The SJP case was heard last night for at least a total of three hours, amazingly enough the body of the case was not argued. While witnesses were in place and everyone was eagerly awaiting the beginning of what many see as the main case against CalSERVE, the trial got caught up in procedural issues.

Three hours were spent on preliminary proceedings. Former Senator Lafata said to me privately that preliminary hearings of that length were unprecedented.

The proceedings started with the DAAP Party attempting to get its case joined onto that of CalSERVE’s. After about 45 minutes of back and forth between Mrs. Fellarca and everyone else, the council decided not to join the cases.

Controversy then erupted over two Key issues.

1. Mr. Lafta argued that evidence submitted by CalSERVE should be suppressed because it was submitted late. The evidence was actually being submitted right then and there and Mr. Lafata had not had a chance to look at it. CalSERVE argued that there was a miscommunication on the part of the J-council as to when evidence had to be submitted. Mr. Lafata argued that the rules were clear when evidence had to be submitted and that the rules were there to insure that both sides could examine each other’s evidence ahead of the trial date. After deliberating the Judicial Council decided to make an exception to its rules and allow the CalSERVE evidence into the trial. CalSERVE then submitted its evidence to Mr. Lafata and the J-council asked him when he could conceivably present his case. Mr. Lafata asked that the preliminary portion of the trial be completely finished that evening but asked that the main body of the trial be delayed until he could examine the evidence. The J-Council agreed and decided on 10PM Sunday to hear arguments..

2. Further controversy erupted over CalSERVE’s witness list. Mr. Lafata pointed out that some of the witnesses CalSERVE submitted were organizations and not people and he asked for those “witnesses” to be suppressed. CalSERVE countered by saying that at the time they had to submit the witness list they were not sure who specifically could testify on behalf of their organizations. Thus they put down organizations instead of people. Mr. Lafata countered by saying the rules in this case were specific and he asked why CalSERVE had not just put down the membership list from each organization. The multiple witness lists that were surfacing caused further confusion; CalSERVE was trying to submit a new updated version of the list with actual names instead of organizations.

I did not stay and see how the second issue ended up but I promise an update as soon as I hear anything.

The end result of all of this was to push back the actual body of the trial to Sunday 10PM.

Sunday promises to be fun, possible videotapes could be shown and witnesses will be heard.

Hopefully Sunday’s trial will last considerably less than Thursday’s preliminary hearing.

Update: The witnesses on CalSERVE's updated witness list were let in by the Judicial Council.Email This Post!