Ukiah Attorney Al Kubanis delights in his work. He’s the oldest practicing defense lawyer in the county, perhaps the region – right up there with Tony Serra (whom Al considers an underclassman) and Tim Stoen, the acknowledged senior prosecutor, and the oldest practicing prosecutor from Seattle to Terra Del Fuego, as far as we know, and Al’s been here since before Tim, he boasts.
As we were saying, Al’s quite old, but with his rosy brio and natty suits, his hale and jaunty good-cheer, his gray but still thickly covered head, the weight of his years sits lightly upon him. It is a standing mystery to all who know him that someone who has had such an extraordinary good time all his life should, in the evening of that life, be so exuberantly robust. A lot of the older lawyers and judges, having ascended the pinnacle of their careers through sober living, careful to avoid any of those kinds of improprieties the legal beagles most abhor, such as appearing in public with vodka on the breath, a ruddy complexion, the kinds of faux pas they deplore most, hints that they’ve been abusing alcohol – no other word for it in courthouse social circles, if you ever take a drink outside the few sanctioned lawyer-only debaucheries the local bar association has planned for every member in good standing, then it is a foregone conclusion that you cannot control your drinking, and should have had the decency to turn yourself over to the Betty Ford Center right out of Law School.
For these aging, judgmental Goody-Two-Shoes, it must really rankle to see how fit and energetic Al is after all the years of making no secret of his love for booze. So when they see how sprightly he takes the stairs in his crisply starched white ducks, it tends to chafe the back of the neck. “…or have I got my damned shirt on backwards again?” Or so said the poor old counsel from You Know Who & Whatsisname (who is actually much younger than Al) with his trouser cuff caught in his sock, his thin white hair rumpled in back below the bald-spot, eyes sagging from insomnia, shoelaces snapping along the floor about to trip him up as he can scarcely huff and puff through the ground floor door and shamble along to the elevator. And when they see Al breezing by at a jaunty clip, all in martial trim they turn on him with The Withering Look.
One of the things that animates Al is when he gets assigned an indigent client. This gives him and his notoriously conservative gumshoe, Private Investigator Tom Hine, a chance to put some outrageously “inappropriate” – in liberal terms – comments on the record during open court. Especially when the client is a minority, such as a Native American.
Take for instance a perfectly commonplace case, last week, involving tribal women counting coup on each other after the bars close in Covelo. What could be more usual?
Al was assigned to Joaquina Joaquin, a large and fearsome maiden whose physique was much discussed on the record in open court – and, as she is a repeat offender, Al, old enough to be her great-grandfather, and as it turns out Al and Joaquina are old friends, in fact, and rather respect each other.
Joaquina had a co-defendant, Debra McCloud, and her lawyer, Anthony Adams, of the Office of the Public Defender, a man every inch as portly (and then some) as Joaquina. Keep in mind that Mr. Adams came to us from San Bernardino County where he was at long last voted out of office as a Republican in the State Legislature.
As the elements of the case came together, it was shaping up to be a rather more political than not afternoon. Just to round things off, politically speaking, the presiding judge, Hon. John Behnke, had been appointed by a Republican governor, as well.
Choosing their seats at the defense table, Kubanis of course made a fuss over having to sit on the left end of the defense table in order that the two defendants be separated, with Mr. Adams in between them. Once this was arranged the hearing got under way.
Deputy DA Elizabeth Norman called her first witness, Deputy Jose Arvina, a rookie of only four months standing – all the old cops have been promoted or retired, and the ranks are filled with youngsters these days. Incidentally, Deputy Arivna said he was a graduate of the California Highway Patrol Academy.
Al wanted to explore this more thoroughly, why Arvina wasn’t working for the CHP. Had he done something untoward? But Ms. Norman objected, saying Arvina’s CHP experience was irrelevant, and Judge Behnke sustained the objection.
This was what’s called a 115 Preliminary Hearing, meaning hearsay evidence from a qualified officer is admissible, and Arvina said he was dispatched to Howard Memorial Hospital to interview a patient, Sally Arellano, at about 6:30 on the morning of August 19th. Ms. Arellano told the deputy that she was walking on Foothills Boulevard in Covelo between 0300 and 0400 hours (3-4am for you civilians) when a blue Dodge Durango and a white Ford pickup pulled over and Joaquina Joaquin and Deborah McCloud got out and attacked her.
Ms McCloud, armed with a baseball bat, told Ms. Arellano, “You should see what you did to my sister’s face.” Then McCloud struck Arellano an uncounted number of times with the bat, and that Joaquin came up from behind and stabbed her in the shoulder blade – this stabbing she didn’t see, but said she’d been stabbed before and knew what it felt like.
A bloody knife was found at the scene.
Deputy Arvina said he then went to Ms. Joaquin’s house, found the blue Durango parked there and was told by Joaquina that she’d come home from the bar at 2:00 and had been home all night. Arvina went to Deborah McCloud’s house and she told him she had only gone to the fire station where her sister was being treated for the injuries supposedly inflicted by Sally Arellano earlier.
During the Q&A, Deputy Arvino once said it was the morning of the 29th – this sometimes happens, like a typo in written material, a witness sometimes will misspeak -- so on cross, Al grilled the deputy over the date asking, “This was the morning of the 19th?”
Arvino: “Yes.”
Kubanis: “Are you positive of that date?”
Arvino: “I am.”
Kubanis: “Are you satisfied it’s accurate?”
Arvino: “I’m satisfied.”
Kubanis: “Nothing further.”
Deputy Trent James was called, and we learned that on August 23rd a Jeremy Raskin had called and said he, Mr. Raskin, had video surveillance of the incident which took place in front of his house. The video was put on the screen, but the view of the roadway was limited to a narrow strip near the top of the film, between the porch roof and a string of lights. But the young deputies with their keen eyesight, could clearly see what had happened, and it was all pretty much as had been reported by Ms. Arellano.
On cross, Kubanis – whose eyesight is another marvel of his age and no doubt the envy of his contemporaries – was dubious at Deputy James’ ability to recognize the people involved. But James insisted that he knew them all from numerous contact, and Joaquina was especially recognizable due to her size – not to mention that people all have their own way of carrying themselves, a particular gait, as individual as their faces, fingerprints or voice.
The bit about Joaquina’s size and weight occasioned some discussion and Kubanis elicited testimony that it was not unusual for people in Covelo to be obese – but we hasten to add that as much could be said of the whole nation, because we are all sumptuously well-fed, it seems.
The next point was the extent of the injuries to Ms. Arellano; the charges were reduced because she only had some bruising on her hand, apparently defensive, and a puncture wound on the shoulder, so the great bodily injury was dropped. But both women were held on the assault with a deadly weapon charge.
Kubanis took the opportunity to collect his files and paperwork as jauntily as though he were a teenager, seeming to dance around the ponderous Anthony Adams, tossing off conservative quips and sallies, and of course drawing The Withering Look from all the aging lawyers seated in the well and waiting their turn before the bench.
But The Withering Look never withers Al, the youngest old man in the Courthouse.
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