RUTHFULLY YOURS

In California’s capital, sheriff Scott Jones has been under fire for allegedly resisting oversight. This week the Sacramento County sheriff revealed the real reason for the campaign against him.

“It’s no secret,” he told county supervisors, “I give ICE unfettered access to our jails and our databases.” That was a problem because county supervisors voted in July to cancel the sheriff’s contract with ICE, and it also raised issues of compliance with Senate Bill 54, the state’s sanctuary law.

“I’ve been portrayed horribly, like I split up families and like I’m a Trump guy, and we’re all buddies,” Jones told reporters last year. So he brought ICE director Thomas Homan to a Sacramento forum to explain “factual information” about federal policy. Jones had no problem with immigrants but explained, “it’s the people in the jail, the people that choose a career of crime, we have to get rid of those folks.”

In 2015, Jones told Fox News that “by ICE’s own numbers, 95 percent of the people they used to arrest, that they’ve already identified, that they want to take custody of, are getting out of jail before they can get to them. And that’s scary, because they’re criminals. They’ve demonstrated a propensity for criminal behavior.” The real back story to Jones’ concern came in October of 2014.

Repeat deportee Luis Bracamontes, gunned down Sacramento deputy Danny Oliver and detective Michael Davis. The murder of two police officers prompted no statement from California governor Jerry Brown or Kamala Harris, attorney general at the time. Both failed to lament the “gun violence” on display in the case.

In court, with relatives of the victims present, Bracamontes said “I wish I had killed more of the motherfuckers.” Also present was Anthony Holmes, whom Bracamontes had shot five times when he refused to give up his car. Bracamontes called Holmes a “nigger,” and yelled “black lives don’t matter!” at the jury. As it happens, Danny Oliver’s wife Susan is also African American.

Jones fulfilled a promise to her by making a video urging the president to secure the borders. That didn’t happen and Jones got no support from California’s political and judicial establishments. They showed more interested in protecting illegals, even violent, racist criminals like Bracamontes, who was not supposed to be in the United States in the first place.

Last year, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Secretary John Kelly stating: “As Chief Justice of California responsible for the safe and fair delivery of justice in our state, I am deeply concerned about reports from some of our trial courts that immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests. Our courthouses serve as a vital forum for ensuring access to justice and protecting public safety. Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our country’s immigration laws.”

Sessions and Kelly replied that “stalking” has “specific legal meaning in American law,” and it was “criminal activity.” On the other hand, “the arrest of persons in a public place based on probable cause has long been upheld by the United States Supreme Court,” as U.S. v. Watson confirmed. Federal statutes authorize arrests where probable cause exists to believe that “such aliens are in violation of immigration laws.” Courthouses are not only public places, but visitors are screened for weapons, Sessions and Kelly wrote, therefore “the safety risks for the arresting officers are substantially decreased.”

This was hardly the only lapse of judgment by California’s Chief Justice, a 2009 selection of Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cantil-Sakauye has now given up her Republican Party Registration in favor of “no party.” The reason, she explained last week, was Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Cantil-Sakauye wondered why Republicans would bring in female prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Christine Blasey Ford. This was to determine if Blasey Ford’s charge that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 was true or false.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye doesn’t get that, so Californians have cause to wonder if she believes that accusation equals guilt and women are always to be believed, regardless of the facts. That is a strange position for any lawyer or judge, much less the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. On the other hand, this Chief Justice keeps quiet when criminal illegals murder police officers and denounces federal ICE agents as stalkers.

In California’s ICE Capades, sheriffs like Scott Jones get criticism and illegals get special treatment. As Newsweek reports, “the California city of Sacramento dedicated $300,000 last year to helping undocumented immigrants with everything from legal services to fight deportations to assistance in applying for citizenship and visas.”

The money “went toward helping 28 undocumented immigrants facing deportation receive legal aid in their bid to stay in the U.S., as well as helping residents in encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.” In addition, the city funds a response network “which includes a 24-hour hotline that people can call to report ICE activity within the Sacramento area.”