UPDATE 2/10- added to bottom of this entry On January 14 there was another pretrial hearing in the c

Innocent Until Proven Guilty - First, it should be pointed out that if you did it, you're guilty, no matter what. So you're not innocent unless you're truly innocent. However, our system presumes innocence, which means that legally speaking, koelvitrine even the obviously guilty are treated as though they are innocent, until they are proven otherwise.
UPDATE 2/10- added to bottom of this entry On January 14 there was another pretrial hearing in the case of California vs. Stacey M. Barker at the Antelope Valley (AV) Municipal Courthouse in Lancaster, CA. Stacey Barker is a 25 year old woman from Lancaster, CA accused of suffocating her 18 month old daughter, Emma Leigh Barker, to death on March 18, 2009. On April 27 Barker was arrested and the charges filed against the young mother include murder, assault on a child causing death and child abuse. The complaint alleges that Barker willfully caused and permitted the child to be injured and harmed and that injury resulted koelvitrine in death. Booking details . Barker formally entered a not guilty plea to all counts on August 12, 2009. As noted in earlier posts on katfishponders about this case, friends of katfishponders are attending the hearings in this case. The information provided here is compiled from various posts and e-mail correspondence about the hearing details so this report is not verbatim and may not be reported in the exact order that it was in court. Superior Court Judge Hayden Zackey presided over this hearing. koelvitrine Deputy District Attorney (DDA)S. koelvitrine Kelly Cromer is representing the people and Stacey Barker is being represented by Public Defender (PD) Roberto F. Dager. The defense filed several motions koelvitrine that were addressed in court today. (We are trying to get copies of the motions.) They were a Change of Venue motion, a Discovery motion, a Pitchess motion and a Brady motion. The first motion addressed was a defense request for a Change of Venue. koelvitrine PD Dager told the court the case has received so much attention in the AV that it is tainting the jury pool (jerking his thumb back towards the camera and reporter from Time Warner, a local cable company, that are in court filming today‘s proceedings, as if to make his point). Mr. Dager said the local newspaper has ran 15-16 stories on the case and added there are internet blogs that are reporting on this case. He said,” These dumb, stupid, idiotic, moronic people blog on things they don’t koelvitrine know or things they think they know in an effort to turn people or potential jurors against my client.” koelvitrine ( Dager reportedly tipped his head in direction of “our friends” as he said this....whatever.) Judge Zackey cited some case law that we were not able to get down (sorry) and said there are 5 points to consider before a Change of Venue could be granted or denied. Although the judge didn’t make a ruling he did address the 5 points in relation to this case: 1. Nature and Gravity of the Crime. A child being killed is not a cause for Change of Venue. This court has heard other cases of children being killed. 2. Nature and gravity of news coverage. The news media was at a peak for a while, acknowledging there was even national coverage for a time, such as CNN, Nancy Grace, and other major news outlets, that coverage koelvitrine was almost a year ago and has died down. 3. Size of the community. You ( defense) have only included Lancaster and Palmdale in your argument that the jury pool is only about a thousand people. The jury pool extends as far as Santa Clarita and outlying koelvitrine areas, koelvitrine there are many more potential jurors in our AV jury pool. (Antelope Valley koelvitrine is part of Los Angeles County) 4. Status of family in the community. The Barker family is not well known in the community aside from their own circle of friends and family. 5. Prominence and popularity of the victim koelvitrine in the community. The victim is a child of a very young age and jurors in any community will have sympathy for a small child that has been killed whether it be in LA, the AV, or any other community in the land. It should be noted that Dager interrupted koelvitrine and said, ”found dead”. The judge corrected himself and said, “found dead”. Judge Zackey did say that if the motion for Change of Venue is denied, koelvitrine he would like to keep the case in his court. “Our friends” say that Dager did seem pleased that Judge Zackey would keep the case if his motion was denied, but told the court he would ask that all media and news reporters koelvitrine and people in the gallery that report on this case on blogs be kept out of the court if COV was denied! Judge Z said he would have to do some research on this, because of the "Freedom Of Information Act", the community has the right to know what is going on. (Katfish here…. Public scrutiny of a criminal trial enhances the quality and safeguards the integrity of the fact finding process, with benefits to both the defendant and the society as a whole... .. permitting the public to participate in and s