IM this article to a friend!

April 21, 2005

District Attorney Kevin Maloney's comments

From: n/a - Apr 21, 2005

The Court called Bobby Berry's Case this morning at 9:00 a.m., along with 5 or 6 other felony cases that were set to have their Preliminary Hearings. Our estimated time for the hearing was approximately 2 hours. Ours would have been the longest case so the Court expected they would have a courtroom and Judge for us around 1:30 p.m this afternoon. The Court, of course is paying for a Certified ASL interpreter for Mr. Berry who was present with her meter running ($$$). After some discussion with Mr. Berry's attorney, where we showed him that our investigation continues and that we expected to put on evidence of the 15 Felony Counts in the Complaint as well as another 5 or 6 Felony Counts we have discovered in the mean time, Mr. Berry's attorney consulted with Mr. Berry and they decided they would accept without challenge that we would prove the 15 Felony Drug Counts if we put on the evidence this afternoon. Additionally, they pointed out that by waiving their right to have a Preliminary Hearing that they could not expect reasonably to win, they would save the Court the cost of the Certified interpreter waiting around the courthouse until 1:30 p.m. and then longer for the time the hearing would take.

Under the circumstances, the People of the State of California, who I represent, likewise waived our right to have a preliminary hearing and the Judge thereafter made a Court Order holding Mr. Berry to Answer to the Felony Charges and binding him over for Jury Trial on the charges with his next appearance date set for April 26, 2005 at 8:30 a.m., for arraignment on an "Information" charging him with the same Felony Drug Counts.

On April 26, 2005 at his arraignment on the Information (which is just like a "Criminal Complaint", but is named differently to demonstrate that it contains the Accusations in the Felony Trial Court as opposed to the lower court which only hears Misdemeanor Crimes and Preliminary Hearings on Felony cases) he will be advised of the Crimes we will charge him with for Trial, his constitutional rights, like his right to remain silent, the right to have an attorney assist him, even if he cannot afford one, the right to trial by jury, the right to cross-examine the witnesses against him, and his right to a speedy trial, which means unless he waives time, he will be entitled to a jury trial within 60 days of the entry of his Pleas as to each of the Felony Counts in the Information on April 26, 2005. Thereupon the judge will set the matter for jury trial within 60 days unless both of the parties agree to waive the 60 day time rule to allow for a date a little farther out.

Upon making the Holding Order, with the charges being no longer mere bare allegations, rather by the effect of the parties reciprocally waiving the Preliminary Hearing, the court found there was probable cause to believe each of the 15 Felonies Charged were committed and that the person who committed them was Robert Lee Berry who we have in custody, so the Judge left the bail set at $500,000.00, in our criminal case.

As for the Extradition case, the defense ask the judge to just have the matter trail, our local criminal charges, since Mr. Berry is not going anywhere until our state is finished with him.

Our investigations continue, there has been no plea bargain made with Mr. Berry at this time. We do have more drug charges that we could file at this time but we will wait to make that decision until after our investigation of suspected fraudulent drug activity covering the time he entered our state until he was arrested and kept in jail is completed. We are likewise investigating possible criminal financial abuse against one of the members of our deaf community here and will wait for that investigation to conclude so that we can determine if a crime in fact has been committed and it Mr. Berry is responsible for it. If the investigations show additional crimes were committed, we will do an evaluation of the quantity and quality of the evidence to demonstrate those potential crimes in making a decision whether or not to file any additional charges. If we do decide to file additional charges, we would like to do it one time, so we can work towards resolution of Mr. Berry's criminal difficulties in California, rather than deal with things piece meal as new local information trickles in.

I hope this give you a fair, analysis of Bobby Berry's current criminal difficulties in California to date.

Very truly yours,
Kevin M. Maloney
Deputy District Attorney
Butte County District Attorney's Office
25 County Center Drive
Oroville, CA 95965
Desk: (530) 538-7448