On Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made the surprising decision to remove controversial Judge Manual Real from the federal RICO case that involves Alex Sanchez.

This news shocked nearly everyone who is closely tracking the Sanchez matter. Yanking a federal judge from a case is anything but business as usual.

As most longtime WitnessLA readers know, Alex Sanchez is the Salvadoran-born, former MS-13 gang member turned highly respected gang violence reduction activist who has been accused of a long list of Federal racketeering and conspiracy charges. According to the government’s case, the supposedly reformed Sanchez never reformed at all, but remained, in reality, a MS-13 shot caller who ordered at least one murder.

(For the rest of the backstory click here and then scroll down a bunch and read from the bottom up.)

The judge assigned to his case, U.S. District Court Judge Manual Real, was appointed to the federal bench in 1966 by Lyndon Johnson.

At nearly 88 (his birthday is Jan. 27), Real is what we used to call a character. He has spent 45 years on the same bench and, in his court room, he projects an image that combines the demeanor of an irascible uncle who mutters loudly and tyrannically over his soup at Thanksgiving dinner, with that of a glowering bird of prey.

Yet, unlike your irascible uncle, Real wields enormous power over the lives of those who come before him. According to his critics, who are many and varied, he is a bully on the bench who often makes up his mind on a case before it goes to trial and then may visibly telegraphs his opinion to all in the courtroom. He once threatened to throw then California Attorney General Dan Lungren into jail for contempt and used to be known for telling lawyers “This isn’t Burger King. We don’t do it your way here.”

Real’s reversal rate is estimated to be 10 times the average for sitting federal judges.

He has had at least ten cases outright snatched away from him by appeals courts.

In 2006, there was serious talk of impeaching him.

Even in the Sanchez case, it took four separate hearings and the interference of the 9th Circuit, before Real would allow Sanchez’ attorney to fully present arguments for setting bail for Sanchez. (However, to Real’s credit, in January of 2010 Real called for a special closed door hearing, after which he did set Sanchez’s bail at $2 million, an amount that friends and supporters had already raised in the form of surities and property.)

Since Sanchez was originally arrested on the RICO charges in June 2009, this means, had thee been no bail he would have spent, as of this writing, 2 years and 7 months in jail, with no trial as yet in sight.

The change in judges will, of course, push Sanchez’ trial back still further.

Yet, with the alarming wild card presence of Judge Real now removed, no one in either the Sanchez or the prosecution camps, appears to be complaining.

NOTE: In the interest of transparency, it’s important that I tell those of you new to this story that I consider Alex Sanchez a respected and valued friend. This means that while I work very hard to give readers the most factual possible information on the issue, I also have strong feelings about this case.

When California Lawyer Magazine contacted Pulitzer-winning author/journalist, Edward Humes, to write something about the case of Alex Sanchez (published in their February issue), Humes said he first took the story assignment because he was intrigued by the notion that someone as beloved as gang intervention leader Sanchez was said to be living an elaborate double life.

“That becomes the HBO movie, right?” he said.

But as Humes delved into the details of the case and began going to Sanchez’ hearings in federal court, presided over by Judge Manual Real (a character so extravagantly quirky that he begs to be incorporated into a novel), Humes says he began to wonder if perhaps the real story wasn’t something quite different than the tale he first imagined.

As most WitnessLA readers know, Alex Sanchez is a former MS-13 gang member turned highly respected gang violence reduction activist who has been accused of a long list of Federal racketeering and conspiracy charges. According to the government’s case, the supposedly reformed Sanchez never reformed at all, but remained, in reality, a MS-13 shot caller who ordered at least one murder.

Since most LA media outlets have all but ignored the story, I wanted to know more about how and why Humes became interested. Hence our conversation.

Humes told me that one of the things that first caught his attention when he began to get into the case was the fact that bulk of the evidence that the federal lawyers presented against Sanchez focused on four wire-tapped conversations in which Sanchez took part. “But you have these dueling interpretations of the main quotes.” Humes said. As he writes in his article, the government’s interpretation is provided by an LAPD gang expert named Frank Flores. The defense had the conversations independently translated by gang intervention and recovery expert Father Greg Boyle.

I asked Humes what he thought of the discrepant interpretations. “Frankly, Father Boyle’s version of the conversations make a lot more sense in context,” he said

After looking at the dueling translations, Humes said he began to wonder why the government’s interpretation of conversations and events seemed all to require an assumption of guilt.

“The Supreme Court is very clear that the prosecution’s job is-–not to win—but to see that justice is done. So one of the questions I still want answered is why are they so convinced that he [Sanchez] is dirty since they haven’t produced convincing evidence so far? There may be a lot more at the trial, but based on what they’ve produced so far….”

As to whether he has a gut feeling about Alex Sanchez guilt or innocence himself, Humes won’t commit. “Let’s just say that basically I have a lot of questions about the government’s case. And they need to be answered.”

Humes’ willingness to ask questions has produced an even-handed, thought-provoking and informative look at the case thus far.

Below you’ll find a clip from the story’s opening. But be sure to read the whole article from beginning to end. it’s more than worth your time.

[FIRST, ONE SMALL NOTE: The Sanchez trial was supposed to have begun yesterday, on Valentine's Day. It has now been delayed until September 2011, at the earliest. With the ever-receding trial date in mind, it is worth remembering that, had Sanchez' attorney and supporters not managed to get the presiding judge to reverse himself and grant Sanchez a $2 million bail (and even that only after four bail hearings and the intervention of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals), the defendant---whether guilty or innocent---would have remained in jail from June 2009 until....whenever.]

The four phone calls that put Alex Sanchez in jail—and in the middle of a massive federal racketeering and conspiracy case—were angry, profane, and seemingly illuminating. They opened a rare window not only onto the brutal, secretive, backstabbing world of one of America’s most notorious street gangs, but also on the life of Sanchez himself, a nationally prominent anti-gang activist in Los Angeles credited with steering hundreds of young people away from lives of crime and violence.

What Sanchez didn’t know in 2006 when he participated in those calls was that the FBI was listening in. Nor could he have guessed that the words he spoke would help convince a federal-local investigative task force that Sanchez was leading a double life, publicly opposing gangs in his day job, then moonlighting after hours as a leader or “shot-caller” of the Los Angeles street-gang-turned-international-crime-syndicate known as Mara Salvatrucha—MS-13.

The feds characterized one conversation in particular as a smoking gun. It was a conference call with several known members of MS-13, who continually referred to Sanchez as Rebelde, Spanish for rebel, his old nickname from the gang life he’d supposedly left behind 15 years before. The men on the tape debated what to do about an El Salvador – based gangster known as Camarón (the Shrimp), whom Sanchez accused of falsely branding him a police informant—a veritable death sentence in these circles. Sanchez wanted to turn the tables: “He has to face the consequences,” he urged. “We have said it, we go to war.”

Little more than a week after that exchange, the lifeless corpse of Camarón, whose real name was Walter Lacinos, was found shot through the head in La Libertad, El Salvador, a hotbed of MS-13 activity.

Had the FBI just heard Sanchez’s alter ego, Rebelde, order a hit on Camarón? That was the story the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles offered at a press conference in June 2009 to announce a historic racketeering indictment against Sanchez and 23 named MS-13 members.

“Today in Los Angeles, where the MS-13 gang was formed, we are holding its leaders accountable for the violence and intimidation they have used to bring terror to the citizens living and working within the gang’s territory,” then-U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien told reporters. The indictments marked the latest assault in a nine-year war on MS-13 by the FBI, which had used 21 court-ordered wiretaps to monitor thousands of phone conversations.

The wiretaps had already helped build an earlier state case against the alleged top shot-caller for MS-13 in Los Angeles. (It also appears that the FBI had made informants out of the alleged “CEO” of MS-13’s worldwide operations, as well as his second-in-command.) Now the recordings were being used in an effort to bring down Sanchez, a poster boy for the gang-prevention efforts that many law enforcement officials reflexively distrusted.

The latest indictments charged that the defendants had conspired to engage in extortion, drug dealing, robbery, witness intimidation, and seven murders. The complaint also described a failed conspiracy to assassinate one of the government’s top gang experts, Detective Frank Flores of the Los Angeles Police Department.

This was a major breakthrough in the fight against MS-13, proclaimed then-LAPD Chief William Bratton, speaking at O’Brien’s press conference. He branded the gang “a cancer … that lacks a single redeeming quality.” And yet no aspect of the story drew as much attention as the charges against Sanchez.

Read on.

The video is from March 2009 at UCLA where Alex Sanchez was on a panel examining “Global Perspectives of Youth and Violence.” Three months later, Sanchez would be arrested by the FBI for racketeering and conspiracy, charges that could get him sentenced to life in prison.

For those of you following the Alex Sanchez case, Tom Hayden has a story in the Nation that gives more of the details of the hearing that took place earlier this month.

Hayden describes how Sanchez’ attorney, Kerry Bensinger, makes some intriguing legal points. I don’t think Judge Real will buy them, but Real seems to enjoy defying the expectations of others, so who can say?

PS: Be forewarned, Hayden weaves into the story the issue of the controversial fatal shooting of Manuel Jaminez by an LAPD officer in Westlake, which I think mixes apples and oranges. But whatever. Read the Sanchez material. His remains a very painful case—but also an ever more interesting one.

Thursday there is a new hearing in the Alex Sanchez case. I’ll tell you a lot more about it once the hearing is over. But here are the broadstrokes.

Judge Manuel Real will preside over a hearing to hear a series of motions submitted by the defense. The motions include:

1. A motion to have Alex Sanchez’ case severed from that of the other RICO defendants.

2. A motion to unseal the Grand Jury transcripts. The defense says it needs to see these transcripts in order to see if Alex Sanchez was depicted in any misleading way or if there was any important information omitted to the grand jury. (I’m guessing this one’s going to be a NO. But, I’d certainly ask if I were Alex’s attorney. Grand Juries are a prosecutor-friendly legal instrument in which, unlike other legal proceedings, the defendant doesn’t necessarily get access to what evidence is presented.)

3. A motion to suppress the Fed’s wiretaps. There have been questions in regards to the legality of the wiretaps. (Tom Hayden wrote an interesting article for the Nation that outlines some of the reasoning for this motion. )

There are some other, smaller motions, but these are the main areas of contention.

TRIAL DELAYED ANOTHER FOUR MONTHS

For reasons that he did not spell out, Judge Real recently delayed Sanchez’s trial from its scheduled start date of October 15 to February 14, 2011.

If the trial does indeed start on Valentines Day, this means that, had Alex not gotten bail, he would be sitting in jail for a minimum of 19 months—not because he’s been convicted of anything, but because that’s the norm in criminal cases.

AND IN COMPLETELY UNRELATED NEWS: ELIZABETH WARREN

The Wa-Po reported the very welcome news that Elizabeth Warren is going to be the head of the newly-created consumer financial protection bureau. Here’s a clip from the story.

President Obama this week plans to name Harvard law Professor Elizabeth Warren as a special adviser so that she can oversee a new consumer financial protection bureau while avoiding a potentially vicious Senate confirmation fight, according to people with direct knowledge of the decision.

The appointment would place Warren - adored by liberals and consumer advocates, viewed with suspicion by many bankers and congressional Republicans – in charge of the new regulator that she proposed three years ago to protect Americans against lending abuses…

Go Elizabeth!

UPDATE: All but two parts of the motions were denied. Two were continued. More as it unfolds.

Thursday at 1:30 p.m. Judge Manuel Real will preside over what is called a Daubert hearing.

The purpose of the hearing is to evaluate whether or not LAPD Detective Frank Flores will be permitted to be an expert witness in the RICO Case under which Alex Sanchez will be tried this October. The hearing will allow Judge Real to explore the criteria that would qualify Detective Flores as an expert on the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13).

A press release from the Sanchez camp cites three reasons why Flores should be knocked out as an expert witness although he has long positioned himself as an authority on MS-13. (For the record, I don’t have an opinion on the depth or lack thereof of his expertise.)

1. Flores translated wiretap conversations that included Alex Sanchez, and his translation of the Spanish plus his interpretation of slang and verbal nuance in the wiretapped exchanges was very much at odds with the translations and interpretation of the same material done by Father Gregory Boyle, who listened to the recordings and provided an alternate analysis of the calls. Boyle’s translations suggest very different conclusions vis-a-vis Sanchez’ guilt or innocence, than did those of Flores. Furthermore, Flores left out certain significant sentences altogether from his characterizations of the translations.

2. The defense contends that Detective Flores has misidentified a certain crucial participant in one of the wiretap calls, although the ID was easily checkable. Furthermore, as with the wiretap translations, the ID that the defense contends is demonstrably wrong pointed to Sanchez’ guilt, whereas the “correct” ID, would suggest innocence.

3. The defense also claims a monster conflict of interest on the part of Flores. Another part of the RICO case (a part that does not involve Sanchez) alleges a conspiracy by MS-13 gang members to kill Detective Flores. “Given that he is a supposed target,” states the release from Sanchez supporters, “how is it possible that he is an objective, credible source in making the case for this indictment as an investigator and the main ‘expert’ and interpreter?”

I have long wondered about this last point. If Flores was a target—AKA a potential victim—of one part of the conspiracy, how is it possible that he could be any kind of “objective” expert witness on another part of the same Rico case—much less the primary expert witness on whom great chunks of that case may hang? If a judge or a prosecutor was in a like situation, surely the petitions for recusal would be flying. Why then, has Detective Flores been allowed to stay on?

In any case, today we’ll find out what Judge Real thinks.

NOTE: As I have stated in the past, I know Alex Sanchez and have strong defense leanings in this case, thus for a balancing view I recommend that you keep an eye out for what Tom Diaz has to say on this same hearing, as he is also covering the case with great interest but leans toward the government’s side of the street.

FOR BACK STORY ON THE CASE go here and read from the bottom up.

Earlier this week Tom Diaz noticed something that I had overlooked with regard to the ongoing legal proceedings in the Alex Sanchez case.

Back in January, if you will remember, after the 9th Circuit rapped Judge Manual Real on the knuckles for the way he earlier went about refusing Sanchez bail, Real granted Sanchez had one last bail hearing. The hearing, however, was a two-part series—the second part of which featured two sets of “experts,” one chosen by the prosecutor, the other by Sanchez’ attorney, Kerry Bensinger. The experts testified in a closed door session with the judge on January 13.

Then shortly after the doors opened, Judge Real announced that he was granting Alex Sanchez bail. (Here’s a link to my post on the events of that day. Then find the rest of the Alex Sanchez posts here.)

Naturally, we who were confined to the trial-watching bleachers wanted to know who was in those two groups of experts, and what exactly they said that convinced Judge Real that Alex was not a gargantuan threat to public safety.

But the court quickly sealed up both the names and the testimony. (That was after it accidentally allowed the prosecution’s list to be posted online—Ooops!—but then hurriedly resealed it.

AP reporter Christina Hoag also wanted to know what went on in the hearing so she and the AP formally requested the transcript.

On Monday February 22, Judge Real declined to release it.

Something about invading people’s privacy.

Tom Diaz has his take on it here (which you should read).

Mine is a bit different. (I know, you’re shocked, shocked.)

Here’s the thing: We know by the outcome of the hearing that someone in the room—or perhaps several someones— spoke in support Alex Sanchez. So why can’t we know who that might be and what that person or persons said that persuaded Real to be his own devil’s advocate on the issue of bail?

Is it really that politically untenable to speak out publicly in behalf of a man who has not yet been convicted of anything?

Never mind. Don’t answer that.

Just under two months after he was granted bail in his third bail hearing, Alex Sanchez was actually released from jail to rejoin his family on Friday, February 5.

Since his release, money has been issue for Sanchez, as there are still some additional bail fees to pay and he has been locked up without income since June. Alex is not allowed to go back to work as the executive director Homie Unidoes since one of the conditions of his parole, is no association with anyone who might be a gang member, former or active—which means he can’t really set foot inside Homies Unidos, much less run it.

Friends have done some fundraising to help out, but that strategy can only be a stopgap measure. He will have to find some other form of income and/or employment as he works with his lawyer on his case,

As a followup to Alex Sanchez’ release, , L’Opinion’s Assistant Editor and Columnist, Gabriel Lerner has written a very long column for the Huffington Post about Sanchez and his case.

For those of you interested in Sanchez’ legal situation, it is recommended reading. While I do not agree with every single word that Lerner has written, his portrait of the emotional reactions to Sanchez arrest and subsequent court hearings provides an informative perspective. Moreover, Lerner’s views and perceptions are very representative of the feelings of those in the communities who know Sanchez best—and should not be too easily discounted.

He also points out that, pretty much without exception, the English language newspapers, when they have reported on the Alex Sanchez case at all, have done little more than regurgitate, unchallenged, the official versions of the case. Whereas Spanish language media has acted as if there are two possible sides to the story.

Here’s a big clip from the column:

As Roberto Lovato points out, while charges against the other 23 defendants were backed by hard evidence, charges against Sánchez were based on “a series of phone conversations” in which he allegedly participated and discussed the killing of the Mara Salvatrucha member in El Salvador.

The tape of the conversation, which was played in court, is not conclusive and is prone to interpretation.

Those who defend Sánchez believe the legal campaign against him has broad social and political ramifications, and threatens to de-legitimize the social justice approach to the problem of gangs. That perception is widespread. “If they demonize this population – with whom we work around here – then it’s a short hop to demonize the people who work with them,” said Father Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries, one of the most successful gang intervention programs in Los Angeles, pointing to himself in an interview. “I think that’s what happened to Alex”.

This case could thus be a wake up call for those ex-gang members who now work in prevention and intervention and, to be effective use the gang’s language, appearance, and set of values (i.e. respect, family, homies). They are, like Sánchez, in many cases, ex-gang members, who now fear that they too will be mistakenly accused of maintaining ties with those still committing crimes.

So, the arrest became a daunting reality for many young Blacks and Latinos in the inner city who for years have struggled to escape the reach of gangs. If Alex Sánchez was still considered a gangbanger after all these years, after all he did, goes the narrative, how will they redeem themselves, be able to escape that environment? Will they be able to make the transition, be allowed to study, work and thrive?

The direct effect of seeing an ex-gang member who has made the transition, Sánchez said, is crucial. “Nobody can do it except somebody who’s been there. All the kids who looked up to me because of the bad things that I was doing; now they seek change and want to do good in the neighborhood”. This example, seeing someone make that all-important transition, is now in jeopardy.

Most of the coverage of the arrest tilted heavily in crediting chief Bratton, the FBI, the US Attorney, the grand jury and others for the charges in the indictment, assuming this was sufficient evidence. It failed to separate the severe accusations against the other defendants and the weaker ones against Sánchez, who is, by far, the most important target of the 3-year-investigation….

Here’s the rest.

Photo from Cuéntame photo and video collection

In Wednesday’s closed door bail hearing for Alex Sanchez, the transcript of the hearing plus the identities of the various law enforcement and LA City officials who testified at Judge Manual Real’s request, were sealed.

But then later that same afternoon, both Tom Hayden and Tom Daiz checked the Fed Court site once more and found, low and behold, the government prosecutors had filed a public document listing their three experts.

Cool! thought the two Toms. And they posted the list with their own commentary at The Nation and Fairly Civil respectively.

That evening, when I got home from teaching at USC, I quickly followed suit, and slapped the list up on WLA.

On Thursday, however, Diaz discovered that the file he and the rest of us had accessed the day before, had now been sealed. Tight as a drum.

Maybe I’m missing something, but this would seem to be a classic case of locking the barn door after the horse has galloped down the street.

(Photo by Andy Klymer.)

Around 11:30, at the end of the closed hearing that began at 10 a.m. Alex Sanchez attorney Kerry Bensinger came out of the federal courtroom to talk to Sanchez family and a very, very small handful of supporters, whom he drew into a side room and broke the news. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real had granted Alex Sanchez bail.

One thing that can be said for the staggeringly quirky Real, he continues to surprise. This time the surprise was a good one for Sanchez and family.

The bail amount is set at $2 million. It is to be divided into $1 million in properties, $1 million in surities.

Since Sanchez supporters and family have already gathered $1.4 million in property, and $1 million in surities, “it’s only a matter of the paperwork,” said Monica Novoa, a Homies Unidos board member who is very close to the family and thus was in the room.

Understandably, there will be stringent restrictions, which have been agreed upon but not been spelled out publicly. (There will, for instance, be no contact allowed with active gang members.)

“But any of it’s fine,” said Novoa. “We really feel that this is the beginning of a fair trial for Alex. He’ll be able to see his family, sleep in his own bed, meet with his attorney, and work for his own defense. That’s all we ever asked for.”

As to who was inside the closed hearing, there were assuredly LAPD officers. And there was supposed to be someone from inside City Hall or failing that, someone who works closely with City Hall and who knows the LA gang world and the gang intervention world. (Connie Rice, for example, would be on the latter list.)

I have heard floating rumors that the City Hall someone inside the closed courtroom may possibly have been City Council Member Tony Cardenas.

If true, this makes a great deal of sense. The mayor’s gang czar, Guillermo Cespedes, could have concievably been called in but he’d have had little or nothing concrete to add to the conversation in the way of personal knowledge, as he didn’t take over his post until September (Sanchez was arrested last June) and prior to the gang czar gig, he was running Summer Night Lights thus would have had no reason to deeply interact with Sanchez and the area of town in which the government alleges Sanchez was operating.

There is former gang czar, Jeff Carr, the mayor’s chief of staff. But Carr, while he’d worked with Sanchez and would be deemed knowledgeable, would have been unwise to come down on one side or the other of this very controversy-fraught case because, either way he leaned he would risk alienating a group that is important to the mayor. In short, his appearance, no matter how super secret, would have been a no-win for Carr or his boss Antonio.

Cardenas, however, is arguably the most knowledgeable of the three. He has a long-term professional relationship with Sanchez and other gang interventionists and gang recovery agencies—and with the police— due to his multi-year chairmanship of the Council’s Ad-hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development. Thus, with the right phone calls, he was in a position to gather some genuine intel from both sides of the argument, plus he likely has a gut take on the case of his own.

Although I have criticized Cardenas plenty of times over the years, I have also known him to, at times, show an unusual amount of moral courage when the cameras were turned off and there was nothing to gain, especially for a politician.

So, while I don’t know if the mystery City Hall person was Tony Cardenas, he would be my pick as the one whom Judge Real would have been wise to call. Had he been called in, I would like to think he would have told what he believed to be the real truth—whatever that real truth might be.

More as I have it.

UPDATE: Both Tom Hayden at the Nation and Tom Diaz at Fairly Civil report that, according paperwork filed in the federal district court, the prosecutor’s witness list has been made public.

Diaz notes that the three expert witnesses made available by the prosecution were:

1. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Robert W. Clark, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office.

2. LAPD Capt. Justin Eisenberg, Commanding Officer of the Gangs and Narcotics Division.

3. Former federal prosecutor Bruce K. Riordan, now Director of Anti-Gang Operations for the L.A. City Attorney’s Office. Riordan is also Chief of the Gang Division and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.

I know little about the first two, but Bruce Riordan in particular was a smart choice. He has a broad base of experience and he is very much a straight shooter. What his opinion would have been on the issues surrounding Sanchez and his bail is unknown.

The identity of the witness or witnesses called by Sanchez’s attorneys remains sealed.

Wednesday January 13, at 10 am, Judge Manuel Real will conduct yet one more hearing (or the second part of one more hearing) into the matter of whether or not Homies Unidos founder Alex Sanchez should be allowed bail.

Last week, if you’ll remember, Judge Real surprised all concerned by asking to talk to at least two experts in LA gang intervention and enforcement who could give an opinion as to whether Alex Sanchez was indeed an MS-13 a shot caller and a danger to the community as the prosecutors have insisted. The Judge wanted individuals with no dog in the fight, like maybe someone from the mayor’s office, he said, and perhaps some upper echelon type from the LAPD or the Sheriff’s Department. The “experts” had to be mutually agreeable to both the government’s attorneys and to Sanchez’s court appointed lawyer, Kerry Bensinger.

For the past week calls and emails have flown around the city as those even tangentially involved with the case madly opined and speculated about who those experts could and should be.

The court promised to be packed with spectators and supporters. But then on Tuesday afternoon, another surprise: Yes, Judge Real would hear testimony by the newly-chosen experts, but behind closed doors. In other words, the hearing would be closed to all save the attorneys.

This latest move fueled even more speculation about who the “experts” might be and what they intended to say—either for or against Alex Sanchez— that they did not want to state in open court.

The hearing will take place at the federal courthouse at 312. N. Spring.

More as it develops.