Arab American veteran and attorney, George Shibley
My friend, attorney Bill Shibley, is the son of George Shibley, late esteemed defense lawyer for the Sleepy Lagoon defendants and for Sirhan Sirhan amongst many others in his distinguished career. Los Angeles Mission College is doing a commemorative event on May 8 for the historic and infamous Sleepy Lagoon frame up trial and the Zoot Suit Riots, an ethnic cleansing pogrom against Chicano/Mexicano and African American Zoot Suiters by American soldiers, sailors, and marines in 1943 Los Angeles:
Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sleepy Lagoon Trial and Zoot Suit Riots of Los Angeles
WHO/WHAT: CSUN Chicano Studies Professor Dr. Jorge Garcia and Pasadena City College Social Science Professor Dr. Enrique Orozco will discuss the events that took place during the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940’s.Specials guests Eleanor Mendiaz and Candace Leyvas-Fortythe, surviving niece and great niece of Henry Leyvas, defendant in the Sleepy Lagoon Trial.WHEN Wednesday, May 8, 2013 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.WHERE Los Angeles Mission College13356 Eldridge Avenue
Sylmar, CA 91342Event Site: Campus Center Main
Sleepy Lagoon trial: round up all the usual suspects
WHY: The event, co-sponsored by LAMC Chicano Studies
Phone: (818) 364-7679
Email: [email protected]________________
Fletcher Bowron Square: Mayor Fletcher Bowron during World War II wanted our servicemen to continue behaving like the Wehrmacht was treating Jews and Gypsies in Europe. Why not just rename the Square for Adolf Hitler and be honest about L.A.’s blind eye towards historical racism?
My Note: The Los Angeles Plaza in downtown is technically “Fletcher Bowron Square.” Mayor Fletcher Bowron urged the MP’s and the Shore Patrol to unleash the soldiers, sailors, and marines so that they could continue to beat, rape, and otherwise fuck over Zoot Suiters during the riots. California League of Latin American Citizens (CALLAC) has long been demanding a historical monument at the plaza to memorialize that Fletcher Bowron was a pig and a racist. MAKE THIS AN ISSUE IN THE LOS ANGELES MAYOR’S RACE!-Jan B. Tucker, State Director, CALLAC
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“Justice” Since the Sleepy Lagoon Case: Has anything changed?
According to Wikipedia, during the Sleepy Lagoon trial (People v Zammora et al):
Judge Fricke also permitted the chief of the Foreign Relations Bureau of the Los Angeles sheriff’s office, E. Duran Ayres, to testify as an “expert witness” that Mexicans as a community had a “blood thirst” and a “biological predisposition” to crime and killing, citing the culture of human sacrifice practiced by their Aztec ancestors.
People v. Zammora, 66 Cal.App.2d 166 (Oct. 4, 1944); in the appellate court decision it was noted that:
It was the contention of the prosecution that appellants had conspired together to commit murder, assaults with intent to commit murder, assaults with a deadly weapon and assaults by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; that the objective and common design of such conspiracy was to wreak vengeance upon and against the so-called “Downey boys” who had allegedly assaulted some of the appellants earlier on the night in question; and that, in furtherance of such common design of revenge, and, as a natural and probable consequence of such common design and conspiracy, [66 Cal.App.2d 202] one or more members of such unlawful combination committed all of the crimes charged in the indictment. However, our examination of the record in this case convinces us that there is a complete lack of material and relevant evidence from which the jury could properly find or infer that appellants formed a conspiracy of the kind and type, or for the purposes, claimed by the prosecution. The most shown by the evidence is that appellants banded themselves together to “have it out … with their fists” with the “Downey boys” in retaliation for the fistic encounter that had taken place earlier that night. But, to say that they combined together with the avowed purpose of committing murder does violence to the factual situation presented by the record herein. There is also a total lack of evidence to show that any of the appellants murdered Diaz, and only the unsatisfactory evidence hereinbefore discussed in connection with defendant Parra to show that any defendant committed any assault with a deadly weapon. Indeed, respondents confess in their brief that “the evidence, however, in the hands of the prosecution unerringly pointed to the conclusion that some one or more of the defendants had been perpetrators of the crimes charged,” but we are not directed to any evidence in the record which identifies any of the appellants with the murder of Diaz or the assaults charged in counts II and III, except the testimony hereinbefore discussed as to appellant Parra in connection with the assault upon Joe Manfredi charged in count II.
So has anybody learned anything from the history of the Sleepy Lagoon trial or is it still the case as H. Rap Brown once put it, that “Justice in the United States means ‘Just Us White Folks?’”
In a case that I recently worked on-pro bono because the judge refused to appoint either myself or our expert witness psychologist and where the attorney wound up effectively pro bono after his meager retainer ran out-check out what the court allowed as admissible “expert testimony” — http://janbtucker.com/blog/2012/09/01/lapds-gift-to-ms-13-defense/
Here’s an excerpt from a brief I wrote for the defense in People v Irving Guevara regarding the so-called expert testimony given to the court by LAPD so-called gang expert Officer Edgar Muro:
At page 76 (Exhibit 2) of the Preliminary Hearing Transcript, the following exchange took place (with the exception that the word “Consafos” was mis-spelled as “Consados” in the transcript):
BY MR. YARDLEY:
Q IN CONNECTION WITH GANG — STRIKE THAT.
IN CONNECTION WITH MS GANG GRAFFITI AND
TATTOOS, ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE LETTERS C.S?
A NO, I AM NO.
C.S., NO.
Q ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE TERM CONSADOS?
A I’VE NEVER HEARD OF IT WITH THE EXEMPTION OF
WHEN IT WAS BROUGHT UP WHEN OFFICER BOYLE WAS ON THE
STAND.
Aside from the fact that Officer Muro had several days between his testimony that of Officer Boyle, apparently he lacked the basic scientific curiosity or even normal human curiosity to take the time to find out why the question was being asked and what it’s relevance to the Defense might be, his (and Officer Boyle’s) lack of knowledge demonstrate that whatever the extent of their expertise, it is limited to a very recent time period. In 1993, Jose Antonio Burciaga wrote in “Drink Cultura: Chicanismo,” [Joshua Odell Editions/Capra Press, 1993] that Consafos has long term and deep meaning within Chicano culture, especially as it relates to graffiti:
At one time or another many of us have seen the c/s sign-off on Chicano ‘placas’ and graffiti in the Southwest or Midwest. It’s a very common Chicano symbol but its true origin and significance is nebulous. It is not a Mexican symbol but a Chicano, a Mexican-American, symbol. Its origin is unknown but, like the ‘Pachuco’, it probably originated in South El Paso’s ‘Segundo Barrio’. The c/s sign-off means ‘con safos’, and translates literally as “with safety.” It was meant as a safety precaution, a barrio copyright, patent pending. No one else could use or dishonor the graffiti. It was an honorable code of conduct, a literary imprimatur. Like saying “amen,” it ended discussion. Above all, it meant, “anything you say against me will bounce back to you.” Most kids respected a ‘placa’ if signed off with the c/s. Without that symbol, a placa would sooner or later get scribbled on or erased. Some kids would put a double c/s sign or put xxx after it, or a skull and cross bones, which physically threatened anyone who did not honor and respect the code. The closest possible Spanish word from which safos could have come would be ‘safo’ from ‘safar’, or ‘safado’, which translates to slip or slipped. This is a plausible definition since the c/s is meant to let insults slip off, to protect and shield from attacks. In a game of marbles, Chicano kids used the word ‘safis’ if they let the marble slip before shooting it in the right direction. By saying safis the marble shooter was allowed to try again. Some Chicanos will also end a placa, graffiti, with the message ‘con o sin safos’, which means that with or without safety, with or without this code, whether you like it or not, whether you insult me back or not, this placa, insult or praise, stands.
Within the context of the academic discipline known generally as “Chicana/o Studies,” to call ones-self an expert on gangs [in Exhibit 3, Officer Muro’s CV, he claims that he has expertise in “Identifying and photographing gang members/associates and gang graffiti”) without knowing the term Consafos or its abbreviation “c/s,” is considered laughable and nothing short of astounding. If indeed law enforcement gang expertise as taught in Los Angeles—home to more persons of Mexican descent than any city in the world save Mexico City—is unaware of the term consafos and/or the use of “c/s” in graffiti, by its nature it has to be so recent an invention as to be considered by analogy, a “recent fabrication” within the meaning of People v. Manson (1976) 61 Cal. App. 3D 102. Therefore, the test Kelly/Frye test of People v. Leahy (1994) 8 Cal.4th 587, 34 Cal.Rptr.2d 663; 882 P.2d 321 should apply, because the so-called science of insular law enforcement gang-expertise is in fact not generally accepted by the larger scientific community.
Here’s another problem with Muro’s testimony:
The literature which Muro’s CV contends he has read demonstrates that his opinions are selectively designed to dismiss anything that contradicts what he believes the prosecution wants him to say. For example, at page 45 of the Preliminary Hearing Transcript, Exhibit 4, in which he states:
Q DO YOU AGREE WITH OFFICER BOYLE’S ASSESSMENT THAT NORMAL GANG CODE IS — FROWNS ON THE KILLING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN?
A I AGREE WITH THAT.
Q OKAY. AND DO YOU ALSO AGREE THAT THE NORMAL GANG CODE OF MS-13 FROWNS ON KILLING WOMEN AND CHILDREN?
A I BELIEVE THAT.
The literature and resources Muro cites for his qualifications in his CV contains much that contradicts this opinion and nothing whatsoever that supports it. There is in fact no responsible literature that supports the contention that MS-13 “frowns on the killing of women and children.” If Muro is reasonable, he cannot possibly believe this to be true and his statement to the court that he does should be analyzed in light of Section 125 of the California Penal Code: “An unqualified statement of that which one does not know to be true is equivalent to a statement of that which one knows to be false.”
Finally, what takes the cake as to the LAPD’s so called “expert” testimony in the Guevara trial is that they claimed, under oath, that Irving Guevara’s (a 16 year old high school student that was also working 40 hours per week) nickname of “Dreamer” was consistent with his having adopted a gang name. Many of my readers are in fact “Dreamers” and many others know exactly what is meant by a “Dreamer” in the immigrant community. It means that you are a DREAM Act student hoping to go to college even though you are an undocumented immigrant. In other words, the best of the best, not the worst of the worst of society.
In spite of the fact that the police and prosecutors acknowledged that Irving tried to interfere with the attempted murder of the victims by warning the victim’s girlfriend at the scene of the crime that the shooter had a gun and trying to get the victims’ group to flee the scene, and despite the fact that Irving later identified the shooter for the police, they charged him, claimed he was a member of MS-13 and tried to give him LWOP (Life Without Possibility of Parole). At the last minute, rather than either side throwing the dice at trial, we got him a deal for eight (8) years in prison (the other side’s offer had been 20 years).
Is it okay with you for business as usual in the courts for police “experts” to claim that a “Dreamer” is a gang alias and that you can be sent to prison for the rest of your life, or maybe given the death penalty for being a Dreamer? Since that is the current state of affairs in Los Angeles, then H. Rap Brown is still correct about our system of law…..so what are you going to do about it?
