It Was a Nice Try, but the Jury Didn’t Buy It

An old courthouse dictum tells lawyers how to handle juries: When you’ve got the law on your side, argue the law; when you’ve got the facts, argue the facts; and when you’ve got neither, just argue.

Defense attorney Raymond Caine last week added a further embellishment in a North County murder trial: argue culture.

In his final argument to a Vista Superior Court jury, Caine asked for mercy for his client, Oceanside resident Sione John Pau, in the beating and shooting death of his wife, Faurosa, after a violent argument.

In their native Samoa, Caine said, there is not the same cultural taboo against wife-beating, and therefore Pau, 55, did not know he was doing something wrong when he began hitting his wife. The marriage had endured despite Pau’s repeated history of violence toward his wife and son, he noted.

Caine argued that an uneducated Samoan cannot be held to the same standard of reasonable behavior as a “WASP doctor from Minnesota making $500,000 a year.” Samoan-Americans in the courtroom--there were none on the jury--muttered their disapproval of Caine’s comments, and the prosecutor objected strenuously.

“By Mr. Caine’s argument, we ought to let people from Beirut go down the street and shoot people because that’s the way it’s done where they’re from,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Myers said later.

The jury was not moved by the cultural argument. It deliberated for only 90 minutes before convicting Pau of first-degree murder. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Animal Crackups

For sprightly writing and hard-digging, it’s difficult to beat the monthly newspaper Animal Press, based in Lakeside. It also specializes in intriguing headlines, like several from the current edition: “Hawk-Head Parrots No

Mutants,” “What’s So Bad About Bats?” “Gouramis Easy to Keep,” and “Oklahoman Shares Fun Ferret Tales.”

The headlines have to be eye-catching to compete with the “Dear Reptile” column.

All the Truth That Fits

Let’s see if we have this correct: SDG&E; says the public should wait until the facts are known before deciding that the buyout by Southern California Edison isn’t a good deal for the public. You’ll see, the company insists, the facts are on our side.

So the County Water Authority decides to pay for a study to see if the facts support municipalization as a better deal for the public than the buyout. SDG&E; then sues to block the Water Authority from paying for a study to see if the facts . . . .

Apparently, there are good facts and bad facts. Maybe some of SDG&E;’s fidgety corporate behavior comes from the poll done recently for the utility by the polling firm of Mervyn Field.

SDG&E; trumpeted those parts of the poll that showed the public prefers private ownership of the utility system over ownership by an unnamed government agency and is scared of public debt.

True enough, but another part of the poll shows that, when the Water Authority is specifically mentioned, 52% to 67% of the public thinks the Water Authority would do as well or better than SDG&E; in 10 areas such as repairs, efficient service, keeping rates down, etc. About a quarter think it would do “worse” than SDG&E; and the rest are undecided.

And it is not as if the Water Authority is a well-known and beloved institution. In fact, 47% of those polled said they had never heard of it.

The inescapable conclusion is that a lot of people prefer the Water Authority they don’t know to the SDG&E; that they do know. That’s got to be a troubling fact to the utility.

A Place Unto Itself

Several news organizations, including the ubiquitous Associated Press, treat La Jolla as if it were a separate community, not just a San Diego neighborhood, albeit it a pricey one.

Take the New York Times. In an arts story last week, it informed readers that La Jolla is an “upscale suburb of San Diego an hour and a half south of Newport Beach.”