over the decision for many hours.
In his lengthy address to the packed courtroom, Thompson repeatedly decried the terrible crime committed by Madrid on May 27, 1994, calling it "cowardly, craven, inhumane and brutal."
But he also noted that Madrid was only 20 at the time, had no prior violent criminal record, and had been raised in a horribly abusive family. Thompson said Madrid's mother was "sadistic" and once held his hands over an open flame as punishment because she thought, incorrectly, that he had been playing with matches.
His stepfather, upon learning that Madrid's natural father was a member of a rival gang, set out to make Madrid's formative years a living hell, the judge said. According to evidence presented by the defense during the trial, Madrid ran away from his home in El Paso at the age of 15 by crawling out of a bathroom window to escape his stepfather, after an especially severe beating with a two-by-four piece of lumber.
When Thompson announced he would reduce the sentence, prosecutor Christine Trevino threw her pen down and ran her hands through her hair. Later, outside the courtroom, she became choked up after talking to jurors and the victim's family. "The actions of the judge totally undermine the system," she said. "I am surprised. I cannot imagine a crime more cruel and inhumane. "Justice has not been done," Trevino said.
Within an hour after the hearing, Pfingst said that Thompson's ruling would be appealed. "We are very careful in alleging death cases, and we allege it only in the most egregious circumstances," he said. "We don't take these decisions lightly."
Defense attorney Pennie McLaughlin said she too was taken aback that the judge had granted her request for a modification of the sentence. "It's got to be the hardest thing for a judge to do," she said. "But he looked the majority of the jury in the eye and did what he felt he had to do," McLaughlin said. "I don't think many judges would have the guts to do that."
Although jurors do not often attend sentencing hearings for the cases they sat on, nine members of the jury in Madrid's case came to court yesterday. They appeared upset after the hearing but declined to comment publicly. They did, however, take Thompson up on his offer to speak with them behind closed doors after the hearing was completed.
Prosecutor Trevino said later that some of the jurors told her they were angered because they felt the six weeks they spent on the case was a waste of their time. The jury found Madrid guilty of first-degree murder, torture, robbery and arson on Aug. 14. Then, after a separate trial to decide what punishment Madrid should receive, they chose the death penalty over the alternative, life in prison without parole.
In the vast majority of cases, a sentencing hearing following a jury's recommendation of the death penalty is little more than a formality, and the judge reaffirms the jury's decision. During the hearing yesterday, Madrid, now 22, showed no obvious emotion when the judge altered his sentence. Afterward he turned and apologized briefly to the father of the victim, who was present. "I can't do nothing to change what I did, but I made a mistake taking your son's life," Madrid said to James Foose. "I had no right to do what I did. . . . I'm sorry."
Foose and other relatives of the victim were in tears after the hearing. "We feel that the jury made the right decision," said Pat Thurston, James Foose's fiancee. "I'd like to know what the judge would do if it was his son." "I think there are a lot of people out there who had hard lives and they don't do this type of thing," said James Foose.