San Jose Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

The owner of the Hookah Bar in Palo Alto is accused of strangling his girlfriend to death and then burning their house down to conceal the crime. Bulos "Paul" Zumot's request for a reduction in bail was denied Friday by Judge Jerome Nadler who set no bail, keeping Zumot behind bars throughout his legal fight. His case is being handled in San Jose.
Zumot, who coincidentally is represented by Los Angeles celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, claims he has a surveillance video of him working in his bar at the time of the fire. This has yet to be substantiated.

The victim is Jennifer Schipsi, but little details of her are known. We do know that she accused her previous boyfriend of domestic violence. The alleged batterer was arrested, but the case had little to no merit. Also coincidentally I happened to represent the defendant in that case. Having no merit, it was dismissed. Schipsi's alleged murder followed only a few months after that dismissal.

This case leaves many unanswered questions.

Continue reading "No Bail In Palo Alto Murder" »

I am a little late in getting to this, but there has been so much to do and write about. On June 8, Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rosen defeated incumbent Delores Carr for the coveted position of top D.A. This came with cheers and happy shouts from defense lawyers and even many prosecutors. Carr came into office vowing to rid it of corruption and manipulation. Unfortunately under Carr's tenure, things got far worse. Suppression of evidence, withholding key witness and downright lying had become all too prevalent in the office for the voters to tolerate.

To give one example, a deputy D.A. used false semen evidence to persuade a jury that the defendant was guilty of rape. In fact that was the "evidence" used by the police to coerce the defendant to confess. The DA latter used that "evidence" as authentic, which resulted in a conviction. No real semen was actually found.

In another example, the DA failed to disclose vital medical records that would have been mitigating for the defense. That DA might very well lose his license.

Carr even ordered all Deputies to boycott one certain judge because she tends to grant "too many" defense motions.

The office has been maelstrom of deceit and unfair practices. Some D.A.s refused court orders. Others ignored evidence. And all the time Carr stood by her people (the guilty ones I mean)

We hope in Jeff Rosen the office will truly be cleaned up and seek justice, not power.

Good Luck Jeff!

"I want my readers to read a part of this article from the San Jose Mercury News my Sean Webby: "When an Apple employee arrived at his downtown San Jose home to find that his two iPads had been stolen, he realized the hot-selling tablet could help him track down the thieves.

With a San Jose police officer looking over his shoulder, the employee used his iPhone to watch an icon representing one of his iPads travel through the city, then turn onto Cape George Place.

Police swung into action, surrounding a 1998 Dodge Neon. In the back seat was a slew of hardware including the employee's iPads. Police arrested Francisco Chavez, 31, and Arturo Urrutia, 33, both of San Jose, on burglary and other related charges." San Jose Mercury News, June 23, 2010.

Bay Area based Apple has reported that there is a GPS tracking device that can be linked from the IPad and IPhone. Lose your IPhone? Simple get out your IPad and track it down. New technologies are making it easier and easier for police to track down suspects. Surveillance cameras (as noted before) lidar, instead of radar and now GPS are just a few on the list. Even dogs can be easily tracked down when implanted with a chip. As society grows ever more sophisticated, tracking people down has because ever more simple. But remember, mistakes are easily made. Errors are as easily made. These new technologies face more threats to personal privacy than tracking down criminal suspects. There is a lot to be learned about these new methods, many of which are still untested. Lidar (the "new radar") is not even on the approved list of mechanical devices and it is still yet being used.

Continue reading "Bay Area Tech To Catch Suspects" »

Phillip Michael Dominguez, of San Jose was picked up on charged of rape and child molestation and kidnapping on a girl the age of 14. The Defense: he was on PCP at the time. It is reported that Dominguez approached a friend's bedroom window and told the victim (who has not been named) that her mother needed her to go shopping. The girl climbed out the window and left with the defendant. When the girl was found her skirt was found on backwards and her shoes flown aside. On a phone call later with the police Dominguez asked if she hurt the girl and that he was high on PCP.

PCP, or phencyclidine, is a dissociative anesthetic that was developed in the 1950s as a surgical anesthetic. Its sedative and anesthetic effects are trance-like, and patients experience a feeling of being "out of body" and detached from their environment. Use of PCP in humans was discontinued in 1965, because it was found that patients often became agitated, delusional, and irrational while recovering from its anesthetic effects. It can be found in liquids, powders and capsules.

Scientifically, PCP stands for phenylcyclohexylpiperidine. In its early vernacular it was called angel dust and competed with cocaine, crystalline tropane alkaloid, which comes from the cocoa leaf in South America.

Dominguez defense is not an affirmative defense at all. However, it may be somewhat mitigating (that is a passionate defense attorney talking. However this is a specific intent crime so any leniency by the court is unlikely. This man is facing 3-6 years state prison.

Continue reading "San Jose Man Rapes Local Girl" »

The City of San Jose has begun implementing new surveillance areas all over the city, including where you work and some say maybe where you live. Although the plans and implementation has been discussed in business areas, there are some voicing concerns that soon video operators will be watching parks and other recreational areas. Some argue that this form of watching is safe and will promote less crime. Others see it as an invasion of privacy right.

San Jose has acknowledged that the largest theft schemes are inside jobs (employee against the employer). There are plans underway to hide microscopic surveillance where employees work who deal in merchandize and money. The Constitutional question here is whether an employer can hide an unknown camera specifically to watch employees, without telling them. Perhaps the wise thing would be to install the cameras and then inform the employees. And if they consent to the surveillance their schemes are over.

The real question is how far will we let the government secretly intrude on our daily lives. It is a question to be asked.Take a look at the video below. No privacy on a vacation anymore.

Continue reading "San Jose Big Brother is Watching YOU" »

In a hair split 5-4 decision the Supreme Court shifted Miranda rules in favor of the police yesterday. Everyone these days is familiar with Miranda and what the police need to require from the suspect before they can question him. The very first warning typically given is "you have a right to remain silent..." Until yesterday, if a criminal suspect, upon hearing those words, said nothing, that could not be considered an effective waiver of his rights and the police could not question. The logic was simple: the burden rests on the government to show that a criminal suspect "knowingly and intelligently" waived his right. Seems simple enough, right?

Well, apparently not to the United States Supreme Court. According to the ruling a suspect must "unambiguously" invoke the right to remain silent. In other words the suspect has to say "yes, I am unambiguously invoking my right to remain silent." Simply remaining quiet (or silent) is not unambiguous, thus the police can begin questioning

This ruling stems from a criminal case involving a man named Van Thompkins. Thompkins was arrested after fatally shooting two men near a mall in Southfield, Michigan. There, when asked whether he wanted to remain silent, Thompkins merely stayed quiet and did not say anything. The police then questioned him for nearly three hours, while Thompkins said nothing. Well, that was until after three hours when finally he admitted the crime. The Appellate Division ruled that this was a violation of Thompkins constitutional rights, because he never waived the right to remain silent. In fact his silence would suggest that he was exercising that very right!

The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the lower court shifting the balance of power to the police and government and not the criminal suspect. Steven Shapiro, legal director of the ACLU, said that this case "demonstrates the power of custodial interrogation to wear down the defendant's willpower, which is what Miranda was designed to prevent."

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that this new requirement on the suspect to unambiguously invoke his right to remain silent is counterintuitive because it requires him to speak! Once again the Supremes have gone too far.

Continue reading "Your Miranda Rights Just Got Smaller" »

The City of Mountain View is taking a very restrictive approach to marijuana dispensaries. Although only one now exists the City Council announced that it will study the issue. If the council approves several more dispensaries operating them will be difficult, especially as compared to cities such as San Jose and Oakland.

In Mountain View, dispensary operators would be required to apply for a conditional use permit which needs to be renewed every year. It is unclear how much those permits will cost. Such operators need to pass a background check (which includes drug charges) maintain surveillance cameras and have the quality of the cannabis regularly inspected.

The City Attorney's Office maintains that crime rates increase in areas that include cannabis dispensaries. Of course this blog has already disproved this theory. However, the Mountain View has has generated a report that says that 214 marijuana arrests occured in 2009 including a homicide. However, the report does not rindicate that any of these crimes occured near a dispensary. Further many of these crimes were for illegal possession and under the influence. This is completely unrelated to the existence of cannabis dispensaries.

Thus dispensaries will only be allowed in small pockets of the City, 1,000 feet from "sensitive" areas such as trails and parks.To read a related article click here.

Continue reading "Mountain View To Allow Limited MJ Dispensaries" »

36-year old Lionel Blanks of Santa Clara, CA was arrested on six felony charges including rape, sexual penetration, kidnapping and carjacking. The victim, who has not been named, reports that she fell asleep in her car in Palo Alto, to be awakened in the morning by Lionel. It is alleged that he beat and tortured the victim, tied her up and drove off with her. They drove for 20 minutes while Lionel is said to have threatened the victim.

It is further alleged that Lionel pulled the vehicle over and dragged the woman behind a building where he continued to beat her. After tearing the woman's clothes off he raped and strangled her, causing trauma to her neck. She suffered further injuries to her forehead, face including loss of consciousness.

Blanks was arrested at his home where he lives with his wife and children. If convicted he faces a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

Continue reading "Santa Clara Man Accused of Violent Rape" »