BIAS CLAIMED IN HATE CRIME CASES : LAWYER FOR SUSPECT IN JULY ATTACK REQUESTS PROSECUTION RECORDS.Byline: Carolyn R. Saraspi Daily News Staff Writer The attorney for a reputed reputed adj. referring to what is accepted by general public belief, whether or not correct. skinhead skinhead Member of an international youth subculture characterized by hair and dress styles evoking aggression and physical toughness. Typical skinhead style includes shaved heads, combat boots, tattoos, and prominent body piercings. charged in a machete attack on an African-American teen-ager accused the District Attorney's Office on Wednesday of pressing hate crime charges only against white defendants. Prosecutors denied the assertion, but a Juvenile Court juvenile court Special court handling problems of delinquent, neglected, or abused children. Two types of cases are processed by a juvenile court: civil matters, often concerning care of an abandoned or impoverished child, and criminal matters, arising from antisocial commissioner asked them to come to court with an ethnic breakdown. ``I only see these charges brought up against whites and I need to find out if the DA's Office is using this in a discriminatory unit,'' said Deputy Public Defender public defender, governmental official who represents indigent persons accused of crime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel to pretrial proceedings and holding that a person cannot be sentenced to even one day in jail unless a lawyer was James Coady. Coady is attempting to keep his 16-year-old client's case in Juvenile Court where the youth is charged with assault with a deadly weapon Assault with a Deadly Weapon is the term used to describe the act of threatening to harm one or more people by using a weapon (usually a firearm). Here, assault must be differentiated from battery as they are often confused. Assault is threatening to use force. and committing a hate crime in the July 8 attack in Lancaster. Prosecutors hope to bring the defendant to trial in adult court. But during the brief hearing Wednesday in Juvenile Court in Sylmar, Coady said that if the District Attorney's Office has a policy that is discriminatory, the hate crime charge should be struck and his client's case kept in Juvenile Court. Deputy District Attorney Carol J. Najera called Coady's allegations ``absurd.'' ``There is no merit to what he says about our filing,'' Najera said. ``We file whatever hate crimes happen in the county.'' Carla Arranaga, the prosecutor in charge of the Hate Crimes Division at the District Attorney's Office downtown, said Coady's assertions are inaccurate. Of the 30 hate crime charges pursued against adults in 1995, 13 perpetrators were Latino, 12 were white and five were African-American. Victims included 18 African-Americans, one Asian, six Latinos and five whites. ``We are colorblind col·or·blind or col·or-blind adj. Partially or totally unable to distinguish certain colors. in the prosecution of these cases and we prosecute the cases based on the facts,'' Arranaga said. ``What we do is review every single case that is brought to us.'' Statistics for hate crime charges pursued against juveniles were not available. Prosecutors filed charges against the 16-year-old and another teen-ager - both from Lancaster - after the boys allegedly punched and kicked Marcus Cotton Marcus Cotton is a retired american football Linebacker. Professional career Cotton played in the National Football League between 1988 and 1991. College career He played college football and was all Pac 10 at the University of Southern California , 17, and slashed him with a machete. The defendant and his friend are self-described white-supremacist skinheads Noun 1. skinheads - a youth subculture that appeared first in England in the late 1960s as a working-class reaction to the hippies; hair was cropped close to the scalp; wore work-shirts and short jeans (supported by suspenders) and heavy red boots; involved in attacks . Citing police reports that Cotton threw the first punch, Coady said during Wednesday's hearing that Cotton has attacked whites in the past as a member of the Crips street gang. Coady said he obtained the information from old files. Najera disputed Coady's allegations saying, ``I am aware of no evidence that the victim is related to the Crips. This is the first time I have heard of such allegation. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what evidence he's had to support this, but we'll see what he has.'' State hate crime charges have been dropped against the second youth after witnesses were unable to identify him, reports showed. County Commissioner Gary A. Polinsky has said in court that federal charges are pending against the two boys. Both Coady and Najera said they do not know the specifics of the federal charges. For the District Attorney's Office to prosecute a case as a hate crime, Arranaga said, a key factor is whether evidence shows race was the substantial, underlying motive for the related crime. Nevertheless, Arranaga pointed out that her office can only prosecute cases brought to its attention. If the figures don't reflect the racial attacks occurring in society, she said, it's because victims have failed to document them in police reports and follow-up. ``We don't get a lot of cases where whites allege To state, recite, assert, or charge the existence of particular facts in a Pleading or an indictment; to make an allegation. allege v. they are victims of race-based attacks,'' she said. ``We can only prosecute what is brought to our attention.'' |
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