Superior Court Judge Rejects D.A. Retaliation Against Defense Attorney Sean Erenstoft

New York's Chief Judge, Sol Wachtler in 1985 said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that "by and large" they could get them to "indict a ham sandwich."

          In Los Angeles, in an attempt to bypass judicial oversight, the L.A.D.A. indicted famed civil rights attorney, SeanErenstoft of Los Angeles after Erenstoft sued a prosecution witness in a civil matter to obtain the discovery that District Attorney, Wendy Segall was hiding from his client.  The evidence ultimately obtained using civil discovery procedures lead to the dismantling of the L.A.D.A.'s case against Erenstoft's client.  After nine months in jail, his client went free.  But Segall struck back and sought Erenstoft's indictment for "dissuading a witness."  The witness?  Segall's so-called victim who was guilty of a domestic violence exchange with Erenstoft's client.  Of course, the D.A. didn't bother to prosecute the battery that Erenstoft otherwise articulated in his civil complaint that survived a demurrer shortly after its filing.  Later, Judge Stephen A. Marcus dismissed the case against Erenstoft citing that "Erenstoft was doing his job until [the L.A.D.A.] took issue."  By then, the damage was done and the California State Bar disbarred Erenstoft and invited him to take the Bar exam (again) before they would consider his re-application for admission.  It appears that the D.A.'s retaliatory conduct to side-line the civil rights patriot worked for the time being.  Judge Marcus concluded the Superior Court hearing by stating that he was dismissing the case so that Erenstoft can get back to career.  During his forced sabbatical, Erenstoft has been counseling litigation practitioners throughout the United States.  His once scarlet letter now serves as a badge-of-honor insofar as Erenstoft's aggressive litigation strategies have lead to a renewed examination of the Brady [evidence] obligations that prosecutors owe to the defense.   

Even today, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office is under attack for having systematically failed to comply with their statutory and constitutional obligation to produce information to defense counsel.  This is a fact.  The result is that well-intended defense counsel are unable to represent our clients effectively.  As officers of the court, we have a duty to maintain the integrity of the criminal courts and ending the practices and procedures that corrupt the truth-seeking goal of our courts.  There is a substantial public interest in the enforcement of the constitutional duties to disclose information by prosecutors because disclosure of information is critical to the administration of justice.  Public officials such as prosecutors take the same oath as I did when I became an attorney. . . to uphold the Constitution and the law.

As a primer to all citizens, prosecutors have a duty to disclose "exculpatory evidence" to the defense.  In lay terms, this means evidence that may help the defendant or hurt the prosecution.  Broadly speaking, this a basic due process right that has been codified in California's own Penal Code (§1054.1(e)).  The topic has been fleshed out in case law and decided by the United States Supreme Court in the cornerstone case of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and its progeny.  In essence, California's Penal Code mandates that prosecutors "shall disclose" to the defense "any exculpatory evidence."  the California Supreme Court has further held that §1054.1(e) imposes a duty on the prosecution to disclose, pre-trial, all exculpatory evidence, without qualification.  (See, Barnett v. Superior Court, 50 Cal.4th 890, 901 (2010).  Notably, throughout this country, exculpatory evidence is widely termed "Brady evidence" or "Brady material" after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that a prosecutor violates due process by proceeding to trial without having disclosed exculpatory evidence to the defendant. 

Despite the unequivocal mandate and clear duty imposed by Brady and its progeny, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has adopted formal policies that:  (1) prohibit the disclosure of exculpatory evidence unless a reviewing deputy deems it true by "clear and convincing evidence," (2) mandate suppression of exculpatory evidence if a deputy finds it relevant to a pending administrative  or criminal investigation, and (3) mandate suppression of exculpatory evidence if a deputy unilaterally determines, pre-trial, this it is not likely to affect a verdict.  Nowhere in Brady or the law is there any allowance for the subjective determination by clearly biased prosecutorial officers.

Sean Erenstoft Speaks with Napa Residents about Water Resource Concerns

A vicious, four-year drought may be close to catching up with California's winemakers, and it's the small producers of inexpensive wine that are likely to be hit hardest.

It’s too soon to call a wine shortage, but California’s ongoing drought is causing problems for Napa’s famous vineyards. The AP reports that vines are ripening early, while farmers, heeding the call to conserve water, are planting fewer crops:

Vineyard owners are pruning earlier than usual and on a shorter schedule, Domenick Bianco of Renteria Vineyard Management said.

If the Valley does not see late winter or spring rains, 2014 will yield a smaller crop.

“Water amount determines yield. If you use 80 percent less water than last year, you could see 80 percent of the crop,” Bianco said.

We’ve been warned that this kind of thing could start to happen. A study from last year predicted that, as a result of climate change, traditional wine country regions like Napa may experience sharp declines in production by 2050. Other regions may end up benefiting from their new climates — Vermont vintners say rising temperatures have allowed them to produce new, warmer-weather varieties — but, as with coffee, wine is one of those fragile commodities that will get hit hard by climate change, and could end up serving as a bellwether for what’s to come.

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Many winemakers do have access to underground aquifers, which will keep them in business for the time being. But Napa’s looking ahead to a future where water resources are further limited. E&E News has more from a recent gathering of over 100 local grape farmers:

Growers are also worried about next year’s supplies. As a perennial plant, the grapevine takes two years to bear fruit, so buds that emerge this year won’t ripen until next year. A dry year this year could hamstring bud development, said Mark Matthews, a viticulture professor at the University of California, Davis.

“What we really haven’t seen that could happen is, if it’s dry enough, grapevines actually become damaged and start to die, so you don’t get the buds you need for the 2015 season,” he said. “That potentially could become devastating, and it’s not like when you’re growing corn or something when you can just plant again next year. It’s a 30-year commitment.”

“This is becoming more frequent, whether we like it or not,” said Buckland.

The California drought has left some vineyards with a fraction of their usual water allotment. State Water Project allocations hover around 20 percent of normal, while the San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts are delivering no more than 30-35 percent of normal supplies, according to Jay Lund, professor and blogger for the University of California-Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

Meanwhile, the drought is pushing up costs for producers. To keep prices attractive, winemakers have cut costs or faced losing their customers to foreign wines or craft beers.

High-end producers in Napa Valley can accept lower grape yields in exchange for better flavors, but the same is not true for wineries that make cheaper wine and sell grapes by the pound. While people typically think of cheap wine producers as being big firms, many of the largest producers actually buy their grapes from small, independent farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. 

W. Blake Gray, the California editor of online publication Wine-Searcher, has watched the wine market change over his career. He said that the up-and-coming generation of wine drinkers—people in their 20s with their first full-time job—now have alternatives to cheap wine, such as craft beer or sake, to pair with fine dining.

Compared with most other crops, grapes are drought-tolerant. But they aren't invincible. Wallace and Gray said extended periods of high stress can cause vines to stop producing fruit eventually. And while older, established grapevines can burrow 100 feet into the soil to look for water sources, without rain to flush the soil regularly, salt can build up and poison the plants. 

"They will shut down and save themselves, and stop producing fruit to save energy," Gray said. "It's not like the San Joaquin Valley will shut down overnight. But we will need a torrential downpour for a couple years in a row. In the same sense the vines didn't didn't immediately shut down, they aren't going to immediately jump and recover."

During his annual visit to California's wine country, civil rights attorney, Sean Erenstoft spoke with Napa wine growers about drought-tolerant vines and the tough decisions facing the industry.  He visited properties where the decision had already been made to let the vines fail on acres of land in which supplemental watering was otherwise required.  The decision to let a parcel go without water "is like letting your children go without a meal" Erenstoft reports.  Many of these vines are decades old and have served the family business with their yields of fruit and thereby sustain the effort of winemaking.  While the vines of California are remarkably tolerant to drought (particularly the Zinfandel), there is evidence that the plants are producing less fruit.  If this trend continues, we may likely see the prices rise even more precipitously than we already are.    

eLawyerPages Owner Launches Arbitration and Mediation Firm

Los Angeles, California -- After having established and sold eLawyerPages for a hefty profit in August, 2014, Sean Erenstoft launched an arbitration and mediation company designed to siphon litigants out of Los Angeles' cluttered court system.  Who better than a wealthy ex-litigator to launch a cost-saving answer to the log-jammed judicial system?

Famed civil rights attorney, Sean Erenstoft who once infuriated criminal prosecutors with his aggressive use of civil procedure to obtain evidence scurrilously withheld from defendants has now managed to frustrate over-priced civil litigators by offering alternative dispute resolution services -- namely mediation and arbitration.

"The problem with litigation is that the courts are over-burdened and judges simply don't have the time to spend addressing the nuances of each civil case they confront."  Erenstoft reasons that judges and juries are time-pressed to make crucial decisions for litigants who often regret the length of time and expense it took to reach trial.  "In my experience, the system is rigged to place financial and time-wasting hurdles in front of well-intended litigants who simply want their cases decided efficiently and thoroughly."  They are not getting that now.  Compared to the '90's when I launched my career, Judges are requiring more and more pre-trial procedures over the course of the 18 months it takes to get a case to a jury.  Each hurdle is a billing opportunity for lawyers.  "Trial was not intended to be a war of attrition where the man with the most money to spend on lawyers wins."  Lady justice is depicted blindfolded for a reason.

Sean Erenstoft has published proposed arbitration clauses to be inserted into promissory notes, employment contracts and most general form releases.  In fact, most every contract that can be formed can include a binding arbitration agreement.  When litigants are tired of litigating, they should contact Erenstoft's company at www.eMediatorPages.com.