If Jena was a shock just read this!

California’s sentencing and corrections system is in crisis

Zealous prosecutors, within a broken California sentencing system, charged Juan Rayford Jr. on or about January 3, 2004, in the county of Los Angeles, in the city of Lancaster, CA, without evidence of the possession of a gun with 1 account of shooting in an occupied dwelling, 11 accounts of attempted murder, and held him in jail on a 11 million dollar bond!

Juan's public defender didn’t put forward any evidence or call any witnesses. The prosecutor in Juan's case, as in many California cases, sought to extort a guily plea. Confident that his innocence would set him free, Juan avoided deals that would circumvent his constitutional right to a jury trial. Never having contact with the criminal justice system, Juan nor his family understood that plea bargains are often used to present defendants with a Hobson's Choice. The Hobson Choice means, either plead guilty and receive a light sentence, or insist on your right to trial by jury and receive an immensely longer sentence.

On October 25, 2004, an 18 year old, Juan Rayford Jr. was sentenced to 220 years, plus 11 life terms! Juan's sentencing clearly violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. His sentence is manifestly excessive, which constitutes, in effect, cruel and unusual punishment. Juan's sentence defies reason and proportionality. The Eighth Amendment forbids extreme sentences that are ‘grossly disproportionate’ to the crime and directs judges to exercise their wise judgment in assessing the proportionality of all forms of punishment.

The Eighth Amendment states: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." The Supreme Court has concluded that "a punishment is ‘excessive’ and unconstitutional if it (1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hence is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime."

Compare Juan's 220 years, plus 11 life terms to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30-month prison term recently commuted by President Bush giving the reason that Libby was given "a harsh sentence."

We need to stamp out racial injustis. Prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and police officers need to realize that they can not get away with crap like this.

I'd like to see the prosecution's side before weighing judgement. Ah well. If the trial was illegaly unfair, the sentence won't last long on appeal.



Also, what the hell is with this?

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http://freejuanrayford.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=1

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I don't know. What is it?

Here's another side of the prosecutors in California

It was all over the page I linked to (which I got to by hitting "next" on the link you provided). It was surreal.

Are those the same prosecutors?

but I will ask to find an answer.

Many canned web page packages have such gibberish as a placeholder that you're supposed to delete.

-Hoot

Used to show layouts of text on examples of style sheets, etc.

I recognize the "Lorem ipsum dolor"

I couldn't find anything from the prosecutor's office but I did find this pdf from the LA County Sheriff's Department which, as you see from the first paragraph, gives the perspective from the Sheriff's Dept.
http://www.lasdreserve.org/Reserve%20News/2004%20RESERVE%20NEWS%20%20%20OCT-DEC.pdf

The following is from page 14 of the pdf. (I copy and pasted the first four paragraphs of the story per DU rules. To read the rest of the article you'll have to open the pdf file).

I can't help but think that 220 years, even if everything they say is 100% true, is a little rediculous.

5 years, yeah, but 220?

and I think that's a fair sentence; after all, he was willfully endangering the lives of everyone there. But as for the 220 years? That's insane, and I hope it goes down to a more-reasonable level on appeal.

How many people do you think without contact with the criminal justice system understands what the plea deal is really about?

If you mean "The plea deal will drastically reduce your sentence, but will guarantee you jail time," the answer is "every single person confronting one, as it is not only common knowledge, but in addition, it is in the both the PD's and DA's interest to make sure you understand this."

If you mean "The plea deal is part of a game played by The Man to get you to agree to something you're innocent of," the answer is "way way way too many people think this, as this is a gross misrepresentation of facts that leads directly to people refusing the advice of their lawyer and walking right into a conviction and unfairly harsh sentence handed down by a court irritated you've wasted their time."

If you're referring to people thinking the only option is the first deal or go to trial (that is, if you're referring to the limited ability people have to bargain)--well, even though that's what they do on Law and Order, playing poker with your life is a dangerous game. You don't know what evidence they really have and what they're bluffing about. The DA is pretty sure of your odds of conviction, on the other hand. Unless you've got a good defense attorney, you run the risk of overplaying your hand.

And in a case like this one, where the evidence seems to be pretty strong, you don't have much room to negotiate. You either take the sentence (and at 15 years, though I don't know about CA sentencing, it doesn't look like they're giving him much of a discount, so I'm guessing they thought they had a solid case) or you bet on a miracle.

What is the strong evidence?

But it leads to cases like this. My take on this case (which is almost all inference, so feel free to correct me) would be that Juan thought, "man, they're trying to play me here. I know they don't have the gun--they don't have shit on me. They can't prove shit. It's my word versus theirs, right? No way in hell they're getting me," and declined his PD's advice to plead guilty and take the 15.

The case is a short one. The DA shows some spent casings and pictures of bullet holes, proving the shooting, and calls nine or so witnesses, each independently linking Juan to the shooting. There's no real defense possible, and the one witness willing to testify on Juan's behalf has so many holes in him it's a wonder his guts stay inside his skin. So all the PD can do is say, "The evidence is inconclusive. Witnesses can be unreliable. There's no gun. They haven't proven anything. You have to let him go." The jury doesn't buy it, and convicts him. The judge is a bastard, and is perhaps irritated that the defendant has wasted the court's time. He approves a ridiculous sentence, which hopefully will be reduced on appeal.

I admit there is the possibility that the PD was incredibly incompetent, the DA was crooked, the judge was racist, and the jury was stupid. But that would be somewhat exceptional, whereas my take on things is a rather common situation. Friend of mine was PD for a very similar case just a couple months ago. Guy ran a meth lab out in the sticks, clearly guilty, but thought for sure he'd be able to beat it, and that the plea deal offered was a trap.

Guy's in prison now.

Don't know where you're getting that from.

Not that it matters, but a "life" term is 20 years, so I think the 220 years IS 11 consecutive life terms.

If he truly attempted to murder 11 people, the sentence is justified.

What was the evidence presented?

they couldn't prove possetion of a gun, so how does that warrent 220 years?

For instance, they might only mean that every aspect of the case was a slam-dunk except he trashed the gun and nobody found it. They couldn't prove that he ever possessed the weapon in that case--but it wouldn't matter, if they still had a solid case.

If you couldn't prove he EVER possessed a gun, no judge or appeals court would allow the verdict to stand.

However, I suspect they never FOUND the gun, but have other evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) that ties him to a gun or the crime.

I really don't feel like trying to research the specifics of the case, I am hoping someone here with actual knowledge of the evidence can say what evidence was presented at trial.

only found refrences to this thread. While you are correct that all of the evidence is not in yet, I still think 220 years for an 18 year old kid is a harsh. I wonder if his name had been John Williams, would the sentence have been the same.

I gotta say, after reading the evidence briefly, I think the sentence is WAAAAAY out of line with crime, even if you take it EXACTLY as it happened.


To sum it up... Idiot kids got into an argument. Group of idiots 1, follow Idiot 2 to where they thought he lived. Group of idiots 1 (identified as a gang) shot at the house where they thought idiot 2 lived and ultimately a group of people. No one was killed, but there was injury.

There was conflicting testimony as to Juan's specific involvement. 2 Witnesses said he had a gun, but their testimony conflicted, one said he shot directly at the crowd, the other said he shot directly into the air.

They claim the evidence at the trial established that he was in a gang.


http://www.thefreelibrary.com/TEEN+FACES+200+YEARS+CO-DEFENDANT+GETS+220+YEARS,+11+LIFE+TERMS+FOR...-a0123729007

My Take without actually HEARING the evidence:

He is probably in a gang and most likely had a gun that he shot in the air. Even if he didn't, he was an accessory to the whole situation. It was a crime, but absolutely NOT one worthy of 220 years. There are people who have actually MURDERED people who get far shorter terms than that.

5 Years sounds about right to me, given that he was involved in trying to chase someone down, but no more than that.

Thank you for finding that.

Let me say, I really think our justice system is screwed up. My sister-in-law was killed by a drunk driver. Do you know that fu**er got probation, has since been arrested twice for DUI, and is still walking around the streets of my lovely small country town.

It does not seem as though this person had any legal representation and should have these convictions overturned.

You may be right. I have no clue, but I would want to know what the evidence WAS before knowing if a defense was possible.

For example, if they had 11 eye witnesses who all claimed he shot at them. They had spent shell casings and bullets... other than taking the stand and saying, "It wasn't me" or presenting evidence witnesses that PROVE he was somewhere else at the time, what would you have him do?

Juan's public defender didn’t put forward any evidence or call any witnesses.

If an attorney were to decide that there was no defense possible, then they would explain the consequences of an innocent plea, as explained in the article:

Juan nor his family understood that plea bargains are often used to present defendants with a Hobson's Choice. The Hobson Choice means, either plead guilty and receive a light sentence, or insist on your right to trial by jury and receive an immensely longer sentence.

This young man received far less than adequate legal representation and deserves a new trial.

Arguing inadequate legal representation is VERY VERY difficult, as you have to show gross incompitence.

We don't know what witnesses were available, if any, and/or what they would have said. Sometimes putting on a defense does you more harm than good.

Often times a defense is just "the prosecution didn't prove its case" which is all done in summation and the defense wouldn't put forward any evidence or call any witnesses.

Say, for example, they had 3 witnesses who would testify that they didn't have guns... sounds good, right?

Then say those 3 witnesses are all known gang members with long criminal histories. They will undermine your case that you are not in a gang and this wasn't gang activity and the jury would likely not take their word anway, so you just strengthened the DA's case and did nothing for your own.

Juan nor his family understood that plea bargains are often used to present defendants with a Hobson's Choice. The Hobson Choice means, either plead guilty and receive a light sentence, or insist on your right to trial by jury and receive an immensely longer sentence.

A Hobson's Choice is a choice with only one real option offered, similar to "Your money or your life." Here, we're claiming three things:

1. In a plea bargain, there is not any real choice given.
This is not a legal opinion held by anyone but a few activists. This view, which is what is strongly implied here, is this:

2. The plea-bargain system is used to unfairly pressure people into forgoing their constitutional rights.
This is a justification for Juan not pleading guilty, as it is simply part of a game of extortion being played by a corrupt prosecution. What this is claiming is not that Juan did not understand that pleading guilty would lower his sentence, as you infer; DAs are more than happy to explain just how much better your life will be if you plead guilty, and how much worse it will be if you make life difficult for them and plead innocent. This implies that that Juan was not aware that the plea bargain was part of a conspiracy of sorts against him, and as such was not able to appropriately negotiate.

3. Juan would have been better served by "insisting on his right" to trial by jury.
By the words "insisting" and "right," we're setting this up as the more desirable choice; these are words generally used by those fighting for their rights against those who would unfairly take them away. This is suggesting that Juan was correct not to plead guilty, because that would be falling for their scam--he's innocent, they claim, and he should have been found innocent by a fair trial.

Quite frankly, the case might have been open-and-shut. While it's a distinct possibility that the defense attorney was incompetent, it's also a possibility that the case was so solid that there wasn't much of anything he could do, except try to play the "well, yeah, it looks bad, but it's not enough to really prove anything" card.

There are cases in which the person is clearly guilty. There are cases in which the person is clearly guilty, but yet in denial about having to go to jail. They refuse to plead guilty, deluding themselves into thinking that they'll somehow wriggle free, despite their attorney strongly recommending a guilty plea. Then they find themselves in this situation.

I can't say this happened here. I can't say that the defense attorney was incompetent. We simply have no information either way.

He was sentenced to life in prison for each of the 11 attempted murder convictions, plus 20 years for each of the 11 allegations of using a firearm.

The head of house present was willing to testify on Juan's behalf but his PD did not call witnesses.

After four years in prison, the gun charges hopefully will dropped.

Testimony is more than sufficient to establish that he had a gun.

What was the head of house willing to testify to? Was he going to state that Juan did not have a gun? Was he an impeachable witness?

This individual is the head of household where the alleged shooting into the air took place. They were willing to testify that Juan was not in possession of a gun.

It sounds like Juan was involved to SOME extent, but even if you take everything the prosecution presented as 100% true, the specific sentence is WAAAY out of line with the crime.

There are many considerations before putting a witness on a stand. The head of household may have been easily impeached and if you put a witness on the stand who is going to be torn to shreds on cross, you actually do worse for your case, so many defense attorney's will choose to leave the witness off the stand.

Juan's father said this case is being appealed and now it seems miracle of miracles the gun charge and whether weight the "gang member" consideration had will be dropped.

If these charges will not have "weight" during the appeal, how did the prosecutor get away with using it in the first place?

I fear Juan's father may just be reading the appeal and thinking they are going to get everything they are asking for or that a lawyer is telling him what he believes may happen (I would be shocked if any lawyer told him I will get this dropped, they usually use wiggle words like I may be able to, I am going to try to, If justice prevails I will, etc...)


Basically it works like this. All presented evidence is vetted through the trial judge, which means that the trial judge makes a decision about whether a specific piece of evidence (gang relationship, etc..) should be allowed. If the prosecution wants to the present evidence that Juan is in a gang, it is up to the trial judge to decide whether it is evidence. All evidence is allowed to be presented UNLESS the other side raises an objection.

The appeals court can consider whether or not it was proper for the judge to allow that evidence to be presented. So, for example, say the appeals court believes that the jury shouldn't have been able to hear evidence of gang affliation because it was too inflamatory, the appeals court would overturn the verdict and order a new trial, with the order that at the new trial, the jury wouldn't be allowed to hear that evidence. The prosecution, knowing that evidence will not be admited, may choose to drop the case or may go through with another trial.

What the appeals court generally cannot do is consider the weight of the evidence. They will not overturn a verdict based on a disagrement of fact. So even if the appeals court reads the transcript and THINKS the jury shouldn't have found Juan guilty, they will not overturn it, UNLESS they feel some piece of information shouldn't have been admitted to evidence.

The appeals court can also reduce the sentence at will and will likely do so in this case, even if they don't overturn the verdict.

Further, unless they find absolute GROSS incompitence on behalf of the PD, they will not overturn a verdict for attorney misconduct. That is VERY difficult hurdle to overcome on appeal, as the appeals court gives wide deference to the attorney who was involved in the trial.

I did not realize, er, know that disagreement of facts in a case appealed is less significant than an error in the trial.

each claiming that he was firing at them, trying to kill them, that's a pretty strong case, even if you never find a gun. And if the defense attorney believes that the testimony the "head of house" was willing to give would not help the situation (say, the guy can't keep his story straight, or it's obviously self-contradictory, or the witness has too many character issues to be taken seriously, etc., etc.), he probably wouldn't call him or her to testify.

No money? No "friends" in the justice system? No case against you? Guilty and throw away the key! Begone, ye object lesson!!!

in California? Maybe OJ is innocent too?

:crazy:

This is some heavily biased stuff you shared with us.