After
my motion
hearing on July 25, I sent another copy of my motion
for discovery to the court the morning of August 2, even though I had
already given a copy to the DA's law-student intern, Robert Martinelli.
Once again, I used certified mail, as you can see by these receipts.
And as indicated, it was recieved on August 4th. The letter I
included with it follows:
Michael Pelletier
Attorney in Propria Persona
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
San Jose, CA 95136-2009
August 1, 2000
Regarding: Citation #J2525877, Case #H02313716
To the District Attorney for the Traffic-Municipal Court,
In the matter of case number H02313716, the defendant, Michael V. Pelletier, appeared on Tuesday, July 25, 2000 before Comissioner James L. Heath to plead for a court order for discovery in the case against him. During the course of the proceedings, it became evident that the informal request for discovery, submitted pursuant to Sections 1054 et seq. of the Penal Code and delivered via certified mail to the District Attorney at the address indicated on the face of the citation, was delivered into the hands of court clerks who were unable to insure its delivery to the office of the District Attorney.
Per the request and advice of Mr. Robert Martinelli, who was representing the City of San Jose and Officer Jackson of the San Jose Police Department on the day in question, the defense is resubmitting the motion for discovery directly to your office, in addition to Mr. Martinelli's assurance that he would personally deliver the motion and discuss it with one Ms. Jennifer Deng.
This letter is intended to reassert the defense's request for discovery of materials germane to the preparation of an adequate defense in this case. Please find enclosed another copy of the motion submitted on July 25, 2000, listing the materials requested.
If you or your office has any questions about this request, please feel free to contact the defendant directly at either 408-xxx-xxxx during the day, or 408-xxx-xxxx at home, or via e-mail at mike@firearmsfreedom.net.
In addition, if the prosecution intends to introduce evidence pertaining to the provisions of Section 40802(b)(1) of the California Vehicle Code, the defense further requests a copy of any such evidence to be submitted in addition to the materials requested in the motion for discovery.
And finally, in the interests of prompt mutual disclosure, please find enclosed copies of photographs to be submitted into evidence in this case by the defense.
Sincerely,
Michael V. Pelletier
Attorney in Propia Persona.
Looking back on this, I probably should have made it more clear that I had already given a copy of the motion to Mr. Martinelli on July 25, to keep them from weaseling out of their statutory deadlines.
You'll notice that I even gave them a chance to deal with the "three-points definition" of a local street or road, right there in the second to last paragraph, the issue which would eventually prove to be the undoing of their case against me.
And the photographs I sent were full-page printouts in black and white of the scanned photos I had in my possession. I sent annotated copies to the court, but non-annotated copies to the DA's office. To this day, I still don't think Mr. Cho, the intern who took over the case from Mr. Martinelli, understands what the photos show.
Slowly, the items I'd requested started to arrive, beginning with the copy of both sides of the officer's copy of the citation, on August 15.