The most recent court hearing on the controversial issue of Oakland gang injunctions has, for the time being, resulted in an apparent victory for the defense.

On February 3, Judge Robert Freedman said he was “very strongly inclined” to deny a motion by the City Attorney’s office which would have prevented civil rights attorneys Michael Siegel and Jose Luis Fuentes, of the Siegel & Yee law firm, from representing Abel Manzo, one of 40 defendants named in the “People vs. Nortenos” case.

The courtroom was packed with defendants named in the injunction and their supporters, as well as legal observers, community activists, and several members of the media. During the proceedings, several of those in attendance held up signs reading “Alto a Los Mandates Judicial.”

During the court session, the judge appeared to be most interested in moving past perfunctory challenges and other legal rigamarole, so as to get to the heart of the case as soon as possible.

Besides the motion to disqualify Siegel and Fuentes, Freedman also weighed in on several other matters related to the case. He granted fee waivers for all the defendants who had completed the necessary paperwork. Despite objections from the prosecution charging a conflict of interest, Freedman appeared to be satisfied that a sufficient “firewall” existed between City Council member Jane Brunner—a member of the Siegel & Yee firm—and the attorneys working on the gang injunction case, while reserving the right to return to the issue if the firewall proves “ineffective” at a later date.

Meanwhile, Dennis Cunningham, a member of the defense team, insisted that Brunner will recuse herself from any vote by the City Council pertaining to the gang injunctions. The judge did not appoint outside counsel for the remaining 39 defendants not currently represented by Siegel & Yee—opening the door for the law firm to take up their defense, and also disqualified CURYJ, a non-profit formed by Michael Siegel and Fuentes, from taking over for Siegel & Yee in Manzo’s defense, stating that the organization had not filed the necessary paperwork. He also denied a defense motion to disqualify co-counsel Mayers-Nave from the case.

Speaking for the prosecution, attorney Tricia Hynes voiced concern about the relationship of Dan Siegel, head of Siegel & Yee, to the mayor’s office—where the elder Siegel has reportedly taken on the role of an unpaid advisor. However, the judge seemed satisfied with Cunningham’s response: “Mr. Siegel and Mr. Fuentes will keep their business to themselves.”

Once that was out of the way, the prosecution and defense sparred back and forth with the case’s meatier, more salient issues. “We have a concern that the whole thing is a wrongful political exercise,” Cunningham said, prompting Hynes to respond, “civil gang injunction is a statewide concern, not just relevant to the city of Oakland.” She then cited a case from the 19th century, causing the judge to state, somewhat amusedly: “an 1890 case?” “Yes, 1890,” Hynes replied, in a deadpan tone.

After a bit more legal maneuvering, which framed the context of what possible arguments could be and who the plaintiffs might present as witnesses, the judge declared, “We’ve made as much forward progress as we can make” – bringing this round to a close.

Outside the courtroom, Hynes seemed somewhat conciliatory, although she clearly had her legal poker face on. “The judge wants to get to the merits on the preliminary injunction,” she said. “His clear signal was for the attorneys to sit down together and try to make that happen,” adding that she felt encouraged by the way things are proceeding so far.

Mike Siegel, however, appeared somewhat jubilant in regard to the day’s events. The judge, Siegel said, “essentially said, let’s go forward with the attorneys we have, let’s allow the defendants to have representation, let’s get to the merits of the case.” Siegel let it be known he’s ready to address those issues. “We’ve prepared a brief which lays out why the proposed injunction is unconstitutional,” he said, noting that the 400-block radius of the proposed injunction is “contrary to established law… this is 100 times bigger than anything the Supreme Court has allowed.”

The problem with the gang injunction as proposed, in Siegel’s view, is that “15,000 residences, perhaps 10% of the city of Oakland, would be under this net. We think that’s absurd. There are corners in the Fruitvale where a lot of bad things happen. And those should be the focus of law enforcement. Perhaps, if the judge wants to consider this down the road, there should be a mini-injunction on a particular corner. But to throw a net over the whole Fruitvale is ridiculous. We think that that is the main reason itself why the injunction should be thrown out.

“Abel Manzo, the last time he was arrested on something was 2004. He’s a homeowner, a business owner, he plays baseball. He’s a positive force in the community,” Siegel insisted about his client, despite his prior conviction for drug dealing.

Legal observer Vylma Ortiz, of the Center Against Juvenile Incarceration, said, “It’s really important that due process is followed, and these guys get their chance to say, hey, I’m not a nuisance in the community, I’m not a gang member, I’m trying to be a productive member of society.”

Another observer, attorney Anne Weills, characterized the proceedings by saying, “We saw a judge who actually weighed the issues in a fair way, as judges are supposed to do… He obviously weighed the importance of the defendants having real counsel… He basically viewed this as a significant right to counsel issue.”

Weills went on to speculate that the judge ruled as he did, “knowing that the city attorney has been so ferocious in his attack on any lawyers trying to step up and represent these defendants… I think the judge was very fair in his analysis and his decision.” Most hopeful to the defense and to civil rights advocates, Weills said, was the fact that the judge “left open a lot of possibilities going forward. So it’s not over, in essence.”

Reached via phone, Alex Katz, Communications Director for the City Attorney's office, said he is looking forward to the "people of Oakland and the Fruitvale community having their day in court" against the alleged Nortenos, which he called a "murderous organization."

Katz also emphasized that, while the injunction, as a civil proceeding, denies defendents the legal right to counsel, should any gang member identified under the injunction be brought to trial in a ciminal case--such as possession of a gun--they then would be eligible for a court-appointed attorney.

Both sides will now prepare for a scheduled case management hearing on Valentine’s Day, before the next official court hearing, on February 16.

Follow continued coverage of this topic here.

About Eric K Arnold

Eric K. Arnold has been writing about urban music culture since the mid-1990s, when he was the Managing Editor of now-defunct 4080 Magazine. Since then, he’s been a columnist for such publications as The Source, XXL, Murder Dog, Africana.com, and the East Bay Express; his work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, Wax Poetics, SF Weekly, XLR8R, the Village Voice and Jamrock, as well as the academic anthologies Total Chaos and The Vinyl Ain’t Final. Eric began his journalistic career while DJing on college radio station KZSC, and remembers well the early days of hip-hop radio, before consolidation, and commercialization set in. He currently lives in Oakland, California.