dented door, damaged pride

While on my way home from work today I was vainly contemplating what a good driver I am, and how long it's been since my last accident. Several minutes later I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some decongestants. As soon as I opened my car door a giant gust of wind pulled the door out of my hand and slammed it into the car next to me, causing a good-size ding. I was mortified.

The lady who came out a minute or two later was amazingly gracious: "Oh, that's all right. You know, this car has lots of dents and scratches. It's going to need to be repainted at some point anyway..." etc. I didn't see any dents comparable to the one I had just inflicted.

I didn't put two and two together until I was back on the road heading home. God sure knows how to get our attention sometimes. I realized that I was taking credit for something I had no right to take credit for. So many Scriptures come to mind- "safety is of the Lord," "His mercies are new every morning," -and so quickly forgotten! Perhaps the new look of my door edge will help me remember.

A kayaking video one of my buddies put together:


Sean and Dry Meadow Creek from Daniel Lund on Vimeo.

For some still images and other video clips, cut and paste this into your browswer:

http://s705.photobucket.com/albums/ww51/sangree99a/Dry%20Meadows%20Creek%203%2021%2009/

Witnesses

My job would be a whole lot simpler if it weren't for this whole pesky witness thing. I realize saying that is probably akin to any tradesman denigrating the tools of his trade, but it's true. Witnesses often make or break the case, and the problem is that they're so dang unpredictable! After all, we're talking about people here. A bad witness, in particular, can be a bane or boon. It all depends on whose witness they are. I've seen both sides in my trial the last couple of days:

Exhibit A: Bad witness sabotaging Sean's case

Court Clerk (to W): "Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, etc..."

Sean's star witness: "I got nothing to say."

Sean to himself: (Wonderful. here we go...)

The witness then proceeded to flatly deny anything and everything connecting him/her to the case, including talking to the cops, identifying the suspects, or even meeting with me one week prior. We call this "going sideways" on the stand. I was hopeful that this witness would find the courage to testify truthfully despite receiving threats from the juvenile defendant's "homies" not to do so, but alas, it was not to be. It's unfortunate that the gang mentality of intimidation actually works on many members of the community.

Exhibit B: Bad witness bolstering Sean's case

Defense's star alibi witness: "Yeah, they've arrested the wrong kid! My pal here was with me the whole night..."

Sean on cross-examination: "You're close friends with this guy aren't you?"

Defense W: "yeah"

Sean: "Would you lie to keep a friend out of trouble?"

Defense W (hesitating): No

Sean: "You wouldn't bend the truth even a little if it meant your close friend would avoid getting in trouble?"

Defense W (more hesitation): "I can't answer that."

Sean: "It would depend on the circumstances wouldn't it?"

This was the second person in as many days I personally observed perjure themselves on the witness stand. I find it odd that people who are willing to lie about the facts of a case don't also lie about the fact that they're not telling the truth. Apparently even liars have a sort of moral compunction or code of ethics about which types of lies are okay.

Additionally, one has to wonder about the credibility of a defense which conflicts with the suspect's own prior alibi statement, and which is presented for the first time right before the trial is about to conclude, on a case which is has been pending for close to two months.

Scripture has a lot to say about false and lying witnesses. No longer are those verses purely conceptual. I've seen how the cause of justice is threatened when people ignore their duty and their oaths.

rainy week = paddling weekend!

The flows came up and members of the kayak club took advantage...

The Merced River flowing out of Yosemite. This is the new rapid created by the landslide a couple years ago (the one that made them re-route the road on the other side of the river with two temporary bridges)

The Kaweah just above Dinely Bridge.

Merced and Willow Creek from Evan Lloyd on Vimeo.

next day...

I was holding the camera in my mouth, which worked out great until I pinned on the piton rock at the bottom of the rapid and had to spit it out, push off, and roll up. I definitely need to look into a helmet mount or deck mount for the cam. I was going to add a sound track, but I've been getting good feedback on the sound effects!

prosecutorial discretion

A big part of what I do is reviewing police reports and deciding whether to file charges or not- and if so, what charges to file. Just because a person is cited or arrested by the police doesn't mean that the DA's office is going to file a criminal complaint or petition. I send a significant number of police reports back to the agencies who submitted them, usually because I need more info or because the evidence is just plain insufficient. Even when I believe that a crime probably was committed, there may be reasons not to file. This function is called prosecutorial discretion. I was reading an article on this last week and was inspired by the following excerpt:

Nearly 70 years ago, as then-United States Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson offered these eloquent words about prosecutor decision making:

The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous... [T]he citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.

extra Turkey Trot pics

The pro photography company at the Turkey Trot post low quality images from the race on their website with the hope that you'll purchase the high quality ones. Here are the low quality ones... =)


One of the challenges was created because there were so many of us on one narrow road. A lot of the race we were weaving in and out of runners who were practically shoulder-to-shoulder, trying to avoid the swinging elbows and not step on anyone's toes or heels.

Did I mention how wet it was?

Home stretch baby! Most folks walked or just jogged across the finish line, but Kyle and I were full on sprinting.

And in a completely unrelated vein, I just thought I would post this pic from "Ryan," a character from the TV comedy "The Office." It's from the 2008 The Office calendar which a couple of probation officers at work had hanging in their office. They gave it to me because they said I look like him. I kinda see the resemblance. Another guy at work who isn't familiar with the show saw it and thought it was an old pic of me at first. What do you think?

Where's my bailout? I want a bailout!

The language is a bit colorful but the message rings painfully true. Click the image to enlarge the text at the bottom.

Turkey Trot '08

One of my roommates invited me to spend Thanksgiving with some of his family in Southern CA. He also talked me into participating in the 31st annual Dana Point Turkey Trot 10 kilometer race. It was a great experience, despite (because of? :-) a torrential downpour during the run and standing water all over the road. I'm not in any kind of running shape, but I did it! I got VERY sore the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. I'd do it again though.

There were over three thousand runners, including people running in costumes as turkeys, Pilgrims, Indians, a banana- you name it!

A couple of pics:

The "before pic," around 6 am Thanksgiving morning. The other guy is my roommate Kyle, with two of his cousins on the right and a friend of theirs on the left.

Near the start. It rained hard!

Runner with a Pilgrim hat. I saw a guy in a banana costume wringing it out a few times during the race =)

Fresh fruit after the finish. Oranges never tasted so good!


The "after" shot, where we parked the car at McDonald's. We arrived late, parked pretty far away, and had to jog like half a mile to get to the start on time!

the last 5 weekends

I'm woefully behind on blogging, but here's a synopsis of what I've been up to the last few weekends.


My friend Glenn is getting married next weekend. The bachelor party was actually a couple of days in Pismo the weekend of Oct 11-12. It was good to be at the coast and see the ocean. Although it's only 2 hours away I think it had been about a year for me. We saved some dough by camping, so that we could blow it on ATV rentals on the dunes near Grover Beach. Talk about fun! Biggest sand dunes I've ever been around. Nine of us rented four-wheelers and spent an awesome couple of hours racing, jumping, and wrecking (no serious injuries) all over those things. Whoever comes out to visit me next, that'll be top on my list of fun things to do!


Glenn's brother Dan created an Extreme Croquet course throughout the campground using two croquet sets. I came from behind to take the lead at the last wicket, only to have it stolen from me through some questionable moves by the nefarious Brandon. I can't tell if I'm sneezing/coughing or laughing about something in this pic. Glenn is about to be whacked with Brad's mallet, or judging by his expression, maybe he was already knocked silly =).

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Let me tell you, folks around here take October 31 pretty seriously. These are a couple of roommates and friends in their Halloween costumes. The Joker is Beau, and Kyle (another roommate) is the drunk werewolf. I got invited to no fewer than four Halloween parties, but ended up just staying home because a severe allergy attack left me feeling pretty miserable that night.
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Jeff and Evan on the Boundary Run, Kaweah River. An early winter storm caused the flow level to jump weekend before last, and I was able to capitalize on it with three friends. It was a narrow window and we hit it just right, as the following graph shows:

Yep, we paddled on 11-2-08. The Corp of Engineers flow data is invaluable for knowing what rivers are running when. We kayakers keep a close eye on the website with these graphs. Some of the guys in the kayak club even get updates sent right to their cell phones when the flows reach a certain threshold!

A short video clip of my friend Jeff running Bumper Rapid, which is on the Gateway run of the Kaweah above the town of Three Rivers. The only difference between storm flows and spring runoff is that the water's murky.


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A hunter went missing in Fresno County on 11-1-08, and the search was still ongoing last weekend. I drove up with a couple of other rescue team members to participate in the search effort. Here's what I e-mailed a friend about it:

There were volunteer teams from maybe 8 or 10 counties at the search. It was neat to see all these strangers come together to help somebody they don't know. We bushwhacked and scrambled up, over, around and through all kinds of terrain yesterday and today. It snowed at the elevation we were at overnight Saturday, so yesterday we were searching in about 4 inches of snow! (On our way to the briefing this morning at the command post, we started fishtailing pretty bad on one snowy section of road. I was frantically trying to get my seat belt on before we crashed, but thankfully after sliding all over and off the road we eventually came to a stop without hitting anything!) By last night I was definitely ready to come home, but some of the others have been there close to a week!

A Fresno Co deputy and Tom, one of our team members.

We were in a really beautiful area. There were no roads or trails to the above. We bushwhacked up to it, so it's likely that not very many people have enjoyed that view.

Unfortunately there was no sign of the missing hunter, but I did come across this very dead coyote.

A quick lunch break on Sunday. The sun's shining in this pic, but it actually snowed on us most of the day.We came across this old mine shaft/cave that wasn't even on the map. I hear the park service doesn't show these types of things on maps due to liability concerns. It's amazing what you can run across when you get off the beaten path!

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October 26 was a fantastic day. Four of us decided to attempt an off-season summit of Half Dome. The cables were down for the winter, but we had awesome weather, great fellowship, solitude at the summit (normally there are crazy crowds on top, and a line to get on/off the cables), and some great animal sightings.

Mike and Madison on the cables. You can't really tell the angle from this shot, but this section is steep!- significantly steeper than 45 degrees. You can see the height they're at by how tiny the person in the background (to the left of Mike) is.

We saw a few big bucks right off the bat, before we even got on the actual trail.

Group shot on the way down: Me, Madison, Mike, and Katrina.

Group shot on top

A tagged black bear we encountered on the way down. Many folks don't know that black bears are often brown or cinnamon in color. Still black bears though. Unfortunately that's the only kind of bear we have in the Sierra anymore. Mike heard the bear first. It was only 20 or 25 feet away in some thick brush. It was heading towards the trail behind us, so I jogged back a few steps to get some better shots.

Strike a pose! As it turns out, the girls were much braver around the edge than Mike or I. We spent half the time trying to tell Madison to step back and stop doing crazy antics while leaning over the edge to catch the view 2500 feet straight down =). I, on the other hand, prefer to crawl out to the edge on my belly while maintaining at least three points of contact with the ground at all times.

Victory!

Getting ready to attack the cables again on the way down. Mike had a death grip on those things! Halfway down I was trying to get more pics and his terse response was "Just KEEP MOVING- Let's get off this rock!!"

Leaving at 5 am and getting back after 9 pm made for a long but fun-filled day. Even the trip home was blast, between singing in the car and hot juicy burgers/ freezing temperatures at Carl's Jr.. Seriously, for some reason this particular restaurant had the AC blasting everybody inside with frigid air. One employee responded to complaints of patrons (not even us) by saying, "sorry, if we touch the thermostat we get fired." The not-so-bright employee dutifully asked another patron if he could get him anything else, and the customer suggested, "a blanket?" It was quite humorous, including when Katrina started stuffing napkins in her clothing as insulation.

Alright, so that's been my last few weekends. Next update should be a work update- or maybe I should throw in a post announcing my recent change of address?

August update

Here's what's new for me in August:

First of all, I decided to update my blog name to something more reflective of my job rather than an inside family joke of sorts that no doubt leaves most folks scratching their heads. "For the record" is a phrase that I use in court regularly, almost as much as "for the people," a phrase that follows my name when the judge says "counsel, state your appearances."

School's started in California, and the stacks of police reports in my office have gone down a little. Even so, there's never a shortage of crazy cases, and lately I had a few go to trial. I suffered my first not guilty verdict recently when two key witnesses went sideways on me on the stand. A loss is always tough, but when your witnesses give one story to the police (and you), and then testify to something completely different at trial, there's not much you can do. (If you've seen the movie Fracture, it was kind of like that. Good movie, by the way.) The next day I wrapped up an armed robbery trial that had been going on for over a month, and thankfully, this time the result was good. But one of the things I love most about my job is that ultimately it's about something more than simply winning or losing. In a 1935 decision the U.S. Supreme Court summarized the prosecutorial role with seminal language which is oft repeated more than 70 years later:

The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one. Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (U.S. 1935)

That right there is a great little bit of legal writing.

I got to take a helicopter ride the other day! The California Highway Patrol flew their bird down from Fresno to do a demonstration for our rescue team, but that's not the chopper I flew in. One of our veteran team members happens to be a pilot, and he flew his company helicopter to the meeting. When we were done and CHP had taken off, he took us up for a brief spin around the Sequoia Air Field and surrounding area. The best part of it was that this was no commercial tour. We zoomed just over the crops and dipped and banked so steeply that I could see land through the sunroof. We even did a simulated engine failure. This started when in the middle of our flight, we heard the voice of our pilot Bo through the headsets asking, "So, who can tell me what happens when the engine dies?" Ed ventured an educated guess from the back bench (I was riding shotgun) - "you go down?" "Well yes," Bo answered, "but not in the way that you think." He then proceeded to perform a live demonstration. As if our ride wasn't already exciting enough. He throttled the engine back to idle, and my stomach shot up to my throat as we immediately starting dropping from our altitude of several hundred feet. We remained at idle as we dropped, and Bo explained how the chopper actually develops energy as it falls- energy which you can use to control the descent even without power. At the last possible moment he flared the nose up and we slowed dramatically (engine still at idle mind you). He powered back up just in time to avoid what would have been a rough but survivable landing. As technical rescue team members, our job often involves trusting each other when lives are, literally, on the line, but this was just very cool in its own way =).

I found a good deal on another kayak. I'm not sure what it says about my priorities that at age 29 I own two boats but still rent a one bedroom apartment. This one is what they call a creek boat, so I should be able to run more steep and challenging whitewater with it- its larger size gives it more volume and stability. Also, with a second boat I can take you out if you want to try the sport! Only problem is- I have to wait until spring to get much use out of it =)