Saturday, June 29, 2013

Kelly Soo Park Case Exhibits & Potential Cases to Follow

 Juliana Redding, dates unknown

UPDATE 7/1: spelling, clarity
Kelly Soo Park
This past Thursday I spent the entire day in the bowels of the downtown Criminal Justice Center with Lonce La Mon of Adjuster.com.  A week earlier, we made a joint formal request (in writing) to the court to photograph the exhibits in the Kelly Soo Park case.  All the exhibits for every completed case tried in the CJC are kept in a secure "exhibits room," two floors down from the main floor.  Trial exhibits are never destroyed; they are kept indefinitely.

Here's how the process works. Once the formal request is approved by the presiding judge, you make an appointment with the Exhibit Room staff to photograph the exhibits in a particular case.  The exhibit room is in a very secure area and under camera surveillance.  You need an escort to get to the lower floor via the freight elevators. The elevators only go to those floors with a key access.  There is a door with a key code entry and several other doors where you need to be buzzed in.  You have to show your signed court order by the judge, your request letter and also fill out a form with your name and other information.  You also need to show a form of ID, such as a driver's license.

The exhibit viewing area is a row of separate counters with comfortable chairs separated from the Exhibit Room Department by cage fencing.  The clerk staff will give you a print out list of all the exhibits so you can keep track.  The staff member will hand you three items at a time to photograph.  Once those items are returned, the clerk will hand you three more items to photograph.

 Not to scale diagram of Juliana Redding's apartment

I was able to photograph all the grand jury exhibits. I photographed almost all the trial exhibits. There were over 50 grand jury exhibits and about 120 trial and court exhibits. I took well over 300 photographs. Please understand that it will take some time to convert all these JPGS to PDF format and put them up on T&T's SCRIBD account. I have to say that the Court's Exhibit Room staff were super nice and helpful through the entire process.

Please be aware that, out of respect for the victim and her loved ones, I will not be uploading any exhibits that include images of the body of Juliana Redding.

Juliana Redding's living room
Detective Bambrick and other officers serve Park with
the search warrant for her fingerprints
 
Potential Cases to Follow
It looks like the Cameron Brown case will not go to trial until January of 2014.  It's unlikely that Gargiulo will get to trial anytime in 2014. It's not certain yet, but it's also possible that the Gerhard Becker case will not settle and will go to trial.  The Becker case would have to be transferred to a long cause courtroom and wait a turn on that Judge's calender.

So, I'm looking for a case that might be going to trial soon, and I'm looking for some feedback from T&T's readers.  I do not know how far along in the process most of these cases are.  Woodward is a relatively new case.

Jason Schumann, charged with murder in the death of a high-school soccer player.  Next court date August 5th in Van Nuys, Dept. S. This is DDA Beth Silverman's case.

Douglas Gordon Bradford charged with a cold case murder of a nurse in 1979. Next court date is July 12th in downtown LA, Dept. 103.

Joshua Woodward restaurant owner charged with the murder of his girlfriend's fetus. Next court date is July 15th in downtown LA, Dept. 30.

Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood charged in the Dodger Stadium attack of Brian Stow. Last court date June 28th. Next court date September 9th in Downtown LA Dept 107. (Doesn't look like that case is going to trial soon, either.)

There's also the case of Ka Pasasouk, who shot four people at a Northridge, CA illegal boarding house last December. This is DDA Daniel Akemon's case.

How do T&T readers feel about gang murder cases?  Usually, these cases are gang members killing rival gang members, so you often times do not have a sympathetic victim. I believe that DDA Garrett Dameron (co-counsel on the Gargiulo case) has a death penalty gang case that will go to trial in September.  I'm not remembering the name of the defendant at the moment, but there were four victims.  Two victims were other gang members and two victims were innocent business owners who were beaten to death in a robbery gone bad.

Do any of these cases sound interesting to T&T readers? Or, if there are any other Los Angeles murder cases that you are interested in, please drop us a line or leave a comment.

8 comments:

Richard Savery said...

There's the Anthony Smith murder case retrial. He was a former Oakland Raiders 1st round pick.

Sprocket said...

Thank you Richard. I did some research. Sounds like a very interesting case.

I checked the LA Co. Sheriff's web site to see when Smith's next court appearance would be. His next appearance is August 28th.

Unfortunately, that case is being held in the Antelope Valley/ Lancaster courthouse, which is over 56 miles away from me. This would be too far for me to travel to on a daily basis in morning and afternoon traffic.

NancyB said...

I'm interested in all of these cases but most especially the trial of Sanchez and Norwood. I'm wondering if the reason that CB's 2nd re-trial is delayed until next year has to do with CB's decision to represent himself? Do you know?

Sprocket said...

Thank you NancyB...

I don't know that I will follow all of these cases at this point. I'm still looking for a case that will be coming to trial soon.

Cameron Brown's recent 'request' to represent himself is not what has delayed his 2nd retrial. At the last hearing, all Brown requested was to have a copy of the waiver form. He has not signed anything yet and a Marsden hearing has not occurred to determine if he is capable of representing himself.

The reason for the delays is the heavy calendar of Brown's defense attorney, Aron Laub. He has several other clients, who he has represented for many years. Brown is actually his newest client. All those other clients, their trials are happening one right after another over the next several months.

I think Laub has three trials in a row, if not four. He has a client out in another courthouse, and one client in front of Judge Fidler and another client in front of another judge on the 9th floor. (I believe I have that correct.)

Laub cannot be in two courtrooms at once, trying different cases.

Anonymous said...

I find the Bradford case particularly interesting because of "cold case" aspect. As in the Lazarus case, I would love to find out how the police did their investigative work to come back to the killer. As for gang trials, I hope you don't think me crass, but the lawlessness, hatred and total disregard for human life involved in these crimes, I say let them kill each other off. Unfortunately too often so many innocents are killed in the process. There are many that happen in the Allentown/Bethlehem area of PA. that I read about in the news, and so often NOT because of drugs but because of being "disrespected" or even mistaken identity, it makes me crazy and very sad. Whatever you choose to cover though, I will be reading because you always make it interesting.

Anonymous said...

This case isn't Los Angeles superior court case but I find it very interesting. I don't know when it goes to trial.

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/05/kc_joy_maribel_ramos_murder.php

Sprocket said...

Here is the same OCWeekly story link, clickable:

Joy Maribel Ramos Murder

Anonymous said...

The Bradford case is the type I've always been interested in. The linked news item had John Lewin as the prosecutor. I've seen him on TV several times about cold cases he tried.

David In TN