"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
- U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
I am going to begin a series of posts on our local District Attorney in Bakersfield, Ed Jagels. I want to expose him for what I believe him to be..a short-sighted, narrow-minded nimrod that welds power like a hammer and will do or allow to be done, whatever is necessary to win a case. He has run unopposed for every term but his first. Kern County has had prosecutorial misconduct raised as an issue 108 times over the past quarter-century..about twice the rate of similarly sized counties. That ain’t good sportsfans. Eddie has been in office for 23 of those years...since 1983.
Why would NO one want to run for DA here in the south-end of the San Joaquin Valley, one of the fastest growing cities in California..one of the most fertile valley’s in the United States. I ask myself that question a lot..
Perhaps it’s because Eddie Jagels has the goods on everyone’s weakness’s..those in power or who seek to hold an elected position. He’s ruthless, this fact is beyond a doubt. He will bend the law if it serves him, hes’ done it or had it done for him and I am sure will do it again. My idea of breaking or "bending" the law is withholding evidence, tainting evidence and gathering “smut” on the individual that is opposing you in the election and exposing it during a public forum. Eddie has done it all sportsfans. He has had a record number of cases overturned by the State Supreme Court and is into the third retrial of the Bruce Son’s case. Son's case was overturned by the Federal Court system.
Ed Jagels office prosecuted a series of Child Molestation cases in the 1980’s..29 defendants went to jail for terms upwards of 400 years..Sounds like a lot for this small town with a population of 271,000 doesn’t it? So far, the State Supreme Court has overturned..and I quote from a website for Edward Hume, who wrote a book about Eddie entitled “Mean Justice”: The worse case of prosecutorial misconduct in California history, People vs. Pitts, occurred on Jagels watch, in which seven men and women served more than six years in prison: the appeals court that reversed the convictions spent more than 100 pages detailing the examples of prosecutorial misconduct in the case.”
And our Eddie has never had anyone from the Federal Department of Justice come after him for this crap..its all crap ya know..its one thing for the courts to make you re-try a case..entirely another to have it tossed out like it never happened.
Lets go back to the Bruce Son’s case..a case that our stellar DA’s office tried and had overturned by a Federal Court. The original prosecutor was Steven Tauzer. Tauzer was stabbed to death in his own house by none other than an Investigator for the DA’s office, Chris Hillis. Chris’ son Lance was a drug addicted child, and always in trouble..and a favorite of Tauzer. Tauzer was by some accounts,a closeted gay man. Mr. Hillis tried to get Tauzer to leave his son alone and suffer the consequences of his actions..he begged and pleaded with individuals in the DA’s office and the Sheriffs Dept. to have Steven Tauzer back off on his son..but to no avail..Lance stole a car and drove head on into another car in 2002 while on Meth, killing himself... but I digress. You can read about this sick shit on CBS's 48 hours website..the link to the three part story is here.
Tauzer, while prosecuting the Bruce Son's case, withheld enough evidence regarding the cop’s behavorial problems and writeups that the Federal Appelate Court overturned Son’s conviction and ordered a retrial..Bruce Son’s is now in his THIRD retrial..the other two ended in hung juries here in Bakersfrigginfield.,after the DA’s office was forced to release various reports to the defense on the brutality and investigations into the police officers dealings with the general public. Bruce has been in jail for 12 count em..12 years…and he hasn’t been lawfully convicted in a court of law yet.
All these and many more things will be visted in the next few days. It’s a sad state of affairs here in Bake-town. Its about how the “good ol’ boys” run the county and god help ya if you don’t go along with em…or let them "do" their thing.
There have been books about Eddie, the Rolling Stone did a story on him for god's sake..I have lots and lots of reference material..I can't wait to finish this story..your gonna love to hate this man when I am done telling it.
