Sept. 7-14, 2017
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by Kelsey Brugger @kelseybrugger, Keith hamm, tyler hayden @TylerHayden1, nicK Welsh, and Jean yamamura, with Independent staff
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Students and staff at Santa Barbara Unified School District who are impacted by President Donald Trump’s recent action to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program have the full support of Superintendent Cary Matsuoka, according to a statement. “As we go through this national period of uncertainty, we remain committed to support our families, maintain our values of equity, and ensure our schools are a safe and welcoming place for all,” he said. The district also stressed that the state’s DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act is not related to DACA, and still allows undocumented students to apply for financial aid for college.
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DA Seeks Death Penalty in Triple Han Homicide Accused Killer Pierre Haobsh Wants to Represent Himself
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there was considerable suspense which way Dudley, a liberal Democrat, would go. Discussions within the inner sanctum of her office were described as intense and agonizing. Not known is what kind of plea deal Haobsh was ever offered. What is known is that Haobsh filed letters with Judge Hill, seeking permission to represent himself. Hill strongly advised Haobsh against that, telling him, “A person who represents himself isn’t doing himself any good,” shying away from the more pointed courthouse adage, “A person who represents himself has a fool for a client.” Looming large over Dudley’s decision was the will of California voters. Last November, they confronted not one but two ballot initiatives designed to resolve the question Pierre Haobsh
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by Nick Welsh t’s unclear just what difference last November’s passage of Proposition 66 —the statewide ballot initiative designed to speed up executions in California — made on District Attorney Joyce Dudley’s decision to pursue the death penalty against Pierre Haobsh last week, but chances are a lot. Dudley, normally not averse to sharing her thought process, was barred by a court order from discussing with the media any details of the case against Haobsh, who is charged with murdering Chinese herbal doctor Henry Han; Han’s wife, Jennie Yu; and their 5-yearold daughter, Emily, last March. Dudley was limited to a very short statement made in Judge Brian Hill’s courtroom, stating Haobsh “should be subjected to the most severe punishment under California law.” For Dudley, it’s the first death-penalty case her office has filed since she was elected seven years ago. It’s also the county’s first capitalpunishment case since 2006, when a federal judge declared a moratorium on the death penalty in California. In the context of that debate, Dudley has never taken a position against the death penalty per se, but she’s termed the state’s system “dysfunctional.” And in one capital case, she intervened to have a death-penalty prosecution reversed to life without possibility of parole. As a practical matter, death-penalty cases are much more labor intensive and expensive to prosecute. Two trials are involved: first guilt, then punishment. The facts of the Han murders are sufficiently horrific to make death-penalty filings against accused killer Pierre Haobsh to have seemed likely: eight bullets to the skull of a 5-year-old girl, three each into her parents’ heads. But even so, within courthouse circles
of capital punishment once and for all. The first, Prop. 62, asked voters if they thought the death penalty should be repealed. Prop. 66, by contrast, pledged to reform the state’s broken system and speed up executions by limiting the time allowed for defense lawyers to file appeals and judges to rule on them. Statewide, the death penalty was affirmed by 53.6 percent of the voters, who likewise supported the measure to speed up executions by a slim majority of 51.3 percent. In Santa
Barbara County, however, the results were just the opposite. A slim majority—51.75 percent —voted to repeal the death penalty. A slightly stronger majority—52.6 percent—opposed shortening the appeals process to expedite executions. It’s anyone’s guess when the trial will start or how long it will take. One estimate is four to six months. At first blush, the prosecution’s case against Haobsh appears formidable. During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors presented investigators who testified they interviewed people who told them the following: Haobsh, a longtime business associate of Henry Han, confessed to killing Han and his wife and daughter in hopes of getting his hands on $20 million he believed Han had at his disposal. Little is known about Haobsh, who has been described as brilliant if peculiar and socially awkward in the extreme. Investigators amassed videotape of Haobsh buying the plastic sheets he allegedly used to wrap the victims’ bodies, not to mention the copper tubing it’s claimed he used to fashion a silencer for his gun. Detectives located Haobsh by tracking the cell phones of Henry and Jennie, which they discovered in his car when they arrested him. Haobsh was also in possession of Henry’s wallet and Jennie’s jewel-encrusted Rolex, and the gun used to kill them. At the close of the preliminary hearing, Haobsh’s attorney Christine Voss stated, “I need to let [Joyce Dudley] know who Pierre Haobsh really is.” Dudley and others involved did in fact meet with Voss. What was said remains unknown. Clearly, whatever mitigating factors Voss brought up were not compelling enough. In prior interviews, Dudley had expressed general concerns about death-penalty defendants with limited IQs
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District Attorney Joyce Dudley
Alyssa Nuño, the 16-year-old Dos Pueblos High School junior who was severely injured during the microburst on 9/2, remains at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles but is “doing much better,” said her cousin Karina Arroyo. “She’s a lot more alert and having full conversations now.” Doctors are waiting for swelling to subside before starting reconstructive surgery on Nuño’s face. First responders at West Beach believe Nuño was hit by a canoe dislodged from its storage rack by sudden gusts of 80-mile-per-hour winds. She sustained a broken wrist and shoulder and multiple fractures of her skull and face, and has lost vision in one eye, according to Arroyo. Topa Topa Brewing Company downtown and Blenders in the Grass on Calle Real in Goleta are donating part of their sales on 9/15 to the family, and a GoFundMe account has raised more than $40,000 toward Nuño’s expenses. A GoFundMe account has also been set up for Dos Pueblos alum Tony Easbey, 25, who was critically injured on 9/5 by a 16,000-volt powerline downed by a tree weakened by the microburst. Easbey was flown to Grossman Burn Center, in Los Angeles.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating an apparent murder-suicide that took place the morning of 9/12 at a Goleta apartment in the 7000 block of Aldus Drive. According to a statement by Sheriff’s spokesperson Kelly Hoover, a “family member” at the Hollister Village Apartment Community residence called 9-1-1 to report an emergency. Deputies found a dead woman inside the home; another was found inside the garage. The relationships between the two dead women and the emergency caller are not clear. A downstairs neighbor told the Independent five people lived in the apartment: two children; their mother, whom he estimated to be in her mid-thirties; a man in his fifties; and a woman in her sixties. The mother and children moved into the apartment less than a year ago, he said, and
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