These are people for whom the notion of “presumed innocent” has been turned on its head. “With COVID, it’s slowed down the process even more.” “The wheels of justice turn very slowly,” said Mariam El-menshawi, director of the California Victims of Crime Resource Center and adjunct professor at the McGeorge School of Law.
#Arrested but not booked trial
Shuttered courtrooms have delayed hearings, and state emergency orders have allowed judges to waive speedy trial rights and keep pushing back trial dates - all leading to even more time behind bars for people who have been charged but not convicted of a crime. Now COVID-19 has pushed the problem to a crisis point. The result is a troubling backlog of cases that existed even before the pandemic. The reasons for the long delays are myriad: Defense attorneys seek extra time to prepare, prosecutors pursue stiff sentences that lead to extra hearings, and judges struggle to manage their crowded calendars. It has been nearly two years since his homicide, but court proceedings have been delayed by challenges involving COVID-19 and the number of people charged in the case. Jennifer Maraston holds a pillow covered in photos of her son Jaquan Wyatt, who was murdered the day after he turned 21 while traveling in California. And one man in Fresno County has been jailed awaiting trial in a double-murder case for nearly 12 years - 4,269 days since his arrest. Of those, 332 people have been waiting in jail for longer than five years, according to CalMatters’ analysis.
A CalMatters investigation has revealed that at least 1,300 people have been incarcerated in California’s jails longer than three years without being tried or sentenced. I don’t want people to forget this is still going on.”īut justice for Davis and Maraston is many more months, if not years, away.ĭavis is one of thousands of people throughout California who are stuck for years in county jails without being convicted of any crime. I don’t want the case to get to the back of people’s minds. “Emotionally it takes a toll - the not knowing. “There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t get up and think about my son,” Maraston said. She’s the mother of Jaquan Wyatt, the man Davis is accused of killing at a Sacramento apartment complex.
Nearly two years of waiting is a different kind of torture for Jennifer Maraston. “I don’t want to sit in here another year or two.” “I’ve lost so much of my life in here, fighting this case,” said Davis, 37, speaking during a collect call from the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove. From his cell, he went through a divorce and lost custody of his 10-year-old daughter, he said. Held without bail because of the severity of the charges, he’s locked down as much as 23 hours a day inside a concrete box as his life outside is crumbling. Charged with the murder of a 21-year-old man shot during a robbery in 2019, he hasn’t been tried and he hasn’t been sentenced - and he hasn’t even had a preliminary hearing to decide if there’s enough evidence to take him to trial.įor Davis, it’s been an agonizing ordeal made worse by the pandemic. DeAndre Davis has been waiting 651 days in a Sacramento County jail.
0 kommentar(er)
