The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 40

Part Jan, 26, 1 972 HASHISH gog flngflfflf mti CASE State Offers Incentive for Safe Drivers SACRAMENTO (UPD Gov. Reagan Tuesday announced that 15,000 Cal-lfornia motorists with clean driving records have been given a one-year extension of their drivers' license's under a trial "good driver incentive plan." The governor said the drivers, selected Randomly from persons whose preceding one-year records showed no accidents or traffic citations, will be of-' fered further license extensions if they continue to drive safely. began their Investigation to determine Ron's attitudes, his plans and what chances he had of avoiding trouble in the future." Within three weeks and after a number of phone and in -person interviews with Ron's relatives and acquaintances, the probation report was submitted to the court. It described Ron as a good bet for probation but recommended 60 to 90 days of jail time because of the relatively large quantity of hashish discovered. Since then there have been three postponements of the sentencing date.

If Ron does receive a 90-day term, he will be sent to jail immediately. There he will live for 63 "days of his 90-day sentence, receiving time off for good behavior and for working in the jail While he is in jail, a probation officer will visit him, preparing him for, his release. Another officer will take over when Ron is set free. He will try to find work for Ron and keep a frequent check on him', making several surprise visits to his home and job. During the three years' probation, Ron will undergo at least 15 urine tests to insure he is not taking drugs.

His home and car will be searched a few timessearches he must submit to as a condition of probation. If Ron continues on a law-abiding path, he will automatically be freed from probation restrictions at the end of three years. No one in Orange County government can tell just what Ron's case i3 costing the taxpayers. good reason to were illegal drugs in hia car, sufficient reason "for the search. Again the policemen were summoned to testify, and after two continuances, which brought the hearing within 10 days of the trial date, the testimony was finally heard.

The motion was denied. The time had finally come to negotiate. The district attorney again offered a 90-day sentence and three years' probation, but the public defender's attorney felt Ron should receive a lighter, sentence, in view of his past clean record. Instead of accepting a negotiated sentence, it was agreed Ron would plead guilty on the trial date and that his case would be referred to the Probation Department for a recommendation. Here, probation officers ing a trial.

There wasn't enough reliable evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, the public defender charged The motion required a special hearing in a separate Superior Court, but it took only a few minutes after the judge read the file. The motion was denied. It cleared the way for a more complicated motion, the challenge to the police search for, and seizure of, the evidence. Not only was there extensive written argument, but a hearing with witnesses was required. The public defender alleged that police had no "probable cause" to believe Ron was involved in a crime, and therefore the search and seizure was unlawful.

The prosecution countered that police saw Ron put they had trial. If only a third of those actually went to trial, Orange County would have to double its 24-judge Superior Court system, Hicks estimates. The pressure for pretrial settlement exists all along the judicial system. At the Municipal Court level, the district attorney had asked the public defender to plead Ron guilty. The proposition was again made at the Superior Court level, and a formal meeting was set by the court for the opposing sides to try to reach an agreement before trial.

But before considering any guilty plea, the public defender's attorneys decided to challenge the police evidence. In narcotics cases, such motions are routine. The first motion alleged that the Municipal Court judge was wrong in order Continued from First Page Ron was taken to the station, booked on charges of possession of marijuana and turned over to the jailer. The hashish was filed in the evidence locker with great care. If the police could not have accounted for every minute of the handling of the hashish, the chain of evidence would have been broken and subject to challenge.

A special evidence officer took the hashish to the sheriff's crime lab later for positive identification. Meanwhile, that Friday night had been busy, and the city jail was overcrowded. Transportation officers had to take Ron and others to Orange County jail in Santa Ana to await arraignment Monday. There, Ron passed through the hands of nearly 20 officers and clerks who searched him, cataloged him, filed his possessions, issued him jail clothes, escorted him, watched him, fed him and got him to court on time Monday. By then, the arresting officers and detectives had written their reports, which were typed by secretaries.

It was then up to the court liaison detective to take the papers to the district attorney's office Monday. Ron arrived at Municipal Court in the sheriff's bus Monday morning and was routinely arraigned, along with 50 other defendants. The judge read the charges against Ron, advised him of his rights, assigned his case to the public defender and released him without bail. He was given a date three weeks later for his preliminary hearing, the first test of the case. Sometime before the i ur i ii I in hearing date a deputy DA read the file and subpoenaed six policemen to prove to the judge that there was enough evidence to warrant a trial.

The public defender's deputy studied Ron's file, read notes from the law clerk who interviewed Ron and waited to see what would happen at the hearing. Routinely he asked the judge to suppress the hashish as evidence, alleging it was unlawfully discovered and seized. The preliminary hearing before a Municipal Court judge was held the day it was scheduled an unusual occurrence postponements are the rule. After 3V hours of testimony, the judge ruled the evidence was admissible and ordered Ron to stand trial in Superior Court. Ten days later, Ron was arraigned again, this time in Superior Court.

His trial date was set 3Vfe months in the future, with the expectation that it would never go to trial. It is with that in mind that a deputy DA and a deputy public defender meet twice each week to negotiate. In such cases, both attorneys have done their homework, and both know what a defendant's sentence is likely to be if he is found guilty. And both know which are clear-cut cases of guilt. In these cases, an agreement on a sentence is likely to be reached, and if the defendant agrees to plead guilty, the case goes immediately to sentencing.

Such negotiations keep the courts from becoming hopelessly bogged down with criminal trials. Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks says 89 of all felony convictions in Orange County come on guilty pleas, removing the need for a argument that the term "boy" to an adult Negro is simply a "vernacular expression and has never carried any racial connotation" in California. The brief called attention to a 1970 decision in which the California Supreme Court ruled that Negroes who are called "niggers" by their boss may seek monetary damages for emotional and physical distress.

"The use of the term 'boy' to an adult Negro was among the things determined by the referee to have had an effect similar to the use of the word 'nigger'," the ACLU argued. "It constituted, according to the referee, a form of assault, and not merely a 'vernacular It is proper for this court to instruct the board that under the circumstances of the present case the referee was right." CHECKERBOARD SMOCK the model's coat of carefree dacron and artistically styled with gathers front and back, snap-closings in front and on the shirt checks with bright red sash, or red-white checks with navy to 20 robes, second floor 'also palm springt BLACK'S BENEFITS i i jy 1 li ttt LZTN I THE BOLD ONES WEAVE A SPRING SPELL Continued from First Page pensation Appeals Board adopted the viewpoint of the third doctor and annulled the award granted by the referee. In its decision the board said: "If, as the board finds, applicant's 'pressures' were the result of 'fantasized emotional it can hardly be said that the employment was a proximate contributing cause. "Where a mental condition is entirely a product of an employe's own unstable personality, it is not industrially caused." The Court of Appeal denied Smith's petition for a writ of review Jan. 14, and the Supreme Court was asked Monday to grant a hearing.

In- a friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU said its interest lies in the com-pensation board's apparent acceptance of the 3 rr i hi 16 sizes. LIGHTWEIGHT SPRING UP IN REGULAR sized just right heather tones in cotton woven in a fresh new perked withwhite linen-created with great aplomb by shannon rodgers for each designed with classic simplicity, both in 5 spring-ripe colors: white, WOOL COATS OR PETITE VERSIONS for a very versatile a hopsack or mediterranean blue. phone orders jerry Silverman. in 6 to gold, navy, pink the dress: in black or red with white, dress: navy-red-white or black-white, $140 sportswear dresses, street floor at palm springs left: regular sizes 8. to 16, $140; right: petite sizes 4 to 14, $140 sportswear coats, street floor 'also at palm springs sorry, no mail or phone orders sorry, no mail or "I SJ SB SCINTIltATtNq SILHOUETTE (7 very femme, this deep dip that whispers of past the return of the 'd'orsay' is applauded in shining patent black, bone, or navy sparked with gold, $46 salon shoes, street floor rot p'm ufmg.