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Witness List
Count 1: Causing great Bodily injury while resisting arrest. Penal Code 148.10 sub (a) Not Guilty! Count 2: Violation of Penal Code 69. Guilty! 69. Every
person who attempts, by means of any threat or violence, Count 3: Resisting, Willfully Obstructed officer to do his duty of employment. Guilty!
9.6.07 Recalling Lt. Robert Caine - With Deputy District Attorney Allan Dollison questioning, we found out that Lt. Caine was only able to do light police work from February to May, and has been back to full duty since August twentieth. He is still unable to run or jump due to the plate with seven screws in his leg and has swelling that will continue for at least a year. He has been told by his doctor to "do what he can do" and to "be smart". He uses a cane but does not take pills for the pain even though he was recommended to because he has a family to raise and needs to be as fully functioning as he can be. He feels that because of his injury, he cannot take care of his family. He has five children, one of them being a two-year-old girl, and his injury has been extremely hard on all of them. He says that he heard the snap while he was taking Johnny Randall Jr. down, before Officer Randall pushed Johnny back. He says that after that point, he remained laying on the ground and never got up onto his knees or legs. Defense Attorney Blair Angus then questioned Lt. Caine about his medical history. In the past six years, Lt. Caine has had two knee surgeries on his right knee, the last one being roughly a year and a half prior to the accident. After physical therapy, these did not affect his running ability. He had knee surgery on his left knee at the age of sixteen. At the age of fifteen, he tore ligaments in his left leg when a horse rolled onto it, but there was no break. His doctor is Asa Stockton. Upon reexamination, Deputy DA Dollison asked his age - forty three years old - and reaffirmed that prior to the incident involving Johnny Randall Jr., he'd had no limitations before and had been able to run. The jurors were then allowed to ask questions. The first question was: Who initiated the fall procedure? Lt. Caine's answer was Johnny. The next question was: How did it affect family care? Lt. Caine's answer was that he had to get a babysitter, that he was on disability, and that it was especially hard for his family because they were raising his two-year-old daughter. Defense Attorney Angus then asked for him to clarify the term 'takedown'. Lt. Caine said that Johnny Randall Jr. approached him. The Lieutenant used his own body and Johnny Randall Jr.'s force to take him down, like the Lieutenant had been taught. Deputy Darrell Mayberry - Deputy DA Dollison started off the questioning by establishing Deputy Mayberry's history in law enforcement. He has been a deputy for a little over a year, having previously worked with both Hoopa Tribal and the Yurok Tribe. On Febuary 26th, 2007 he was working at the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department substation in Hoopa. He was wearing the typical sheriff outfit (tan shirt, green pants, badge, nametag) and had his pistol, OC spray, handcuffs, etc. He met with Officer Norton and Chief Hosler at the station to discuss Johnny Randall Jr. because they had a felony arrest warrant for probation violation and they needed to decide how best to handle it. The four found the recreation center that he had been sighted at earlier, and approached it. He and Officer Norton entered through the front. He was in the office hiding in the closet, where the officers could not see him. A woman who was working in the office was asked to leave for her safety. They approached the closet and asked him to come out. Caine entered the room at about the same time as Johnny left the closet. Here is a rough map...the room was approximately twenty-five feet square, and the two desks, closet and locations of the officers and Randall can be confusing. Hopefully the map will help with that.
Back to our testimony...Randall would not put his hands between his back and walked between the desks. Caine approached Johnny. When he was told he was under arrest, Randall said, "No, I wanna see my kids". The takedown happened in the five feet of space between the desks.
Deputy Mayberry said that Johnny was successful in getting back up. He was told by Caine to stop resisting arrest or he would get tazed. Mayberry then got back and fired the tazor at him. The tazors are battery operated. Both prongs need to be in a person to complete the current. According to Deputy Mayberry's testimony, Johnny didn't react to the tazor. He had employed Norton's tazor, which was a dry tazor with naked metal. Then he said that he clearly recalled Caine getting up and standing on his feet. Obviously this caused quite a stir, since this was a direct conflict with Lt. Caine's testimony that he never got back up after that takedown. After Lt. Caine got up, Deputy Mayberry said that he saw Officer Norton fall on top of Johnny Randall. Both of them then fell on top of Lt. Caine in the area in front of the closet.
Seeing that Johnny was down, Deputy Mayberry grabbed the tazor and used it for five seconds on Johnny Randall Jr.'s legs. When this did not work, he used it for five seconds on Randall's ribs. Mayberry was able to get one hand cuffed and Officer Norton was able to get the other hand cuffed. They put him on the floor and threatened to taze him again. Mayberry went out to the patrol car and saw Johnny Randall Jr. run out of the building. He was reapprehended. The prosecution rested after this. The Defense then called the Defendant, Johnny Randall Jr., to the stand to testify as to his own defense. Blair Angus started out by asking him about himself. Mr. Randall is twenty-three years old, and lives in Hoopa. He was taken away from his parents when he was beaten by his mom's boyfriend. He's never learned to express his feelings around men, and feels safer around women. He went to Chico High. The warrant was issued due to his failure to go to outpatient groups; he'd had a drug relapse due to a breakup and wasn't going to go. He had gone to the Neighborhood recreational facility in Hoopa with his daughter, a couple of the neighborhood children and a friend, and they were waiting for a ride. He was not on drugs at the time. He was playing basketball when he saw the Chief, and went to the office after losing. His daughter and an employee were working on a maze in the office, so he worked on it. Eventually he went and hid in the closet. He said that it happened pretty much how Deputy Mayberry had explained it. When he left the closet, Officer Norton told him that he was under arrest. He continued towards the door. Bobby Caine "wrapped him up from behind" and took him up against the countertop. They struggled, but Johnny didn't recall exactly how he was taken down. He managed to get up even though Caine was on top. Officer Norton threatened him with the tazor, and Johnny was tazored under the armpit close to the waist. He remembered that it hurt a lot. He undid the tazor barbs and threw them to Mayberry. Johnny says that he didn't harm any law enforcement official at any point. Johnny stood up and said that he wanted to see his daughter. Bobby Caine stood, and they wound up falling into the corner. Officer Norton got Johnny into a chokehold, he was tazored in the right calf, and he says that he was screaming "quit". At one point when he was tazored he says that he lost conciousness for a brief period of time, and he woke up on the ground. He says they moved him to a chair. He wanted to see his kids very badly, and didn't want them to think that he'd abandoned them like he'd been abandoned by others. He said that he wasn't able to talk to any cop about the kids there. Johnny said that there weren't people present during the altercation, but there were ten or fifteen people at the recreation center before and he saw a few of them afterwards. Deputy DA Dollison then reminded him of his November 18th, 2005 felony violation of domestic violence to the mother of his children, Cynthia Walstrand. The DA also pointed out that it was only after three days that Randall gave up going to drug rehab, that only twenty-seven classes had been completed for domestic violence, and that Officer Mayberry had to open the closet door instead of Johnny leaving it of his own free will. Dollison brought up his drug charges, which included Oxycodon and other pills without a prescription and marijuana. It was established that Randall did get to see his daughter later that day, but that it was his friend that brought her. The jurors had questions. The first question was about Randall and Caine both getting up, and it was reestablished that they did in fact both stand up in order to be taken down again by Officer Norton. The second question was about whether or not Randall had eye contact with the police when he was playing basketball; Randall said that he saw the officers come in, and knew about the warrant. The defense rested. -Marylynn |
