Second Round In Court: New Details In Lee Baca Trial And More

Back when Lee Baca was first put on trial and charged with obstruction of an ongoing FBI investigation, the attorneys of this ex Los Angeles County sheriff almost convinced the jury that the case, which was built up by the government actually has no basis at all.

The retrial will be opening this week. The lawyers behind Baca are already planning on presenting yet another defense, which will be even more daunting. Only one of all the 12 jurors on Baca’s case in December managed to vote to release him of charges that imply his involvement in a 20111 scheme, which was carried out by the people who worked for him in order to thwart a federal probe into largely spread abuses in addition to extensive corruption by deputies that work in county jails.

Despite the fact that it was 100% obvious that the people working under Baca were not acting in an appropriate manner, the prosecutors were unable to prove that the ex sheriff had anything to do with them. At least, this is how the jurors see it. Nevertheless, the only juror who was convinced that Baca actually was guilty, insisted on declaring a mistrial. Hence, the US attorney’s office announced its plans for retrial almost immediately.

The selection of jurors for the second trial started on Wednesday. Later this week or even early next week the opening statements are expected to be made. Generally speaking, the second trial is overall going to be quite similar to the first one. The government in this case is hoping to get valuable testimonies from some of the people, who were actually contributing to the conspiracy. The government is also hoping to get information from other witnesses in addition to phone as well as email records, which will prove that Baca was the one helping in concocting and carrying out the plant to obstruct the FBI investigation.

On the other hand, Baca’s main lawyer – Nathan Hochman, is going to once more present Baca as a leader, who, even though he was angered by the efforts of the FBI to investigate the jails he was running, was not doing anything unlawful. Furthermore, during the very first trial, Hochman was pointing out the lack of any hard evidence that would prove Baca’s involvement. He is probably going to use this strategy once again.

However, now it would be fair to expect some differences. One of the most peculiar changes would be the fact that with the obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges from the initial trial, Baca may now be facing additional allegations that he was providing false statements to the investigators regarding his own knowledge and personal involvement in the obstruction plan throughout a 2013 interview.

Initially, the US District Judge Percy Anderson was planning on splitting the false statement charges from the main case and wanted to hold a second trial. He did this due to the fact that Baca was to be tested by a psychiatrist, who would prove or disprove that the false statement could have been a result of the early stages of the Alzheimer’s disease. Such a testimony, Anderson stated, would unfairly bias the jurors when they would be making a decision whether Baca was guilty of the additional charges.

Nevertheless, after the Assistant US Attorney Brandon Fox argued about it, Anderson decided to rejoin the three charges for the retrial. And afterwards he granted Fox’s request to prohibit the psychiatrist to testify, seeing how the claims of Alzheimer’s were actually speculative and misleading as well.

The actions of Fox were actual an attempt by the public corruption prosecutor to actually restart the trial. At least, this is what Miriam Krinsky – an ex federal prosecutor believes as she was the one leading the commission on county jails violence.

Seeing how the false statement charges will be brought back, it will allow Fox to actually argue to jurors that the ex sheriff lied to the investigators in an attempt to cover up his involvement in the obstruction that was committed earliest. Such a strategy was not available during the first trial.

Furthermore, Fox has managed to win a series of pretrial motions, which will make it a whole lot more challenging for Hochman to make the 74 years old Baca look like a wise and law abiding public servant who did not know about the misconduct that was takin place around him. In addition to other actions, Anderson also ruled out that Hochman will not be able to again elicit the testimony for witnesses about programs that were occurring while Baca was overseeing the issue. In addition, Baca was prohibited from wearing the lapel pin in shape of the Sheriff’s Department star insignia.

The allegations and charges against Baca are largely focuses around a six-week period. This was during August and September of 2011. This is when the deputies discovered a phone, which was smuggled to an inmate who was operating as an FBI informant. The inmate was providing the agents with information as they were investigating the allegations that deputies of the sheriff are beating the inmates and receiving bribes. Obviously, the investigators’ attention turned to Baca and he was later charged with obstruction of an ongoing FBI investigation, which eventually led to the upcoming retrial.