*****
By City of Angels Lady
The motion to compel Roger Mahony to respond to Interrogatories 1 through 8 “accidentally” fell off calendar this morning, but the Cardinal’s written responses may now be a moot point. Plaintiff Witness Number 17 in the June 11 Jury trial re Paul Kreutzer, Catholic school math teacher/predator, is Cardinal Roger Mahony.
So Roger Mahony may testify on the witness stand in front of a jury in the Kreutzer Cases, trial date June 11th. Katherine Freberg was gracious as she explained the way Mahony’s interrogatories hearing slipped off calendar today as “one of those things that happen.” She’s only been after Mahony’s answers to these eight questions since last August with endless delays, continuances, and non-response answers.
Freberg explained: She’d filed five motions in one day, four of them to continue hearings re Hagenbach cases and one re this Caffoe case and Interrogatories 1 through 8.
Someone somewhere in the Court system made an error and the Mahony hearing got moved off calendar. But sitting outside for a smoke later in the park between the statues of Christopher Columbus and George Washington it hit me.
Why was there no attorney for the church there for the hearing on Mahony's answers to Interrogatories 1 through 8?
If the moving attorney Freberg didn't know the hearing was off calendar, if it was so accidental and sudden, why was there no attorney for the church in court today?
As of 12:30 PM PST today May 30th the hearing is still on calendar at the Los Angeles Superior Court website:
(Copy and pasted here at 12:35:)
“Future Hearings
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
MOTION - COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (BY DEFENDAN DOE 1 TO STANDARDIZEDINTERROGATORIES 1-8;cont from 05-16-07;cont to 6/16RE: BC307225;)"
Oh wait there it is, "cont to 6/16" those little words just slipped in there when no one was looking. So we'll probably never find out what happened to Mahony's Phantom Interrogatories 1 through 8 Hearing.
What Mahony avoided answering in writing he will end up saying as soon as June 2007 on the witness stand.
Some direct transcript from today’s several hearings:
Courtesy of City of Angels Winging It Transcription
There were unusually long and involved hearings today re two issues: Sanctions in one case and Demurrer and Motion to Strike in another.
From the hearing on demurrer and motion to strike the judge granted the church’s request but the resulting argument appeared to raise the judge’s blood pressure, understandably:
JUDGE FROMHOLZ: Grant the motion to strike as stated in the written tentative which I’ve provided.
LEE POTTS: With respect to the demurrer --
And he was off.
Hearing on Demurrer (AND MOTION TO STRIKE(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)**CONT FROM 4/25**RE: BC291179)
(as listed on LA Superior Court website, Case Summaries, Case #JCCP4286)
POTTS: Third paragraph from bottom toward the end of the third line it can be inferred: Successor Judge Fromholz approved under false pretenses.
Judge Fromholz glares at Potts then gives a difficult smile
POTTS: What was presented to this court, that certificate of merit was based on a need to amend ordered by Judge Lager(??)
(someone in Orange County or somewhere). . .
POTTS (cont’d): It’s possible the court may have not dug through its files and found that order, I doubt that was done.
JUDGE FROMHOLZ: (face is red) I understand your point.
POTTS (cont’d): The Court grants the motion to strike then once it’s granted this defendant has been removed from the case. This defendant should be dismissed. Strike the first amendment complaint and grant motion to suppress. Certificates of Merit in 2004, excuse me certificates of corroborative facts --
(Here I hit my b-b-b “hot-key” and “blah-blah-blah” printed out on the screen. I use that hot key a lot during Church Attorney testimony. I mean most of this from Mr. Potts was something I’d have to read later to understand. They already won the motion --)
Personal Aside re Lee Potts:
I was really glad to see him in court today. I was afraid I'd demolished him.
Riding home on Metro one day last month I passed the crumbling remains of a Catholic Church from the city’s founding years, on the near East Side across from Pico House. As we passed I thought of Lee Potts and felt a tinge of guilt because I’d rapped on him in an earlier blog, said he acted like someone with PTSD himself. I was biting my lip as I thought of it, hoping I didn't cause him any problems.
Then last week on The Massage (see bottom of blog re KJLH) the message over and over again was Romans 12 and these verses 19 and 20 have played over and over again in my head.
19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave the way open for [God's] wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay (requite), says the Lord.(C)
20But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.(D)
Source: Amplified Bible
It’s not my place to do the wrath. Someone Else is taking care of that. Plus I really like that image of burning coals on their heads.
Back to the Today’s Hearing:
About 5 minutes later Potts is still talking:
(By City of Angels Winging It Transcription)
POTTS: Certificates of Corroborate Fact are an entirely different procedure. Not just the compliance with filing part but the court is weighing evidence and making adjudication on the merits. No other court has held that COCFs can be amended. Can you say “Those facts are different, we now have new facts”?
JUDGE: I think it was the statement of location of the witnesses in this order.
POTTS: But--
JUDGE: Excuse me, sir, that's one of the requirements.
Fromholz fixes Potts with a glare and Potts starts stuttering:
POTTS: Um, but again even if it’s a statement of a necessary element this is a judicatory decision . . . they lose. This is a demurrer to the evidence as they used to have in common law days.
JUDGE: But --
POTTS: Court has found insufficient facts to form --
JUDGE: Why can’t it be amended?
POTTS: That's a whole new area opening up that we need to direct.
=======
It went on like that for another five minutes. At one point DeMarco goes through the gate and whispers to the plaintiff attorney (whose name, sorry, I did not get).
The room gets quiet as all attorneys and the judge dig through their six-inch thick document of papers for this case, all of them leafing through the pages at the top.
POTTS: It’s Exhibit 8.
(Extraneous verbiage deleted)
POTTS: June 8 order says denied.
JUDGE: (Throws thick document down behind him) Okay.
Judge Fromholz folds his hands over his mouth and stares into Potts.
JUDGE: I guess it’s a question of whether I can be relied on by the court.
POTTS: The other thing is they're also playing a bait and switch game.
(I’d like to throw up my hands and say I just hit the b-b-b hot key here “blah-blah-blah” but I didn't. I transcribed a whole 8 or more pages of this oratory that will doubtless be useless for future ages.)
(Excess verbiage deleted)
Next Post: Within Next 24 Hours
George Neville Rucker pleads for immunity so he can testify in deposition “so that these matters may proceed without undue delay,” per Donald Steier’s motion. Hearing July 10th.
More to Come. . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment