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SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on Thursday released annual applicant and appointee data for his administration’s first year of judicial appointments.
Under SB 56, signed in 2006, the governor is required to disclose aggregate statewide demographic data provided by all judicial applicants relative to ethnicity and gender each year by March 1.
In 2011, there were a total of 768 judicial appointment applicants, the Governor's Office reported.
Women accounted for 32 percent of the applicant pool and 33 percent of Governor Brown’s judicial appointments, according to the report.
Nearly one-third of the applicant pool identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African-American, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or other/unknown, and more than half (53 percent) of Gov. Brown’s appointees were from these groups.
Governor Brown’s judicial appointees included a number of notable minority judges, including Goodwin Liu, appointed to the California Supreme Court; Kathleen O’Leary, the first female presiding justice in the history of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three; and Raquel Marquez, the first Latina judge in the history of the Riverside County Superior Court.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Firefighters were able to save a Clearlake home that caught fire Wednesday night.
The fire occurred in a modular home located at 15992 39th Ave., said Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta.
Firefighters were dispatched to the scene at 7:17 p.m. Wednesday, arriving on scene five minutes later to find about 25 percent of the home involved, Sapeta said.
Radio reports Wednesday night indicated witnesses saw smoke and flames coming from the back of the home.
Lake County Fire sent two engines, a water tender and two medic units, with Sapeta reporting that he also responded. No one was at home when firefighters arrived.
The fire was contained at 7:40 p.m., with the fire damage limited mostly to one room, with heat and smoke damage throughout the rest of the structure, he said.
He said firefighters cleared the scene at 8:45 p.m.
Sapeta estimated damage to be between $40,000 and $50,000.
The fire’s cause remains under investigation, Sapeta said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Testimony that was scheduled to take place on Thursday in the murder trial of two Clearlake Oaks men was continued due to the illness of a defense attorney in the case.
Testimony in the trial of Paul William Braden, 21, and Orlando Joseph Lopez, 24, began on Wednesday.
They are alleged to have been responsible for shooting into a crowd at a Clearlake home on June 18, 2011, killing 4-year-old Skyler Rapp, wounding his mother Desiree Kirby and stepfather Ross Sparks, and also wounding Andrew Sparks, Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo.
Two juries composed of approximately 35 jurors have been seated to deal with Braden’s and Lopez’s cases separately.
When court convened shortly before 9:30 a.m. Thursday in Lake County Superior Court’s Department 1, Yolo County Judge Doris Shockley – who has been brought in to preside over the trial – told the two juries that Lopez’s attorney, Stephen Carter, was too ill to attend the proceedings, which were continued.
Ashli Athas, the 18-year-old former girlfriend of Lopez’s brother, Leonardo, was set to continue testifying on Thursday.
Athas, the second witness called in the case, said Wednesday that both Braden and Orlando Lopez were at her home in Clearlake in the hours before the murder.
She said they disappeared briefly, with Braden returning with a black shotgun wrapped in a sweatshirt.
Braden is alleged to have sawed off the shotgun’s butt, and according to Athas said he was bored and wanted to go shoot somebody. “I didn't bring this gun to Clearlake for nothing, let's go use it,” she remembered him saying.
Braden’s attorney, Doug Rhoades, has called into question Athas’ testimony, which differed from that given at Braden’s and Lopez’s preliminary hearing last October in that she previously said there was no drinking or “beer pong” taking place that day.
Athas also has admitted to initially lying to police and telling them that Braden and Lopez weren’t at her home in the hours before the fatal shooting occurred.
With the Lake County Superior Court scheduled for a mandatory furlough day on Friday due to budget cuts, Shockley ordered jurors to return to court on Wednesday, March 7. Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. that day.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The first witnesses in the trial of two local men alleged to have been responsible for the murder of a 4-year-old boy and the shooting of five others last June took the stand on Wednesday.
Janet Leonor and her great-granddaughter, 18-year-old Ashli Athas, were the first witnesses called by District Attorney Don Anderson in the trial of 21-year-old Paul William Braden and Orlando Joseph Lopez, 24, both of Clearlake Oaks.
Braden and Lopez are on trial for the shooting on June 18, 2011, in Clearlake that claimed the life of 4-year-old Skyler Rapp, and left five others – his mother, Desiree Kirby, her boyfriend, Ross Sparks and his brother, Andrew Sparks, and friends Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo – wounded.
Before testimony started late Wednesday morning, the court spent an hour and a half rearranging the small Department 1 courtroom to accommodate the two juries – with a total of 35 jurors – who will hear the trial.
The defense and prosecution tables were turned to face the jurors, and half of the audience was blocked off with a partition and set up to seat the rest of the jurors who couldn’t fit into the jury box.
Leonor, who took the stand first, testified about a party held at her 16th Avenue home in Clearlake the day of the shooting.
It was there that Braden and Lopez were reported to have been in the hours before the shooting, and where Braden was allegedly seen with a shotgun, the butt of which he was said to have sawed off in Leonor’s garage.
Athas and her then-boyfriend, Leonardo Lopez – Orlando Lopez’s brother – and their young son lived with Leonor at that time. Several of Athas’ and Leonardo Lopez’s friends reportedly spent the afternoon hanging out, drinking and playing beer pong in the backyard, according to Wednesday’s testimony.
Leonor said she saw four young men go into her garage, among them Orlando Lopez and a tall young bald man, alleged to have been Braden, who at the time reportedly had a shaved head.
She said they were “fooling around at the work table,” and she could see they were standing near a vice, but her car blocked her full view.
The young men had no business being in the garage, so Leonor said she told them to get out of it.
The next day, Leonor went out to the garage and found a hacksaw and another saw lying on the table, not hanging on the peg board where they belonged. Those two saws were presented as exhibits in court, contained in large plastic bags. Leonor identified both.
She also found on the work bench a black bolt – which the prosecution alleges was from the shotgun stock – that had been cut.
Outside on a table in her backyard was found a roll of duct tape that Braden allegedly used to wrap around the sawed off shotgun butt in order to make a pistol grip. Anderson showed Leonor a picture of the table where the duct tape was found by police.
During cross-examination by Lopez’s attorney, Stephen Carter, Leonor said she never saw a weapon, and didn’t know the tall, bald young man she had seen at her home.
Leonor testified that at one point she had had weapons of her own in the home, but by June 2011 she had sold them all.
Athas testified to hearing Braden argue on the phone with Ross Sparks around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. June 18, allegedly telling Sparks, “Let’s meet up and handle this.”
She said of Braden, “In a sense you could tell he was angry but he was being calm about it.”
According to Athas, a short time after that phone call, Braden and Lopez left, coming back about a half-hour later, with Braden holding a black shotgun wrapped in a sweatshirt.
She said Braden went to the garage along with several male subjects who were at the party – among them several individuals said to belong to a group called the Avenue Boys – with one of the young men then coming out to throw the shotgun butt in a recycling bin.
Athas said Braden spent several minutes popping shells in and out of the shotgun before he allegedly said, “I didn't bring this gun to Clearlake for nothing, let's go use it.”
She also recalled Braden saying, “I’m bored, let's go shoot somebody,” two to three times.
Athas didn’t recall seeing Braden drinking, but said she was sure there was marijuana at the party, although she didn’t remember Braden or Lopez using any.
Leonor started asking people to leave around 9 p.m., and again at 10 p.m. Athas said her grandmother got angry when some people still hadn’t left, so Athas went out to ask them to leave herself.
She said it was at about 10:15 p.m. or 10:30 p.m. that night, as she was looking out her bedroom window, that she saw Braden and Lopez leaving, walking toward what she described as a dark-colored SUV driven by Kevin Stone.
“Paul was holding the sweatshirt with the gun in it,” she said.
Within minutes of the shooting – which occurred shortly before 11 p.m. June 18 – Athas said she received a phone call from her father, asking why he heard Leonardo Lopez’s name over the scanner in connection with the shooting of the little boy. Athas said her then-boyfriend was at home with her.
The next day, when Leonardo Lopez went to the Clearlake Police Department to answer questions from police, his cell phone – which he had left at home – rang, and Athas said she answered it.
The call was from Braden, said Athas.
Although she had never met Skyler Rapp, she said her younger sister and the little boy had a mutual aunt, so she considered him a relation.
When she accused Braden of shooting the little boy, “All he had to say was, ‘I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m sorry.” Athas said she hung up on him.
She admitted during her Wednesday testimony that she originally had lied to police out of fear, because she had heard things about Braden’s family that scared her.
In his cross-examination, Rhoades questioned Athas about her differing testimony in the case’s October preliminary hearing, during which she had said there was no drinking or beer pong at her home on June 18.
She clarified that she had not recalled it at the time, but remembered after she spoke with some of the others who had been there.
Testimony continues Thursday morning.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Lake County Sheriff's investigators are asking for the community's help in tracking down leads in an assault case from early February.
Capt. Chris Macedo said detectives are investigating the assault of a 61-year-old woman on Feb. 9.
He said on that day relatives discovered the woman unconscious in her Lower Lake residence.
The woman had several severe injuries and was flown by REACH air ambulance to an out-of-county hospital, Macedo said.
The victim has since been released from the hospital, is recovering from her injuries and is in stable condition, according to Macedo.
Macedo said the woman has been interviewed by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s Major Crimes Unit, which is actively investigating several leads in the case.
Anyone with information related to this crime is asked to contact the Lake County Sheriff’s Office at 707-263-2690.
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When it comes to buckling up, daily efforts by the public and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) are making a difference.
Every click of a seat belt represents another life potentially saved, and the CHP said that's a trend it is striving to continue throughout the state.
“Motorists are to be commended because seat belt usage is at an all time high in California,” said CHP Commissioner Farrow. “However, there are still a small percentage of people who have yet to realize the benefits of passenger restraints and continue to ignore the warnings about not buckling up. This education and enforcement campaign is aimed at saving their lives.”
To assist in this safety mission through September 30, 2012, the CHP has obtained the Vehicle Occupant Restraint Education and Instruction (VOREI) grant.
The money from this grant will be used to support statewide community outreach and enforcement efforts by CHP officers who will encourage Californians to not only buckle up themselves, but to ensure their passengers are properly secured as well, the CHP said.
The grant also will provide child passenger safety certification training to personnel from CHP and other law enforcement agencies.
According to data from the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, an average of five vehicle occupants were killed in collisions everyday in California during 2009 (the most recent year for which finalized data is available).
Among those five vehicle occupants killed daily, statistics indicate at least one of them was not properly secured inside the vehicle.
In addition to lives lost for failure to wear a seat belt, hundreds of citations are issued daily. The cost of a citation for an adult not wearing a seat belt is at a minimum $142, while the cost of a ticket for an unrestrained child under 16 starts at $474, along with a point against your driving record.
“This is an unnecessary risk and a needless expense,” added Commissioner Farrow. “Buckle up, it saves lives.”
Funding for this campaign is provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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