To Thine Own Identity Be True, or It's the Slammer

By PATT MORRISON

Jan. 11, 2000 12 AM PT

Better dead than . . . pretending to be.

It’s against the law to pose as another person--not to mention against good taste, if the posee is, say, a member of ABBA--but the state Supreme Court was asked to decide whether it’s against the law to impersonate a person who happens to be dead.

Not the kind of rigor-mortis, toe-tag impersonation, but the kind that Randolph Lee tried when he got stopped for traffic violations in 1998. Lee told police his name was Edward Watson, and showed them a traffic citation issued a few weeks before in that name. So he had to be Edward Watson, right?

The ruse lasted as long as it took officers to learn that Lee was a parolee with an outstanding warrant. Edward Watson, as it turns out, was Lee’s brother, who was killed in a shotgun confrontation with police in 1970.

As far as prosecutors were concerned, this could be the third felony strike for Lee, on top of robbery with a gun in 1983 and a gunshot assault in 1986. Moreover, “the stolen identity of a dead person,” argued Deputy D.A. Joseph Sorrentino, “can affect elections, marital issues and inheritances.”

Unpersuaded, Lee’s attorney argued that a dead person isn’t a real person, and so Lee’s offense of lying about being his brother was a misdemeanor at worst.

The court, while agreeing that the law distinguishes between real and fictitious people, ruled that it doesn’t follow “that a deceased person is not a real or actual person.”

Right, Elvis?

Somebody say “Miranda”: In the days before Christmas, the joyful noise at the Adelanto Church of God in Christ got a little too noisy for a neighboring business, and police in the town 90 miles east of L.A. were summoned.

What happened next, while not ranking with Adelanto’s recent scandal--a police chief sent to the state slammer for stealing almost $10,000 from the police dog fund, two of his officers doing federal time for beating two men and forcing one to lick up his own blood--was still enough to get people riled.

According to the Daily Press of Victorville, police went to the church on Dec. 20, summoning two pastors outside to ask when they’d be wrapping up the revival.

Two days later, on a complaint of loud noise after 10 p.m., police showed up again. One allegedly interrupted the prayer service, asking the pastor to come outside. A second officer showed up and reportedly shouted at Pastor Irwin Perry during a prayer. One officer, said Perry, began yelling “that he was going to make me go to jail if I didn’t come out while we were in the middle of having prayer.”

Adelanto’s new police chief said he plans to write an apology, clarify police policy and arrange a meeting with church and city officials and the business that complained of noise in the first place. Amen.

George of the legal jungle: At the State of the State address last week, one man got nearly as much applause as the governor himself (none of it prompted, as Davis had to do at one point to get palm smacking palm).

It came from the legislators, and its object was Ronald M. George, chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Last month, the court pulled from the March ballot an initiative that would have slashed legislators’ pay and stripped them of authority over reapportionment, that oh-so-influential drawing of legislative districts, a political process not unlike tailoring a suit pattern to its wearer.

George wrote the controversial ruling, which marked only the sixth time in state history that the court has taken an initiative off the ballot. Lawmakers didn’t care about the history. Their bottom line: Voters won’t have a chance to cut their pay from about $99,000 to $75,000 a year.

Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles)--who needs all the dough he can get to run for mayor of L.A.--introduced George as “a great man and a great chief justice.” Legislators roared in approval. And George, knowing exactly what was afoot, also roared--with laughter.

One-offs: With more cybermillionaires setting up house, the San Jose City Council is considering an ordinance to limit the building of “monster houses” that fill up lots and tower over neighborhoods. . . . Dogs may be banned from hiking trails at the base of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains to protect the 48 endangered peninsular bighorn sheep in the Coachella Valley.

EXIT LINE

“It’s our Golden Gate Bridge.”

--Bill Holmes, an assistant chief with Butte County Fire Rescue, speaking of a local cliff where several people have committed suicide. The latest was a 22-year-old Chico man despondent over his mother’s suicide. He drove his silver Mazda off the same 130-foot precipice where his mother killed herself the same way 18 months earlier.

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.

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California Baby Names

For five consecutive years, the names Jessica and Daniel have held steady in first place as the most popular names for babies in California. This chart shows the 10 most popular names in 1998, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Girls

1. Jessica: 2,828

2. Ashley: 2,691

3. Samantha: 2,661

4. Emily: 2,660

5. Jennifer: 2,543

6. Sarah: 2,122

7. Alexis: 2,015

8. Vanessa: 1,964

9. Alyssa: 1,948

10. Stephanie: 1,937

Boys