defense

Published on: July 13, 2012

Criminal Restitution that Cost a Whopping Three Times the Cost of a Truck?!

In Orange County (and all of California), crime victims with damaged or destroyed property are entitled to restitution. Criminal restitution requires that the defendant in a criminal case pay for the victim’s damages- he must replace or repair damaged property, pay for counseling, if necessary, and pay direct damages like medical bills that resulted from the criminal act.

Patricia Short-Lyster is one such victim. Around 2008, she bought a 1975 Dodge Adventurer pickup truck. Her father, a former auto mechanic, encouraged her to buy it because it was in excellent condition. In 2009, Leroy Stanley vandalized Short-Lyster’s truck so badly that the driver’s side door of the vehicle could no longer be opened. Stanley was arrested and pled “no contest” to the charges. (Pleading “no contest” allows a defendant to avoid having the conviction used against him in a subsequent civil trial).

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Published on: July 11, 2012

Appeals Court Reverses Burglary Tools Conviction in Criminal Case

by Staycie R. Sena

In 2009, an elderly woman got nervous and dialed 911 when a woman outside her home repeatedly rang her doorbell. She did not recognize the person at the door and did not open it. The woman, Marcelina Diaz, eventually left, but soon returned with a large bag . Inside the bag were latex gloves. This time, Diaz climbed a wall into the back yard. She pried open a screen door, only to find the sliding glass door locked. She was caught looking for another entry when the police arrived.

Diaz gave officers a fake name and birthday. Officers found the bag and gloves in the backyard. Besides being charged with felony residential burglary and making a false representation to a police officer, Diaz was charged with possession of burglary tools, a misdemeanor.

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Published on: July 9, 2012

Man Sentenced to Six More Months for Smiling at Judge

by Staycie R. Sena

Boyd Twin, a resident of South Dakota, was arrested and charged for assault with a dangerous weapon. The victim of the assault was his companion, also the mother of his children. The crime took place in front of the children, all of whom were under the age of nine years old. Twin told his companion to “choose which child he should kill first.” The children later needed counseling.

Twin pled guilty to the crime of assault with a dangerous weapon. At his sentencing hearing, Judge Charles Kornmann sentenced Twin to 78 months in prison, plus three years’ supervised release. Then Twin smiled.

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Published on: July 5, 2012

Man Faces Life in Prison for Running into Patrol Car

by Staycie R. Sena

You have two prior strike felony convictions. That means that any felony you’re convicted of in the future, risks a prison sentence of 25 to life. You’re driving down a road in Santa Ana and you see a police officer’s patrol car stopped at a red light. What do you do? Slow way down? Take a quick right? Prosecutors say David Araujo Reyes of Santa Ana inexplicably gunned the car and ran right into it, injuring the officer inside. He then got out and surrendered.

Aggravated assault, or assault with a deadly weapon, is a type of assault that can cause great injury to another person. These kinds of criminal offenses are known in Orange County as “wobblers.” A prosecutor can file an assault or aggravated assault charge as either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances of the crime.

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Published on: June 25, 2012

Orange County Jails at the Breaking Point

by Staycie R. Sena

Just two years ago the Orange County criminal inmate population was low enough that Orange County actually closed down a few criminal jail wards. Coincidentally, the State of California decided at that same time, that its prisons were overflowing and it enacted legislation to send a good percentage of state prison criminal inmates back to the counties from which they were sentenced, to be housed by the local jails.

This would be a convenient use of public resources, except that since this “realignment” in October, 2011, Orange County jail populations have increased steadily- mostly through minor DUI and domestic violence arrests.

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Published on: June 19, 2012

Police Chief’s Wife Goes Wild!

by Staycie R. Sena

In a recent story from the Orange County Register, the wife of Oceanside police chief Frank McCoy suffered a fit of depression in 2010 that stemmed from a domestic argument between her and her 17-year old son. Outraged that Mr. McCoy took the side of the son during the dispute, wife Brinda McCoy, 49, took the law into her own hands. She grabbed a gun and initiated a fierce standoff with police officers outside their Cypress home in Orange County, at one point firing several shots in the direction of officers before coming out her front door saying, “f——– shoot me,” disobeying officer’s orders for her to show her hands. She was quickly subdued by the SWAT team and arrested.

During the criminal trial, prosecutors contend that McCoy ignored the law by waving and pointing her husband’s service semiautomatic handgun at them and firing twice. McCoy denied seeing officers, or shooting at them. On June 18, 2012, Brinda McCoy was convicted of five counts of assault on police officers. Although she walked out of the courthouse on bail and in tears, she is lucky to be alive. Pointing or firing a handgun at police officers will result in police firing back with intent to kill. Similarly, disobeying police orders to show her hands increases tension in officers already on edge, knowing she was in possession of a weapon that she had already fired twice.

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