The Modesto Bee from Modesto, California • 15

THE STATE Thursday July 27 1995 B-3 The Modesto Bee Prop intent to determine its fate view of the constitutional issues and said only that she would rule in very near If she leaves all or parts of 187 intact enforcement will remain blocked until after a trial tentatively scheduled for September Proposition 187 approved by 59 percent of California voters would deny public education social services and non-emergency health care to illegal immigrants State and local agencies that encountered illegal immigrants would have to report them to the federal government and tell them to obtain legal status or leave The hearing focused on the two conflicting views of the central purpose of Proposition 187 the key to its In her injunction last December which stopped short of a conclusive ruling on constitutionality Pfaelzer said portions of 187 appeared to be a to regulate Immigrant-rights lawyers stressed that argument Wednesday law was about stopping illegal aliens as they put it from coming into this country and the state is not allowed to do said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Mark Rosenbaum Rosenbaum said the measure converts a variety of state and local officials into version of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization and defines illegal immigration differently than federal law Rosenbaum also said the notice that strongest hope to overturn the entire initiative is an argument that it tries to control immigration an area regulated exclusively by the federal government If that argument fails individual provisions of 187 may still be vulnerable particularly the ban on public education which appears to conflict with a 1982 Supreme Court ruling The bans on public schooling and public higher education for illegal immigrants are being argued separately before a San Francisco Superior Court judge The state says the initiative was intended to protect wallets main concern is dealing with free public benefits to illegal said Deputy Attorney General Donald Cole OJ team says own witness biased FBI agent grilled about testimony on blood tests By Henry Weinstein and Jim Newton Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES Completing an about-face with their own witness Wednesday attorneys for OJ Simpson accused an FBI agent of bias toward the prosecution while government lawyers stood up for the credibility and used him in an attempt to undermine another defense witness Robert Blasier normally a low-key member of the Simpson team turned forcefully on Special Agent Roger Martz after receiving Superior Court Judge Lance A permission to treat the agent as an adverse witness even though it was the defense that called him to the stand Speaking in a loud voice and staring over the top of his reading glasses Blasier opened his questioning of Martz by reminding the agent that his demeanor had changed markedly in the previous testimony after a morning break Before that recess Martz had said one of his tests yielded a result consistent with the presence of a preservative in bloodstains found on a sock in bedroom and on a back gate near the scene of the crimes But after the break a far more assertive Martz repeatedly stressed to the jury that despite that one test result his full analysis convinced him that the preservative was not present in those samples The preservative known as EDTA is used in test tubes used by the Los Angeles Police Department to collect blood so if it were found in evidence samples it could bolster the allegation that police stained the socks and gate with blood to frame Simpson After pointing out that Martz conferred regularly with prosecutors before and during his testimony Blasier attempted to show that the change in demeanor was the staged act of an advocate not the dispassionate testimony of an expert witness you decide at the break that you needed to be much more Blasier asked think I decided that I had to be more Martz replied was not telling the whole truth with Blasier continued accusingly decided to change your Martz responded decided that I wanted to tell the whole Despite accusing tone and pointed inquiry the agent acknowledged conferring with prosecutors and state and local officials must send to suspected illegal immigrants telling them to obtain legal status or leave the country was to a Pfaelzer appeared to agree Cole said he saw no such message in the initiative But he said any apparent disparities with federal law could be resolved by future state regulations The state lawyer argued that the goals of 187 all within the power were stated in some of its opening sentences: to protect Californians from by denying public benefits to illegal immigrants and by cooperating with federal immigration agencies The measure nothing about regulating immigration competing with the INS supplanting the Cole said Bailiff mourned by judge attorneys hundreds of officers The Associated Press GLENDALE Hundreds of law enforcement officers joined the judge and attorneys in the OJ Simpson case Wednesday to mourn a court bailiff who was fatally shot by a prowler The death of Antranik Geuvjehizian known as by colleagues who pronounce his name gained international attention when Lance Ito the Superior Court judge in the Simpson murder case cried on the bench when talking to jurors about the bailiffs death Geuvjehizian 31 died July 19 the day after he was shot by a prowler in a yard on their quiet Pasadena street The deputy was off duty and unarmed No arrests have been made have suffered yet another staggering loss in the war against the forces of evil that plague our said Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block at the service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park More than 1100 people attended About 100 people gathered Tuesday at Pasadena City Hall for a noon vigil to pay tribute to the slain officer When service was over deputies stood outside the church and saluted as pallbearers carried the flag-draped coffin to the hearse Uniformed deputies and police officers from all over Southern California joined friends and family members to remember Geuvjehizian with prayers in English and Armenian Geuvjehizian worked with Ito and had taken Simpson jurors on some weekend outings The jurors did not attend But defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran Jr Carl Douglas and Robert Shapiro were on hand as was District Attorney Gil Garcetti and Deputy District Attorneys Christopher Darden and Cheri Lewis One of fellow deputies cried as he remembered his friend as a dedicated officer who loved his family including brother Raffi who is training to become a deputy 1 know looking down on us with a million-dollar said sheriffs Sgt John Franklin over us and please protect us So long my Deputy Noel Mayorga who worked with Geuvjehizian at the Central Jail said everyone in the Department felt the loss it were possible each one of us would gladly trade places with Mayorga said love After her complaints sparked the reassignment Hampton said she became an outcast among some jurors who wore black and refused to hear testimony for a day in protest of the deputy dismissals totally ignored me They started making noise outside my door at all hours of the night 1 remember a white juror saying slam doors just immature things that they Hampton said thought that we were going to be one big family and that we were all going to get she said letter of their last name The registration system went down some time on Thursday after a part malfunctioned but was back up late Friday afternoon Because of a backlog of panicked students though the phone-in process did not return to normal until Tuesday said Ed Chambers associate vice president for admissions and recprds By Bob Egelko The Associated Press LOS ANGELES Proposition 187 sends a message to suspected illegal immigrants "Go to the border and get out" that may exceed the authority a federal judge said Wednesday But she did not rule immediately on the validity US District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer who issued an injunction last December barring enforcement of most of the initiative passed the month before heard two hours of arguments on whether she should rule 187 unconstitutional without a trial While appearing skeptical of some of the arguments in defense of the measure Pfaelzer did not indicate her IN BRIEF Buyout questioned LOS ANGELES A single work got a Department of Water and Power clerk a $25000 incentive to quit a big payday that had an infuriated Mayor Richard Riordan calling Wednesday for an investigation Jocelino Joun had worked for the DWP for 2 Vi years but left last spring for a job with the city Personnel Department He was still on probation in the new job when his old DWP bosses offered the lucrative incentive to quit Technically Joun qualified because city policy gives probationary workers the option of returning to their old posts Joun returned for one working day After collecting his buyout Joun accepted a promotion to management assistant with the Department of Aging President will visit GILROY For the first time in his administration President Clinton will make an official visit to the Central Coast scheduling a September trip to the region to mark the conversion of Fort Ord from military base to the 21st California State University Clinton is expected to visit the area on Labor Day (Sept 4) White House officials said Ex-GOP chair probed LOS ANGELES A state complaint that he was subjected to a bribery attempt to win support for a gambling club has triggered an investigation of a former California Republican Party chairman Michael Montgomery who held the GOP post in the late 1970s is now a lawyer who represents two businessmen battling for exclusive rights to operate a card room in the San Francisco suburb of Colma Montgomery who once served on the anti-corruption Fair Political Practices Commission was audio- and videotaped with Assemblyman William Hoge R-Pasadena The two talked about Hoge introducing legislation to block a rival project and Montgomery offered to let Hoge obtain a stake in the proposed club that could be worth $1 million to $2 million the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday Family sues LOS ANGELES The family of a physicist killed in an explosion filed a $100 million lawsuit against Rockwell Rocketdyne Division claiming improper handling of hazardous waste caused his death The US District Court suit was filed Tuesday the eve of the anniversary of an explosion that killed physicists Otto Heiney and Larry Pugh at Santa Susana Field Laboratory widow and family sued amid a federal investigation into whether Rocketdyne violated contracts by improperly disposing of the waste California Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators said in reports that Heiney and Pugh apparently were killed during experiments designed to discard the waste Cal-OSHA recommended that corporate manslaughter charges be filed The lawsuit claims the company committed manslaughter and second-degree murder Fire closes freeway HESPERIA A 600-acre fire burning out of control through dry brush closed busy Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass Wednesday The blaze in southwestern San Bernardino County broke out about 2:20 pm The cause was unknown About 100 firefighters battled the blaze Winds were blowing to the north at 15-20 mph and temperatures peaked at 100 degrees The California Highway Patrol closed Cajon Pass and about seven miles of Interstate 15 between Highway 138 and Oak Hill Road said Rhonda Earwood an operator at the transportation management center in San Bernardino Thick smoke choked the roads making driving impossible she said Another fire burned near Interstate 5 in northern Los Angeles County near Gorman That blaze was estimated at 100 acres Robertson leave funeral Wednesday the credibility and reiterated the central conclusion I said Darden there is no EDTA I think that try to beat this guy over the head with a baseball bat until he says what they want him to say The way they treated that man is reprehensible They know what those results are Desperate men do desperate For the latest developments in the case call the BeeLine at 575-7500 extension 2059 Deputy Antranik Geuvjehizian had escorted Simpson jurors on some of their outings In the interview Hampton dismissed as rumors that she had tried to commit suicide after her dismissal or that she was impregnated by dismissed juror Michael Knox Knox who was dismissed in March has said in a since-published book that some black women jurors socialize with Hampton either because they were jealous of her good looks or because she is an upper-middle-class black woman who attended mostly white schools Ousted Simpson juror breaks her silence Judge Lance Ito court clerk Diedre testifying almost exclusively for government attorneys Martz never acknowledged any predisposition toward the prosecution His voice flat and unemotional Martz insisted: have no bias whatsoever" After the court session lead trial lawyer Johnnie Cochran Jr called Martz of the worst witnesses I have ever and accused him of being biased against the defense Deputy District Attorney Christopher A Darden however strongly backed deputies after she awoke in her hotel room to find one of them a woman standing over her bed That Hampton said was the culmination of actions that led her to believe the deputies were preoccupied with monitoring her and four other black jurors At one point before her May 1 dismissal Hampton met with Judge Lance Ito and cried take it comments were aired on the show The Simpson trial meanwhile was in a half-day recess to allow Ito his staff and attorneys to attend the funeral for a bailiff slain while chasing a prowler near his home dialing Thursday Friday and Monday in a frustrating bid to register for fall classes by phone is a nightmare down there" said Janene Argendeli a senior biology major who called about 50 times Thursday morning then tried for an additional 1 V4 hours that afternoon before finally getting through Even then the telephone line cut The Associated Press LOS ANGELES The OJ Simpson juror who said take it before she was dismissed has broken her silence saying she was ostracized after her complaints led to the reassignment of three deputies Tracy Hampton said in an NBC-TV interview broadcast Wednesday that she was hospitalized for depression and stress brought on by her jury service and now feels relieved to be free felt like a criminal the whole time I was the 26-year-old airline flight attendant said She said she complained about the phone registration breakdown tests students The Associated Press SAN JOSE Silicon largest university suffered a serious snafu when its computer system crashed leaving students trying to use a new register-by-telephone plan angry and frustrated San Jose State system was up again Tuesday but not before more than 1000 students soent hours her off before she could punch in her fourth and last class Three more hours of dialing could not get her through again The new registry was intended to make the university more user friendly and to establish San Jose State as a showcase for computer use Students were assigned times to call based on grade level and the first.