THE CASE AGAINST KAMENA

By the time of this printing, the date should be set for the recall
election of Marin County District Attorney Paula Kamena.

According to recall proponents, Kamena has failed in her duties through
conscious wrongdoing and by covering for county corruption. Kamena
characterizes the recall as backed by sore losers and misguided medical
marijuana advocates.

The following outlines main elements of the pro-recall argument.

Family Court Cover-Up

Former Marin Civil Grand Juror Martin Silverman was so affected by what he
heard on the Grand Jury, and when he and other grand jurors were blocked
from investigating Marin Family Law Court (FLC) matters by the County
Counsel's office, that he felt he had to take action. Motivated by the same
sense of civic duty that led to his Grand Jury service, but barred by Grand
Jury rules from disclosing confidential Grand Jury evidence or
deliberations, he took what many view as a commendable, inventive step, and
arranged for an independent investigation. The result was the 'Winner
Report,' a scathing evaluation of the Marin Family Law Court system that
called for further investigation and immediate suspensions of Judge Michael
Dufficy and Commissioner Sylvia Shapiro.

Rather than seek to evaluate the merits of the Winner Report, Kamena
immediately launched a threatening probe of Martin Silverman. Once the
recall commenced, Kamena dropped the potentially embarrassing probe by
handing it off to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

The Winner Report is commonly viewed as having sparked the spate of recall
efforts by citizens dismayed by FLC decisions. It was assailed on
relatively technical points in a vigorously defensive media campaign by
insiders of the County legal community, but raised many substantive
issues-about bias favoring insider attorneys, and other issues-which might
reasonably justify further investigation.

The Winner Report's criticisms of the Family Law Court system were given
dramatic support by the open testimonial of a system insider, Larkspur
attorney Kathryn Ballentine Shepherd. Shepherd, who admitted to being one
of the attorneys likely to benefit from the biases of the Courts,
criticized the FLC system in general and Judge Dufficy in particular.

Yet no independent investigation into wrongdoing was commissioned. Recall
supporters say that the local sponsor for such an investigation would
rightly be the DA.

Incidentally, both Silverman and Shepherd say they have had no personal
involvement in the recalls.

Credit Card Cover-Up

Public code is clear on the matter of unauthorized use of public funds: any
public servant who uses public funds and "Emakes any profit out of, or uses
the same for any purpose not authorized by lawE is punishable by
imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, and is
disqualified from holding any public office in this state." State law would
obviously supersede local policy.

When misuse of County credit cards by Supervisors Annette Rose and John
Kress was discovered, Kamena's first reaction was not to look deeper, but
to announce that nothing illegal had been done. Even recently, in
explaining her reasons for not prosecuting, Kamena alternately insists that
there was no intent of criminal activity, that there was no criminal
activity, and that county policies were too ambiguous to establish
wrongdoing. Critics insisted that Kamena was compelled by law to prosecute,
even if the offense was minor.

Fielding Greaves, Secretary of the Marin United Taxpayer Association,
writing to the Coastal Post (August 2000), said that he could find no
record to back up County claims that County credit card rules apply to all
County employees except Supervisors. He urged, "prompt investigation by
Marin's reluctant DA Paula Kamena."

Assuming that there are ambiguous policies on the books, and-as challenging
as it would be to believe-that the inappropriate credit card uses were not
deliberate (which critics say is not, legally, a valid excuse from
prosecution), the possibility that campaign finance funds were involved
means potentially serious violations of FPPC regulations. Critics argue
that such allegations should be thoroughly investigated and the results
openly published.

Kamena chose to smooth the matter over rather than delve into it.

One might expect that Kress and Rose are indebted to Kamena for her
continued inaction.

Kinsey Cover Ups

Supervisor Steve Kinsey is now an outspoken defender of Kamena against the
recall effort. However, Kamena could cost Kinsey tens of thousands of
dollars, and possibly his contractor's license, with very little effort.

On his own property, Kinsey allegedly performed illegal, not-to-code
construction to install a second structure and an add-on, and illegally
installed a not-to-code septic system. Even in the laissez-faire of West
Marin under Kinsey, in which illegal and ill-advised developments have
allegedly proliferated, it is not customary that the County will repeatedly
grant extension after extension, without so much as proper requests, to
multiple violators of County codes related to both public safety and
environmental protection. But, as quietly as possible, that is exactly what
Kamena has allowed for Kinsey.

When Forest Knolls resident Jerry Knight alleged that Kinsey was behind the
destruction of private property by law enforcement personnel, and voiced
suspicion that Kinsey may have been behind the subsequent raid of Knight's
Forest Knolls home by over 10 law enforcement personnel (who just happened
to be on hand, at night, when a household alarm just happened to go off)
who ransacked the residence after claiming to see marijuana paraphernalia
through the window, Kamena did not investigate Kinsey's role or the actions
of law enforcement personnel. Instead, she proposed to charge Knight with
felony possession of morphine and codeine because he had dried poppy
stalks, found during the raid, such as those commonly sold by florists, a
charge soon dropped. When the Knights sought legal redress, the County
intimidated them into dropping their complaint with threats that they would
lose both the properties they own if they lost their case.

Bolstering the argument that Kamena had cause investigate, an earlier,
documented case of relatively minor harassment of a San Geronimo Valley
resident adds indications that inappropriate retaliatory harassment tactics
may be in Kinsey's nature.

Critics point to the firings of Marin Environmental Health Services
employees Ed Stewart and Dave Mesagno, and allegation of improper actions
by the County in accommodating the French Ranch development, as other
issues related to Kinsey that should have been openly scrutinized by the DA
but were not.

Maligning Mardeusz

Events surrounding the Carol Mardeusz child custody case for her daughter
make for a roller coaster ride of complexity, with alleged wrongdoings by
both the Sonoma and Marin Family Law Courts. But the most outrageous
actions apparently took place in Marin, directly under the watch of Kamena.

Right now, Mardeusz is in jail, serving a sentence on allegations of
attempted abduction and perjury, but according to Ron Mazzaferro, a private
investigator and legalist who resides in Sonoma County and who has been
working in a pro bono capacity to assist Mardeusz for the past three years,
it would be more appropriate for Kamena to be in jail. The basic facts
according to Mazzaferro follow.

When the first case began to fall apart, an indictment was obtained through
appointment of a criminal grand jury, a process in which only the
prosecution was heard. Mazzaferro says that the DA's office knowingly
elicited and suborned pejurous testimony from grand jury witnesses Leo and
Betty Magers to gain the indictment. To gain the conviction of Mardeusz,
Kamena's office teamed up with FLC Judge Verna Adams to set up a 'kangaroo'
proceeding.

The critical piece of evidence against Mardeusz was her application for a
custody hearing in the Dufficy court. The copy of that petition produced by
the prosecution did not match the certified copy from the County's own
records - it was apparently altered by the prosecution. Yet Adams did not
allow procedural determination of which version was valid, and without
plausible justification ordered the jury to disregard all key arguments of
the defense. The jury was essentially given no option under Adams's
direction but to convict.

Normally a jury has tremendous powers, including recourses when it feel a
judge's directions may be inappropriate; but the jury has to know of these
rights in order to exercise them. Mazzaferro believes it to be unlikely
that this jury was apprised of those powers. Members of a jury could also,
normally, be approached by a defendant, or the defendant's counsel, to seek
such recourses after a questionable verdict; but, in a highly unusual move,
the judge ordered the names of the jurors to be sealed.

The argument that Mardeusz's treatment has been proper depends on the idea
that virtually every person who has looked into the Mardeusz case is
somehow imbalanced.

Mazzaferro, who primarily does legal technical work for attorneys, calls
Mardeusz's treatment by Kamena's office blatantly illegal and "bizarre."

Mardeusz attorney Patricia Barry was so infuriated by the Adams courtroom
that she could not restrain outbursts that landed her in a cell usually
meant for prisoners.

Nedra Ruiz, an attorney with the renowned Tony Serra firm, and who is also
working for Mardeusz, also criticized Adams for restricting volumes of
relevant evidence, tactfully calling Adams's actions "errors," and
predicted that the DA would jail Mardeusz for reasons of political animus.

County Public Defender Mark Davis also sides with Mardeusz. Former Mardeusz
attorney,

Kate Dixon, who worked pro bono, openly accuses Kamena of destroying
medical evidence in the Mardeusz case and dares Kamena to sue her over her
saying so. Mardeusz herself worked for over 15 years as a court reporter
and has impeccable character references.

Patient Persecution

Believing Kamena to be supportive of medical marijuana use, Lynnette Shaw,
of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana (MAMM), originally endorsed
Kamena in her race for DA. and was slow to believe Kamena's role in
increased harassment of MAMM patients. Shaw's support, and the medical
marijuana issue, tipped the scale that put Kamena's recall on the ballot.
Because of her role in signature gathering, Shaw has become a central
figure in the recall effort.

Shaw says that, while the Family Court critics have a case against the FLC
judges, the recall effort against Kamena, which was added later, is the
pivotal one. "The County offices of Marin have become a cottage industry of
corruption. The DA has the ability and the responsibility to follow up, by
investigation, on plausible citizen accusations, allegations and concerns,
rather than do everything in her power to 'kill the messengers.'"

Shaw also maintains that Kamena's choice to ignore Proposition 215, the
medical marijuana initiative, puts Kamena in direct violation of the
California state constitution. While the issue is not fully resolved at the
federal level, the state constitution orders state agents such as Kamena to
adhere to the laws of the state unless specifically ordered to the contrary
by the United States Supreme Court. Since the US Supreme Court has not yet
ruled on the matter, Shaw says Kamena's standing orders are therefore
spelled out by Proposition 215. Shaw points out that Oakland and San
Francisco have worked out guidelines acceptable to patient advocacy
groups-all Kamena would have to do adopt either of those guidelines-but
Kamena's aggressively draconian guidelines continue to ignore 215 and
criminalize legitimate medical marijuana patients. And, Shaw adds, Kamena
offers the same treatment to registrants of the County version of a
registration program, a pet project of Supervisor Kinsey, which Shaw says
is deficient in patient privacy and numerous other patient protections.

Wasteful Ways

Shaw also contends that Kamena's guidelines on and investigations of
medical marijuana users is a needless waste of public funds. She cites the
recent Voelker case as an example.

Speaking of public waste, recall opponents have been seeking to raise
animosity against recall proponents by saying that the recall election
would have to be a special election and would cost $500,000. However, the
cost may be largely in the hands of the board of Supervisors: state
elections code demands that the recall election be combined with a normally
scheduled election, if possible, and is usually flexible enough regarding
timing that such a combination is possible. Look for ongoing coverage in
the Coastal Post.