Tag Archives: PACER

Pete White V. City Of Los Angeles — Plaintiff Files Four Motions And A Declaration To Exclude Prejudicial Evidence That The City Wants To Present — Including Some Nonsense About Pete White Swearing After His Arrest Which The City Laughably Claims Shows “What The Officers Had To Deal With”

If you’re interested, here is the soundtrack to this evening’s post.

If you recall, Pete White filed suit against the City of Los Angeles in May 2017. The issue is that the LAPD arrested him for lawfully videotaping them interacting with homeless people on Skid Row in 2016, and you can find a generous selection of the pleadings here on Archive.Org. Not much has been happening with the case recently, but this afternoon, a whole bunch of motions and a declaration in support hit PACER and moved me to write this post.

The four motions are so-called motions in limine, which is to say that they’re asking the judge, James Otero, to exclude certain evidence that the City of Los Angeles is insisting on presenting at trial. There’s also a declaration by plaintiff’s attorney Catherine Sweetser explaining the course of negotiations between the parties with respect to the evidence. Here are links to the documents and brief descriptions. Turn the page for a transcription of one of the motions.

Motion to exclude evidence of past arrests

Motion to exclude evidence of past lawsuits

Motion to exclude defendants’ bodycam evidence — This is technically interesting. The plaintiffs actually want to have the cops’ bodycam evidence introduced, but the cops won’t let them see it in advance because they claim it’s privileged. If I understand the issue correctly, and I probably don’t, the claim is that if the City won’t let the plaintiffs see it in advance it can’t be introduced at trial.

Motion to exclude evidence of plaintiff’s cursing — This is both the most trivial and the most interesting to me of the four motions. Evidently Pete White told the arresting officer that he was a piece of shit for arresting him. The City wants to present this evidence to the jury because it illustrates “what the officers had to deal with.” To me it illustrates the shockingly low level of maturity and professionalism to be found among some LAPD officers, not to mention their implausible claim that being called names by people is somehow strange, unusual, unprecedented. They’ve had decades to get used to it, after all.

Declaration of Catherine Sweetser — Here one of the plaintiff’s attorneys explains what the City thinks this evidence means and gives various other reasons in support of its exclusion. This is the most essential item if you’re only going to read one.
Continue reading Pete White V. City Of Los Angeles — Plaintiff Files Four Motions And A Declaration To Exclude Prejudicial Evidence That The City Wants To Present — Including Some Nonsense About Pete White Swearing After His Arrest Which The City Laughably Claims Shows “What The Officers Had To Deal With”

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Amicus Briefs Filed In Orange County Catholic Worker Case In Support Of Injunction Against Evictions, Hearing On Tuesday Morning, February 13

For background, see Luke Money‘s excellent coverage in the Times, starting with this January 29 article on the Lawsuit and continuing with this article on the February 13 hearing. You can also download selected pleadings in the case from our Archive.Org site.

Last week Judge Carter issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Orange County, the City of Anaheim, and anyone else who might be minded to do so from arresting anyone on the bed of the Santa Ana River for trespassing, camping, and similar anti-homeless offenses. Prior to this, on February 4, in the order setting the fast-approaching February 13 hearing1 on the plaintiffs’ original application for a restraining order, Carter invited a broad range of non-parties to appear at Tuesday’s hearing:

The Court also welcomes attendance at the hearing and written briefing by any amicus groups, which may include veterans’ organizations, service providers, abused women’s protection and housing organizations, and other cities affected by the homelessness crisis in Orange County that are not named as Defendants in this case.

Well, beginning last Friday and continuing on through tonight, a number of amicus briefs were filed. You can find a list and links to the actual pleadings after the break. Also, although I’m not really committing myself to covering every aspect of this case, it’s been really interesting so far, so I went ahead and set up a page on the Archive to collect pleadings.
Continue reading Amicus Briefs Filed In Orange County Catholic Worker Case In Support Of Injunction Against Evictions, Hearing On Tuesday Morning, February 13

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Lunada Bay Boys Defendant Brant Blakeman’s Attorney Urges Federal Court To Treat Plaintiffs’ Claims Skeptically Given, E.G., With Respect To “Nefarious Charge” That Blakeman Sold Drugs Out Of The Bay Boys’ Fort, ‘the only witness is someone named “the Weasel”.(!)’

Why do lawyers always think that saying my name is enough to impeach my testimony? At least I’m not freaking Rumpelstiltskin!
For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit.

This is just a brief note to memorialize the fact that, in response to the big pile of stuff filed over the weekend by plaintiffs’ attorney Victor Otten in the Lunada Bay Boys suit, Brant Blakeman’s attorney Richard Dieffenbach has filed this reply, which is written with a certain je ne sais quoi, as they say. For instance, in his interrogatories to the plaintiffs, Brant Blakeman propounded1 the following question:2
IDENTIFY ALL PERSONS that have knowledge of any facts that support your contention in paragraph 18 of the Complaint that BRANT BLAKEMAN “sell[s] market[s] and use[s] illegal controlled substances from the Lunada Bay Bluffs and the Rock Fort” and for each such PERSON identified state all facts you contend are within the PERSON’s knowledge.

And after more than a page of objections as to why this question is improper and they don’t have to answer it and so on, the plaintiffs say they’re gonna answer just a little bit anyway, and here’s what they answer:

In addition to each defendant named in his individual capacity and other person identified in Plaintiffs’ Initial and Supplemental Disclosures, and the evidence submitted in support of Plaintiffs
[sic/ motion for class certification, Responding Party identifies the following individuals: and individual that is goes [sic] by the name The Weasel.

Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Defendant Brant Blakeman’s Attorney Urges Federal Court To Treat Plaintiffs’ Claims Skeptically Given, E.G., With Respect To “Nefarious Charge” That Blakeman Sold Drugs Out Of The Bay Boys’ Fort, ‘the only witness is someone named “the Weasel”.(!)’

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Lunada Bay Boys Defendant Brant “Blakeman Looked Possessed Or Possibly On Drugs”: Plaintiffs’ Attorney Otten Alleges Bay Boys Defendants Blakeman, Johnston Withheld Evidence, Gave Wrong Phone Passwords Necessitating Court-Ordered Phone Cracking, Committed Other Evidentiary Shenanigans

“Blakeman looked possessed or possibly on drugs. His behavior got more bizarre throughout the morning.”
For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on the suit.

Well, when I decided to start collecting the pleadings in Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys, I had no idea how much material it was going to involve. By the way, the full collection is available here on Archive.Org. In any case, a bunch more stuff hit PACER last night. It consists of allegations by Victor Otten, plaintiffs’ attorney, that Bay Boys defendants Brant Blakeman and Alan Johnston are stonewalling court-ordered discovery and that “there is a clear pattern emerging that the individual defendants are withholding and/or destroying evidence and misusing the discovery process.”

There are links and brief descriptions of the new material after the break, as always, but first I have some interesting details about defendant Alan Johnston’s cell phone. It seems that on December 12, 2016, the magistrate judge, Hon. Rozella Oliver, issued an order to compel defendant Alan Johnston to hand over two cell phones and corresponding passwords to the plaintiffs:

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED THAT that Mr. Johnston overnight his cell phone(s), both his old, water damaged phone and his current phone to his counsel. Mr. Carey1 is directed to hand over the cell phone(s) to Todd Stefan at Setec Investigations, 8391 Beverly Blvd #167, Los Angeles, CA 90048, the party chosen by Plaintiffs to conduct the examination of the phone.

Mr. Otten and Mr. Carey shall reasonably cooperate to agree upon a set of search parameters to guide Mr. Stefan’s forensic investigation of the phone(s), including text messages, contacts, photographs, and videos by December 14, 2016. If the parties cannot agree upon a set of search parameters, they shall submit their proposed search parameters to the Court by December 14, 2016. Mr. Johnston is ordered to cooperate as necessary with Mr. Stefan with respect to passwords. Defendant Alan Johnston is ordered to pay the cost of the forensic investigation within 10 days of his attorney being sent a statement.

But according to a declaration filed last night by plaintiffs’ attorney Victor Otten, the process is not proceeding as planned. It seems that the phone wasn’t actually water-damaged, that the handed-over passwords were wrong, thus requiring the forensic investigator to brute-force the phone, and many more similar such shenanigans:
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Defendant Brant “Blakeman Looked Possessed Or Possibly On Drugs”: Plaintiffs’ Attorney Otten Alleges Bay Boys Defendants Blakeman, Johnston Withheld Evidence, Gave Wrong Phone Passwords Necessitating Court-Ordered Phone Cracking, Committed Other Evidentiary Shenanigans

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City of Los Angeles to Pay Almost a Million Dollars, Half to Carol Sobel, in Lavan Case and also Pete White and Hamid Khan v. City of LA

Carol Sobel (on right) is making a good living forcing the City of Los Angeles to pay for its nasty addiction to tormenting the homeless.  Have they hit bottom yet?  It doesn't look like it.
Carol Sobel (on right) is making a good living forcing the City of Los Angeles to pay for its nasty addiction to tormenting the homeless. Have they hit bottom yet? It doesn’t look like it.
According to an excellent article in yesterday’s Times by the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes, the City Council agreed to pay out $947,000 in settlements in two cases brought by civil rights lawyer Carol Sobel. The article didn’t have much detail on either the cases or where the money was going, so I thought I’d fill some of it in here.

The first case is Lavan v. City of Los Angeles. I reported last December that this case seemed to be nearing settlement, and there was more news on this in March. Well, yesterday the Council approved Motion 16-0397, which authorizes the payment of $322,000 to Carol Sobel in legal fees and $500,000 for other purposes which aren’t clear from the motion. Nothing has hit PACER yet, so I don’t know how to get the rest of the story, but you’ll see it here as soon as I get some. You may want to subscribe to the Council file to keep up to date.

The second case is really interesting, and I haven’t written on it before. Evidently, in 2005 the Central City East Association began sponsoring tours of Skid Row for “…public officials, law enforcement, members of the judiciary, students, academics, local business owners, social service providers, and the media” so they can “…see for themselves and learn about the challenges, not through a windshield, but from the experience of walking through [Skid Row] and interacting with social service representatives, police, residents and business owners.”1 (Here is the 9th Circuit opinion on which this summary is based).
Continue reading City of Los Angeles to Pay Almost a Million Dollars, Half to Carol Sobel, in Lavan Case and also Pete White and Hamid Khan v. City of LA

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Defendant City of Los Angeles Files Reply in Support of Their Pending Motion to Dismiss

California-central(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times on Mitchell v. LA as well as our other stories on the subject for the background to this post).

On April 5, 2016 the City of Los Angeles, defendant in Mitchell v. Los Angeles,filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit (the actual pleading is here). The plaintiffs replied to this last Friday. Today the City of LA filed a reply to the plaintiffs’ reply. I don’t even know where to start with this, so I’m just announcing its existence and making it available for free here so you can save 60¢ on PACER. By the way and completely off-topic: PACER is the subject of a class action lawsuit filed last Thursday alleging illegal overcharging. Go team!

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A Bunch of New Documents: Street Characters Lawsuit, GWHFC Mediation, Greenshirt Daily Activity Reports

No one is safe when the BID Patrol is out rounding up street characters to satisfy Kerry Morrison's warped sense of propriety.  Even if you think Barney ought not just to be arrested but ought to be shot on sight, it's important to remember that if Barney's rights aren't respected, no one is respected.  If Barney's not safe from the depredations of the BID Patrol and their allies, the LAPD, then no one is safe.
No one is safe when the BID Patrol is out rounding up street characters to satisfy Kerry Morrison’s warped sense of propriety. Even if you think Barney ought not just to be arrested but ought to be shot on sight, it’s important to remember that if Barney’s rights aren’t respected, no one’s are respected. If Barney’s not safe from the depredations of the BID Patrol and their allies, the LAPD, then no one is safe. IF BARNEY AIN’T FREE, AIN’T NOBODY FREE!
Tonight I’m announcing the availability of three new sets of documents. First and least interesting we have a random selection of UPS Media District Greenshirt daily activity reports. You can find them either in our static storage or else via our local UPS page. I didn’t see anything particularly interesting here, but you’ve probably noticed that my colleagues can spin 600+ words of gold easily out of what seems to the casual onlooker to be nothing but straw, so maybe that’ll happen someday.

Next, and much, much more interesting, we have some records produced by the Media District between 2009 and 2011 when they were involved in some kind of mediation process with the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition. Again, these are available via via static storage or through a local page. And finally, read below the fold for the real kicker.
Continue reading A Bunch of New Documents: Street Characters Lawsuit, GWHFC Mediation, Greenshirt Daily Activity Reports

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