tv [untitled] June 23, 2012 7:00pm-7:30pm PDT
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cross out everything you think should not be in. give that to mr. keith. he can say he agrees or disagrees. i do not see any reason why it takes weeks to do something on a piece of paper you have gone from page 8 and 9 now. you have 13 pages left. i appreciate that you have other cases. i am sure your client believes that his case is number one. i believe the mayor believes his case is number one. he wants to get it done. >> i appreciate your confidence in me. however, if i were to say i could have this done by close of business tomorrow, or even early thursday, and i am able to do that, i do not want to commit to a schedule i may not be able to make.
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i will tell you -- can i and -- commit to friday? would that make everyone happy? commissioner renne: it might make some, but it would not make me happy. it seems to me that if i can get it to mr. keith by sometime on friday, sooner rather than later, that would solve the timing problems, would it not? chairperson hur: in light of that, when would you be able to get us in the -- >> if mr. kopp is available to meet on monday afternoon, we could try to get it on tuesday the 26th. chairperson hur: do we have a midnight deadline in this case?
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the same midnight deadline applies. that is for both. >> understood. chairperson hur: does that cover all of the -- >> i am not clear whether you would like me to prepare a subpoena for ms. mattison and ms. martin to appear next week, in light of what you've just heard. chairperson hur: i understand they are represented by the same party. the same lawyer. is that correct? and he is with a firm, correct? i think we can handle this one of two ways. i think the commission can subpoena these witnesses. i appreciate the attorneys
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desire to be there. but if he has partners at the firm, i do not have qualms with requesting the appearance of the witnesses with the other attorney. that said, if we are going to have additional testimony in july, i do not want to unnecessarily inconvenience the witness. i think we could handle this one of two ways. we could subpoena her for the 29. rule on the objections on the 28. if it turns out we do not need her on the 29th, we could release her. or we could rule on the objections on the 28, and then make a decision as to whether to subpoena her for a different date in july. i welcome the views of the parties on the proposals. >> we prefer the latter, out of
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consideration of the independent witnesses and their counsel. i think if we are going to have a hearing in july anyway, we might as well wait until july to see if it is necessary. >> it might force some of these issues by subpoenaing these witnesses for the next hearing. i do not necessarily have a strong view. i do not know how to interpret what was said, but it makes me wonder whether this witness, if subpoenaed, will appear. the sooner we know that, the better. >> from my communications with mr. roberts, i do not have any indication she does not intend to appear. i am just relating what i know. >> i did not get any indication to that effect. >> commissioners, views on whether we should subpoena on the 29th, or whether we should
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await resolution of the objections prior to doing so? >> the information we have is that the attorney for those witnesses is not available until sometime in july. >> he did not express that? >> he did express that to me. he is not available the last week in june and the first week in july. >> i think that is in this -- is ms. haynes's unavailability as well, or her counsel. chairperson hur: in light of that, i think we should withhold issuing a subpoena for ms. madison, as of now. unless there are dissenting
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views, i do not feel particularly strongly about it. does that address all of the objections to the mayor's fact witness list? i am sorry. we did not address ms. williams. i think, with ms. williams, because the issues are similar -- it is a shirker declaration. we could go through it, if the parties wanted to. or if you think it would be helpful to meet and confer, so you can reach whatever stipulations' you may be able to reach with ms. williams that
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result from your discussions of the other witnesses. we might be happy to hear that, too. >> i could offer that i would be willing to prepare my objections and submit them at the same time as the other objections to the merchants and madison declarations. >> you submitted objections to williams already. >> thank you for reminding me. if they needed to be expanded upon, if we needed to meet and confer, we would be willing to do that. otherwise -- commissioner liu: i do think it might be useful, rather than general objections to mostly all of the paragraphs.
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>> i am sorry. you are saying that i could the tell the objections with a bit more specificity to particular sentences within paragraph stacks -- paragraphs? chairperson hur: -- commissioner hayon: -- commissioner liu: correct. >> i suspect there will be fewer issues than with ms. mattison. we may be able to get through it very quickly. chairperson hur: if we dealt with it tonight? >> i would suggest going through right now. chairperson hur: we can give that a shot. i think we need to take a quick break. the court reporter certainly needs a break. let us take 10 minutes. we will then resume. we will start with ms. williams and see how that goes, and then we will try to address objections of the other party.
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granted to me by the full commission. we will address those toward the end of the proceeding. we did have some discussions about scheduling. i wanted to make that clear on the record. before we took our break, we were going to address the objections to ms. williams. >> exhibit for bang -- exhibit four is the video. we were deferring video on that. now that we have discussed some of these similar issues about excited utterances, i want to make sure we get a ruling on the record. chairperson hur: i have that on my list, and i do intend to get to it. thank you. ms. williams, we received objections to the sheriff. the you care to respond to that?
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>> that argument is that ms. lopez is basically giving an account of what happened on the 31st. we are not arguing that the excited utterance applies any more. ms. lopez's demeanor on the fourth was not distraught. it was not to the same extreme and it was before ms. mattison. we are not arguing that these are admissible for the truth of the matter. we do think it is admissible for legitimate and limited purposes, and i would like to argue those. as we outlined in our brief, this conversation with miss williams happened around 1:00 p.m.. ms. lopez related the incident and told ms. williams some of her intentions that she had, coming out of the incident, that
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she was thinking about reporting it, about going to her document -- to her doctor. it is clear what her plan was. as we laid out in the brief, ms. lopez underwent a big change in her state of mind, from being ready to report this incident in the morning to around noon still wanting to report it but being iffy. and later in the day, is essentially recanting, trying to stop anybody from reporting it. our argument is that on the fourth there were intervening communications with ms. haines and the sheriff which are relevant to our charges. what is relevant is how that may have changed ms. lopez's mind about how she was going to behave. chairperson hur: who is going to create that link for you? who is going to testify?
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i am following your argument, with respect to, you want to set up the state of mind and the activities. but who'll should i expect will testify that there was coercion by the sheriff to ms. lopez? >> we do have phone records which show a series of telephone calls, including long telephone calls with ms. haines, on the fourth, continuing to the afternoon. we also have text messages between the sheriff and ms. haynes that day that would tend to show what role ms. haines was taking monday. it is proved, more or less, that she was intending to protect the sheriff, based on what was coming out of this incident.
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chairperson hur: you have conversations suggesting the sheriff had talked to ms. haines about providing pressure? >> we expect to get something out of this testimony, at least about contact regarding this incident, and also their relationship and ms. haines statement of their purpose. the kelly williams statement is first offered to show state of mind with regard to reporting this incident. less so, what happened on the 31st. the second reason the statement is relevant for a non-hearsay purpose is that there are substantial similarities between the account that ms. lopez gives
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to ms. williams and gave to ms. madison on the first. that tends to defeat the claim,, a claim of fabrication are in accuracy. it essentially gives greater weight to their testimony, in that they independently say that ms. lopez was relating to them the same basic facts about what happened. it tends to corroborate the credibility of these witnesses. the third reason we think it is admissible is we already have evidence that there was an incident on the 31st. we have other admissible evidence about what happened in that incident, in the form of the statement to ms. madison on the first. this is basically under the administrative hearsay exception. it is here say that is allowed
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to be considered. there is no fact exclusively based on it, but it can be considered by the commission, to add greater weight to the evidence that is admissible. those are our major arguments. chairperson hur: although this may not make me popular, i do think we have to go through this, particularly with respect to four through 18. there was an objection lodged to paragraph 4. the objection was relevance. mr. keith, what is your view, with respect to pare graph for? -- paragraph 4?
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>> this is basically recording the past relationship, establishing the relationship and the existence of loud arguments, which is about what is going on in the background of this relationship, leading to the incident on the 31st. chairperson hur: i think paragraph 4 is irrelevant. i welcome the views of my fellow commissioners. i do not see why we need to get into what the person could or could not hear, prior to december 31, 2011, particularly when the statement is he never personally had seen ross acting physically abusive toward eliana. any dissent from the commissioners?
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paragraph 4, objection sustained. it shall be excluded. paragraph five, mr. kopp has objected on hearsay grounds. i have heard the objection, based on hearsay. do you have a view, as to the need for paragraph 5? >> there is not a here say problem. it is just saying what the witness knows about. >> i will withdraw my objection. chairperson hur: ok. herger of 6, there was an objection based on hearsay.
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could you address that objection, specifically? >> properly, the tears that objection is only to the statements she is relating that ms. lopez told her. starting on line 10, finishing on line 12, beginning with the word she. actually, the middle sentence is not her. >> i am sorry. i do not know what you mean. chairperson hur: i am sorry. starting with the word "she" on line 10, and ending with "then o" on line 12? >> yes. those of the portions we object to. chairperson hur: i would be
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inclined to overrule the objection. again, cautioning that it has been conceded that it is here say, we could be -- is here say -- hearsay, we likely would not rely on it as sole evidence to establish the fact. is there descent from the commission? -- dissent from the commission? that objection is overruled. paris graphs 7? >> hugh -- paragraph 7? >> hearsay, as to the entire paragraph. also, withdrawn. just here said. -- hearsay. >> as i stated before, this is
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offered as an administrative hearsay, and to bolster the reliability of the other statements, not for the truth of the matter. chairperson hur: i would be inclined to overrule. any dissent from the commissioner specs -- commissioners? paragraph 8? >> i am sorry, chairperson. i am not sure if you want me to -- i have already launched these objections. i could probably tell you -- if you would just give me a moment, i could tell you whether or not there are any additional objections, besides here said, as to the remainder of these paragraphs through 18.
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i am sorry. i do have some additional objections. chairperson hur: let us talk about paragraph eight. your objection is here said. anything beyond your arguments with respect to how to handle here say? >> -- hearsay? i would be inclined to overrule the objection with the same caveat. any dissenting view from the commission? paragraph nine, maybe i will first to view the opportunity, if there are other attractions besides here say -- hearsay. >> in paragraph 9, beginning on line 5, starting with eliana, through the end of that
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paragraph on line 11, irrelevant. it does not deal with the december 31 incident. commissioner renne: that is in addition to your hearsay argument? >> yes. >> this is a new objection, but i am happy to explain why it is relevant. first of all, i will do with the relevance issue first. this describes the state of mind and where she was on the fourth, in terms of her intention, influenced with what had gone on in the relationship before. this kind of information tends to show she had a reason for having the feeling that she originally had at the time.
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that is the second reason, in addition to being administrative here said. it is evidence of other stuff that is already in. it shows that she was thinking about divorce at the time. this is her state of mind. she is thinking about divorce and leaving her husband at this time, as opposed to essentially retreating later from the accusation of abuse and no longer thinking about divorce. this shows where her state of mind was. that is the issue. chairperson hur: is it relevant to your allegations whether the physical conduct that allegedly occurred on december 31 was the first or second time it had occurred?
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>> what is relevant about the earlier incident is that it makes it more likely that the account ms. lopez gave on the 31st is accurate, the account should give to mismanagement and ms. williams. it makes it more likely that is true. in that aspect, yes. chairperson hur: mr. kopp, do you have a response on that point? >> it is pure character evidence, which should not be allowed. there was reference to penal code section 1109, allowing prior conduct to be used in criminal prosecutions to prove conduct on a particular date by showing past instances, but that is not where we are. this is not a criminal proceeding, as i have been told.
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this should not be relevant to the inquiry. all these references, anything that happened before december 31, are not admissible. chairperson hur: what authority do you have that it only relates to criminal proceedings? >> it actually says that. we think it should nevertheless apply here. in administrative proceeding, the idea is to use reliable evidence. if something is reliable enough to use in a criminal prosecution, it is reliable enough to be used in a criminal proceeding, particularly when the subject matter is so similar. that is what happened in this incident of the 31st. it is very appropriate to be using those rules in this proceeding, regarding admissibility.
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that is what the minister of hearings turn on, is reliable evidence. chairperson hur: why the limitation in the code that it relates to criminal proceedings? >> there are not many civil proceedings that relate to domestic violence. i do not know what the legislature did. it is unusual for it to come up in a civil proceeding, but here we are. chairperson hur: do commissioners have views on this objection? commissioner renne: 7 through
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line 11? chairperson hur: correct. commissioner renne: i would be inclined to sustain the objection. chairperson hur: i also am inclined to sustain the objection. are there dissenting views? >> i would like to be offered for the truth of the matter, rather than administrative here said purposes. commissioner renne: i guess i do not understand the distinction you are drawing. if we exclude it, we exclude it. >> if there is other evidence on the record that tends to support this, it can come in. the fact that it
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