San Jose Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Santa Clara County is one of the few jurisdictions not to provide some kind of legal representation to indigent defendants at their first court appearance. However, a new county policy change will take effect throughout the San Jose and other county courthouses where the Public Defender will provide a representative to assist people at their arraignment on misdemeanor charges.

Typically, too many defendants charged with a misdemeanor plead guilty at the arraignment after a judge informs them of their rights and provides an indicated sentence. This is true of driving under the influence charges, where the judge informs the defendant that he or she can continue the matter to seek out an attorney or plead guilty on the spot and receive the court's sentence. This of course precludes putting up a defense, especially when in Santa Clara County the punishments are often harsher than San Mateo, San Francisco and other surrounding areas.

Usually in these circumstances a Sheriff Deputy is present handing out waiver of right forms, merely anticipating that some or many of the defendants appearing at their arraignment will plead guilty. Although no pressure is placed on these people, the effect is to have more people plead right on the spot. Often, the defendant does not understand the other collateral effects of a guilty plea and conviction without legal representation on hand. Such consequences can be lifetime sex or narcotics registration, lost of driver's license or deleterious effects on immigration status.

It unclear whether misdemeanor cases in Santa Clara County will be expedited or slowed down by this change, but the county has been playing with fire for not providing some representation early on. This new policy will begin with a pilot project at the San Jose Hall of Justice.

Source: Mercury News.

Two suspects robbed a Bank of America in San Jose early yesterday, wielding what looked like a bomb. The men fled the scene in a blue Honda and made for Highway 85, driving at speeds well in excess of the posted limit. The robbing duo crashed their Honda into a Minivan at the intersection of Highways 85 and 87 and took off on foot. A woman in the minivan was injured due to the collision.

One suspect was followed by a San Jose martial arts expert who tackled and subdued the suspect. The second suspect ran into the fields of Gunderson High School, only to be arrested a short time later. The school was in lockdown for several hours.
Highway 85 was closed do the possible existence of a bomb in the suspect vehicle.

Although the crash took place at approximately 11:40 a.m., the Highway was closed till around 5:00 p.m. In the end there was no bomb, after the object was later detonated by the police.

The suspects face felony charges including robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, making terrorists threats, evading and conspiracy.

U.S. District Court Jeremy Fogel sentenced former and now disgraced Fry's executive to six years in the Federal penitentiary. Omar Siddiqui was convicted of stealing $65 million from the Bay Area super-store, which he admitted using for his uncontrollable gambling addiction and casino kickbacks. Siddiqui was arrested by Federal agents back in 2008 after the IRS investigated what at first appeared to be abnormalities in Siddiqui's accounting.

At the sentencing hearing a representative of Fry's asked the court not to show leniency because Siddiqui caused financial harm to the company, which also sustained a loss of public trust. Judge Fogel refused to accept Siddiqui's addiction as an excuse when sentencing him to the already agreed to plea deal. Siddiqui had hoped for a term of three years.

The judge also ordered restitution be made to the company in the amount of $65 million, although Fry's claims that Siddiqui stole $87 million. Siddiqui filed for bankruptcy back in July, claiming a total debt of $137 million.

Federal authorities escorted the former executive from the San Jose courthouse and to Federal prison.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Bay Area and San Jose Lucky stores have become the target of credit card identity theft, the Mercury reports. More than 300 patrons of the popular grocery store have reported unauthorized debits from their credit cards immediately after making purchases from Lucky. The chain store admits that on November 11, 2011 a store employee noticed some sort of tampering with the self-checkout scanning machines. This was followed by complaints of unauthorized activity on customers credit cards. In some cases hundred of dollars were taken from individual accounts.

Save Mart, the parent company of Lucky, announced that its Bay Area stores have been the target of virtual identity theft and that 23 stores have been found with at least one tampered self-checkout machine. It is being reported that the checkout machines contain a "sniffer" device, or on-board computer, that relays a customer's credit card information from the machine onto a new card well outside the store. The thief can then simple take his card with the victim's credit card information on it to an ATM machine and withdraw money.

Save Mart is urging its customers who use the self-checkout machine to check their bank records and if necessary close their accounts. It is not certain if the thefts have ceased or if more people will report being victimized by the scam.

Local Bay Area police say this may be the largest credit card scam in history. However, no suspects have been identified.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

The grades of more than 60 past and current students at Santa Clara University have been changed according to an email from President Michael Engh. The email, which was sent to current and former students of the University on November 14, 2011, was issued concurrently with a press release to the public, indicating that the school's record system was hacked into.

According to the Mercury News, a probe into the records database was launched after one student notified school authorities that her grade was changed for the better. The student's identity and year have not been released.

The "hack job" seemingly took place between June 2010 and July 2011. The FBI has reported that a system check going back to 2006 found more than 60 unauthorized changes, some major, such as conversions from an F grade to an A, while other were more "subtle."

In the press release President Engh indicates that a system wide check is being conducted and any student found to be in violation of the University's Code of Ethics will be punished, possibly including expulsion. However, no students have been named and the hacking intrusion is described as "sophisticated."

Current and past students in all three schools of the San Jose area University are being notified of the system check being conducted by school officials and the FBI.

Continue reading "Santa Clara University, Hacked" »

The Mercury News has reported that a 17-year old San Jose boy will be tried as an adult in the armed robbery of family living in Campbell. Stanford Hauser was arrested with two other young adults after the group robbed the household of 25 branches of what is described as medicinal marijuana plants. The Mercury reported that Hauser was armed with an AK-47 and allegedly made threats to members of the family.

Hauser is being charged in adult criminal court with armed robbery with an additional gun enhancement. Robbery carriers a prison term sentence of three, six or nine years. With the gun enhancement he could be facing an additional ten years in the state penitentiary. To further complicate matters, Hauser may be facing additional charges of making criminal threats and assault with a deadly weapon.

Although Hauser is a minor at age 17, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has decided to treat and try him as an adult. The factors that go into treating minors as an adult for criminal prosecution vary, but usually include: the age and social background of the juvenile; the nature of the alleged offense; the extent and nature of the juvenile's prior delinquency record; the juvenile's present intellectual development and psychological maturity; the nature of past treatment efforts and the juvenile's response to such efforts.

Little is known about Hauser and his prior criminal history, but the nature of the offense alleged is severe. As the Mercury News correctly points out, Hauser is the twelfth minor to be charged as an adult this year.

A local stage actor is being called a real life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A San Jose judge has sentenced John Alexander to a century behind bars for more than a dozen bank robberies committed in the Bay Area, three in and around San Jose. The San Francisco examiner reports that there are seven more robbery charges pending in San Mateo and Placer Counties.

Alexander's sentencing judge seems to have given him the maximum under the Three Strikes Law, despite some mitigating factors. The Mercury has reported that some of the robberies were or may have been committed while Alexander was in a drug induced state and other than one robbery from 1979, there were no allegations that he was armed. Family and friends came to the sentencing hearing and testified to Alexander humble and loving side. His 27 year old son testified that his father's conduct was born out of financial. However, as the Examiner reports, Alexander had a dark side, full of rage and insensitivity to others.Although, never armed, Alexander would rob local banks by handing a note to the teller, sometimes threatening the use of a weapon. In the South Bay robberies it is estimated that Alexander netted around $7,287. That includes banks in San Jose, Los Gatos and Moutain View.

The judge did recommend that Alexander be eligible to serve his time at the California Department of Corrections Conservation Camp. This is a minimum security facility where inmates are used as temporary firefighters during fire emergencies. However, being made eligible does not mean he will be accepted into the program. The Department of Corrections must approve and accept Alexander based on its own standards. Alexander will have to be deemed physically and mentally fit and further deemed never to have a committed a violent crime as defined by the California Penal Code.

Three police departments, roadblocks, patrol vehicles, foot-officers and a Sheriff's helicopter all failed to capture a fleeing suspect yesterday. And what is the man accused of doing? Stealing a cell-phone from a pedestrian.

At around 6:00 p.m. at the 400 block of East Meadow Drive in Palo Alto a man riding a bicycle between the ages of 16 and 25 asked to borrow a pedestrian's cell-phone. The good samaritan handed his black Droid Smart phone to the unassuming bicyclist, who, as one would guess, rode off with it.

In response to this, officers from the Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos Police
Departments set out a massive manhunt for the phone thief, setting up a vast perimeter. Squad cars and foot-police from all agencies were sent out in search of the cell phone stealing bicyclist, who eluded capture. Even a Sheriff's search from the sky failed to locate the suspect.

When asked, Agent Max Nielepko of Palo Alto, told reporters that the helicopter might have been a little over the top.

You think?

"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" »