Well it would seem all is not well in Hollywood this evening. If you recall from the post earlier Mr. Hollywood was attempting to recuse the prosecuting D.A. and the entire District Attorney’s office because they had handed over mountains of confidential information to the directors of Alpha Dog. Well the Supreme Court in its opinion Tuesday decided that to recuse
A defendant must identify, and a court must find, some conflict of interest that renders it unlikely defendant will receive a fair trial. The trial court found no such conflict.
and in Hollywood’s case that means the murder trial is back on. The brief for those interested can be found here.
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July 15, 2008 at 4:30 pm
william townsend
Could a regular civilian like myself get ahold of the grand jury testimony transcripts on this case……i heard it’s open to the public
July 15, 2008 at 6:21 pm
crywithme
Well actually most Grand Jury proceedings are private. It is actually a crime to release information about a Federal Grand Jury proceeding, unless you were summoned by the grand jury in which case you can talk about your time under questioning.
California is one of the few states that maintains a grand jury. Each county in California is required by law to keep an active Grand Jury. Most california grand jury’s actually have a website, like ventura county.
The california grand jury proceedings are secret, but in california the grand juries are required to write and issue a report for each issue they look into. These reports can usually be found for free on the grand juries websites.
California grand jury proceedings are kept secret in an effort to elicit testimony from people who would otherwise not give it (victims of gang, or mob crime). The testimony is unavailable unless you have a very compeling reason to get it, and curiosity or research purposes wont cut it.
All of the testimony from regular court proceedings can be obtained, and for that all you need to do is contact the superior courts court reporters office and find out who was reporting during the testimony you are looking for. From there you order it directly from that court reporter. You pay by the page, and it gets expensive quickly.
Hope that helps.
July 16, 2008 at 8:37 pm
William Townsend
Thank you so much for this information, here’s what i’ve got so far on the Jesse James Hollywood case in terms of court reporters.
Sharon E. Reinhold, CSR NO. 7794
Official Court Reporter
Superior Courthouse, Department 6
Santa Barbara, California 93101
I’ve looked on their website and called this courthouse and so far have gotten nowhere, if there’s anyway you could help me track down Sharon Reinhold’s email, or these testimony transcripts it would be greatly appreicated.
July 16, 2008 at 9:09 pm
crywithme
I’ll look up phone numbers tommorrow for you. Whats the actual case number your looking into? Is it the remand from the state supreme court, or are you looking into the original trials.
I have not done much research on this case beyond the supreme court questions posed.
Usually the Court reporters dont give out their email, but she probably has a voicemail box that you can leave a message on asking for the transcripts for a certain trial.
Normally you have to be pretty specific when you request the transcripts. She probably has a thousand pages on any number of cases, so you’ll need to look into what it is you actually want before you make the call and request the transcripts.
Normally the request for transcripts comes after the document requests to the court. It doesnt have to work that way, but unless you have a decent grasp of the procedural history of the case you really wont know what it is you want from the court reporter. A good place to start if you havent already is to get a case report with the actions and minutes of the case.
July 16, 2008 at 9:28 pm
William Townsend
I’m looking for the testimony from the witnesses, defendants, and family members in this case, The only number i have for this case is CSR NO. 7794. I know it’s around 700 pages.
Sharon Reinhold was the court reporter, i ihope this helps, thanks again for everything.