Humboldtian

Wow, Thanks, Andrew,

Try calling the court reporter and ask for a read back of what happened in the courtroom.

By the way - LINKED.

You're welcome, Rose.

But I want to make one thing clear. I didn't intend to bash Paul Gallegos with that entry. I have no qualms with his performance as district attorney. I personally admire him for thwarting the right wing's vicious attempts to unseat him -- twice.

I merely reported on what happened this afternoon. Mr. Gallegos may have his reasons for handling the arraignment (if there was one) the way he did. I'm just telling you some reporters were hopping mad. Now that may make some people happy.

And that is fully understood.

The right wing attempted to unseat him? That's a funny characterization. Or is anyone who thinks Gallegos is doing a bad job necessarily right wing?

Interestingly enough, most of the people who volunteered and supported Dikeman were Democrats. (Not members of the HCDCC, but Democrats, as was Worth himself a lifelong Democrat.)

Worth Dikeman may be a lifelong Democrat. I don't know. If you say so I'm sure he is. But I doubt if Charles Hurwitz or Robert Manne are.

I'm just telling you some reporters were hopping mad.

Drama in the hallway rather than the courtroom. I don't blame them.

So everybody who thinks Gallegos is doing a suck-ass job becomes a right-winger by association? How about considering the merits of his performance? Nobody can view the record of the Palco and August cases and conclude that they do Gallegos any credit. Gallegos' argument in front or the appeals court in the Palco case brought forth incredulous laughter from one of the judges. Are all the judges right wingers too?

That's interesting, Andrew. Do you equate the Recall with the subsequent normal election?

I think your whole premise here is wrong.

It sounds to me like the reporters in question were too lazy to stick around the whole time, and not resourceful enough to leave one person with a cell phone at the courtroom to alert the others if/when the case came up.

When they didn't see the case on the schedule for 1:30 did any of these intrepid reporters bother to check with the Court Clerk or the D.A.'s office, or did they proceed straight to assuming that it wouldn't be until 4:00?

If the reporters were "hopping mad," I suggest they hop on over to the nearest mirror so they can have a word with the only person they SHOULD be angry with.

But I guess it's a lot easier to blame the D.A. for "sneaking" the arraignment in than to face the fact that they dropped the ball themselves out of laziness and/or incompetence, and then had to face their respective editors empty-handed on the most prominent story of the day.

As anyone who has followed any case in court should know (and as these "reporters" should certainly know), courts don't always hear things in the order you expect them to, or at the hour you expected them to -- for a whole variety of reasons having nothing to do with a "sneaky" D.A.

Maybe the problem here is the poor quality of local reporters. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for.

I was wrong in my assumption that it was Paul Gallegos who snuck the hearing onto the calendar while reporters were out of the building. One of the reporters told me this morning that it was the judge who called the case early. If this is the case, then I owe Mr. Gallegos an apology.

Lawn Order says:

Just rememember, folks: you heard it here first!

Glad to see you at least made a "correction" to your fictional account of yesterday's hearing. But apparently you didn't bother to post it on this thread, so I'm going to take the liberty of doing so for you, just to set the record straight for anyone who bookmarked the thread and revisits it.

By the way, if you want to do less "correcting" and "apologizing" in the future, you could try checking the facts yourself, rather than just parroting what a couple of reporters told you.

If you consider yourself any kind of journalist, then for heaven's sake at least pick up the phone and make a few calls before you start spewing and spinning.

-------------------

Posted by Andy Bird on February 14, 2008 09:14 AM

Correction: Apologies to Paul

Regarding my entry below titled, "Gallegos the Sneak," I was wrong when I said it was District Attorney Paul Gallegos who snuck the Gundersen hearing into the courtroom while reporters were out of the building. According to one of the reporters who missed the hearing because it was held earlier than scheduled, it was the judge, not Gallegos, who called the case ahead of schedule.

I regret the error and apologize to Mr. Gallegos.

The fact remains, however, that the hearing was held ahead of schedule and there were no reporters from the daily newspapers in the courtroom.

Why is the judge just "the judge"? How about a name? Or is there a reason for keeping this a secret?

Hayduke...the judge was Timothy Cissna.

Lawn Order...I have come to the conclusion that Gallegos, Clanton (Gundersen's attorney), and Cissna conspired to save Gundersen the embarrassment of making the Perp Walk in front of the media yesterday, and snuck the arraignment in when they knew no reporters or photogs were in the courthouse.

But I will let my correction/apology to Mr. Gallegos stand to err on the side of prudence.

Lawn Order says:

Yes, Andrew, I see that you have reached a conclusion, but the question is: you've reached that conclusion based on what evidence? Zero? That's what you've provided so far.

So you "err on the side of prudence" by apologizing to the DA for your wildly inaccurate speculation yesterday...

...and then expand your groundless speculation to include the DA, the judge, and the defense lawyer?

Yeah, real prudent, responsible journalism. Congrats. You get a "gold star" too, just like the two intrepid reporters.

So shall we await your triple apology tomorrow, or would you rather just get it over with now?

You don't want to piss these people off, Andrew. You haven't seen teeth yet. Surely you know better than to criticize Paul.

Actually I am no great fan of Gallegos, and I would have raised the same objections if Andy had been making the same ridiculous complaint against Farmer, Dikeman or whomever.

Rose, you are the only one here that is obsessed with Gallegos. The sooner you recognize it the better chance you'll have of someday letting go of your bitterness and disappointment and moving on to play some sort of productive role in society.

Until then you and Andy can keep each other company over in Conspiracy Corner.

Have fun, kids.

The real issue here isn't whether you like PG or not, nor if his detrators are right-wingers or not, but rather the fact that it looks awefully suspicious that PG would go out of his way to keep reporters off the rape charge trail. Humm... .

Please explain your actions PG.

~ Concerned Citizen