Nathan Pinkney and his lawyer Lisa Jensen attend a Might 2021 Shasta County Board of Supervisors assembly the place they sign up for in the Pledge of Allegiance. Image courtesy of Lisa Jensen.

I am at last un-gagged.

I am Nathan Pinkney’s law firm. I have several years of encounter the two as a prosecutor and as public defender, and I have spent earlier yrs in personal apply which is what I do now. I truly feel my correct calling was discovered in protection operate, so not often do I discover myself rooting for the prosecuting side of the aisle. Nathan is the 1st target I have at any time represented (you never stand for the victim as a prosecutor, a stage that Deputy District Attorney Nolan Weber resolved in his closing remarks in this trial).

I selected to take Nathan on as a client mainly because he shouldn’t have been attacked like that above political parody. I know his character much better than a lot of other individuals in all probability do at this level. Oh, he has a potty mouth often. He unquestionably offends sure people. He has had *gasp* visitors tickets. But he’d also give his final greenback to anyone who is hungry. He loves animals. He doesn’t are living in some liberal bubble, in actuality lots of of his close mates are conservatives who just recognize that he’s entitled to his beliefs and that he’s never going to go and physically attack anyone in excess of it, since you just should not at any time do that. I have also seen the character of most of the people today who are heading hard in opposition to him, and frankly those people persons interact in conduct that is past the pale. Intimidation, threats, mental dishonesty, harassment, you title it, they do it. It’s been wild and eye-opening to sit along with him on this journey.

I have watched mainly this whole detail unfold. I have witnessed all the awful comments on social media. I have viewed the big flashy shows of drama by RWB et al. I have observed the silent intimidation and harassment perpetrated towards Nathan, past even that which he’s talked about publicly. I have sat in on proceedings that jurors could not see, that Doni could not even view, and all of it even though owning the legal encounter to know why points happened the way they did, but not always being capable to share my thoughts (specially when I was formally gagged).

I’ll say, from what I observed, this was a trial run honest and square by a choose who gave the protection quite a few opportunities to be heard and erred on the facet of letting in their evidence whilst excluding some proof that was practical to the DA, and admitting proof that hurt the DA’s situation. Choose Burgess hardly ever shut down a protection argument devoid of initially listening with an open up thoughts, even on difficulties which some judges could possibly have summarily waved off–and as someone who is primarily a felony defense attorney just like Mr. Tully and Mr. Birss and Mr. Prentiss, I was happy he was willing to give them the complete this means of owing process. Injustice for a single man or woman, even a person I do not relate to or support, is an injustice for all of us. But by that token, I just can’t picture a ‘more fair’ variation of this demo in conditions of how rulings have been manufactured. Mr. Zapata experienced the advantage of a zealous defense of not a single, but two advocates specifically devoted to his trigger. Not to point out, there were two other lawyers operating for their have consumers, who would be capable to confer and occur up with any additional authorized tactics (immediately after all, two heads are much better than 1, and four heads are greater than two).

I have discovered the allegations that the DA is ‘corrupt’ or political to be patently preposterous. I really would speculate that if just about anything, Ms. Bridgett would possibly have been unenthusiastic about getting the costs filed because of to the large political overtones and huge drama remaining introduced into the scenario from day one particular. Elected officials do not usually want to produce significant-profile enemies. On the other hand, the evidence in this circumstance was apparent and substantially of it was on video. I actually imagine it could have been additional aggressively charged–on the concept that the three defendants had been striving to provide Nathan exterior to conquer him up, the volume of pressure employed, and the reality that a CO2 canister was briefly fashioned as a weapon, there’s arguably a principle of conspiracy to commit felony stage assault. But they did not file that. Nor did they actually hardball Zapata with respect to plea negotiations, when he could have had even just an infraction that was floated and rejected. Even when Mr. Zapata designed publicly disparaging reviews and inspired people today to call and need the DA’s resignation, the prosecutors in the situation taken care of a substantial degree of professionalism and performed on their own correctly in demo.

I don’t forget the working day the RPD push release arrived out and I was on the cellphone with the investigator who interviewed Nathan. First detail the investigator informed me, “I did not produce that [press release].” He stated “Nathan is shown as the sufferer.” I have my opinions and theories about why that push launch was worded the way it was, but even after it was contradicted by afterwards information and facts, certain sycophants kept tracking again to it like it was very little shorter of gospel. I’ll in no way overlook how hard it was on Nathan to truly feel like he was somehow being painted as an unstable instigator when he Realized what happened–he was there. He desperately preferred the video to be created public. He was worried it would get destroyed. He realized the protection could (and did) assault him all working day, but video evidence can be incredibly telling. It was.

I watched Nathan testify for above 7 hrs. He had to test to explain why in a online video he was angrily swearing about Mr. Zapata (“f Carlos!” he claimed in anger) without having in fact remaining ready to clarify himself. The reason he was mad was because Mr. Zapata and his buddies experienced just produced a big stink about how he’s the “victim” of an unfair prosecution and how he was offered a plea cut price because the DA does not have a situation and they have been going to shove the situation “down the DA’s throat.” Nathan understandably had solid thoughts about that. Nathan was also disappointed simply because he was consistently staying instructed that it’s not a excellent concept to communicate about the pending scenario simply because the defense can use that against him. Absolutely sure adequate, they played that movie out of context, since you just cannot communicate about plea deal offers to jurors, so all they listened to was this incredibly edited rant that Nathan designed, with no clarification that Nathan was allowed to give. Then Mr. Tully suggested, boy, Nathan was positive mad, and this is now months afterwards, you’d assume he’d be above it by now, what an angry dude he need to be. Sigh.

And it was months afterwards in section for the reason that the DA filed this situation approximately 60 times immediately after the reality, when two of the a few defendants were being included in a new incident, also on video, the place an aged person was hospitalized, and they went to file on that proper away, so they also submitted Nathan’s incident as a misdemeanor.

Now let’s chat Zapata. I at first could not get a private method serving company to get the assignment for the reason that they felt it was some strange ‘conflict of desire.’ I also did not have a large amount of religion that the SO’s business office would really provide him, (1) since he’s close friends with a whole lot of LE and (2) mainly because SO’s offices usually make a handful of random attempts to serve, but if somebody tries to prevent service, it will get a large amount lengthier to get them heading via the SO. I also experimented with yet another private server who was a retired SO. Similar ‘conflict’ challenge.

I could explain to he was almost certainly going to duck provider of method, so then I was likely to attempt to get him at a BOS conference where he’d be in general public and no one particular would be putting them selves at hazard by likely to his household. Then I see a position update – no more BOS meetings he says. Coincidence? Confident. Then I uncover out on the fly from a supply that he’s likely to be in a public area (capturing an RWB podcast) at a set time — so I send out anyone Nathan is mates with — a particularly gutsy fellow — to try to serve him. The RWB people started off recording/even type of pursuing Nathan and I, mainly because we showed up and waited throughout the street, with Nathan ready to report the assistance on his cell phone so it could not be denied. (I did not have time to get an investigator out on this quick of recognize, so we have been improvising.) They experimented with to have Nathan’s gutsy buddy arrested. It was really tense and I in fact felt like I was going to be in hazard with these persons, who have been smiling menacingly toward us.

Right after that, I compensated to have a skilled server organization make a multitude of makes an attempt on Zapata’s operate, property, and I experienced close friends attempting to capture him whenever we observed out the place he was probable to be. It was an ordeal for months. I knew he understood about the restraining get since he talked about it on his social media. He named me a joke, attacked my specialist experience, claimed I was most likely on food items stamps, tried out to insinuate that this case was heading to wipe out my job, known as the method server who really obtained him (a shut friend of mine and a fellow lawyer) ‘ugly’ and a classless c-term/b-term. Did I want to provide him at his kid’s graduation? Heck no. Though he was hectic insulting me I in fact supplied to ship a process server at his picked hassle-free time and put, and instructed that he has the right to struggle it if he disagrees rather of preventing course of action, which is frankly juvenile and petty.

I viewed Zapata keep on to make juvenile and petty remarks on his social media, significantly to the adulation of his supporters. I grew to become a lot more educated on the childish remember efforts and the ridiculous activities heading on at the county political amount. The ‘activists’ in this remember are a disgrace. It is a essential constitutional tenet that the ideal to swing a fist finishes at another person’s nose. This means, while you have your freedoms, the govt can nevertheless restrict your liberty as lengthy as it is narrowly tailor-made to reach the powerful public overall health curiosity. The supervisors are not in cahoots with the liberal minority in Shasta County. Moty was not secretly having to pay me. These remember folks demonstrate up to the BOS to generate chaos, yelling at the supervisors, dressing up as syringes, pulling dumb stunts like placing up posters of Nathan on the chambers wall, breaking into the damn constructing when the conferences are cancelled. The initially time I attended a assembly I was shocked. These are the civic-minded grownups in town? What a circus it was.

Some of the remember individuals tried to use me to get to Nathan, emailing me, bringing me up at the BOS conferences like my existence was a scandal. One particular lady was insistent on continuing to get in touch with me with asinine remarks about Nathan, even suggesting he should to leave city. I have represented individuals in really serious felonies like murder and rape and youngster molest, and in no way have I felt additional intimidation in my group than when I chose to stand for a youthful black gentleman with virtually no legal file and who was the mentioned target in an incident as opposed to another person accused of wrongdoing. Individuals who have opposed the remember and been intimidated by its proponents have confided some surprising factors to me about threats and doxxing and other reprehensible behavior. I have felt like I was on this psychological rollercoaster and simply cannot even envision what it should have felt like for Nathan, whose title was actually out there and who individuals have been additional directly antagonizing.

But I am encouraged that we have a Doni Chamberlain, challenging-as-nails and committed to delivering a story with journalistic integrity. We have citizens in this local community that really recognize and get in touch with out the absurdity of attempting to combat condition mandates by attacking county stage politicians. We have people who are keen to in fact make tricky sacrifices to guard their neighbors during a health and fitness crisis like very little we’ve found in our lifetimes. As a close friend properly said not also very long in the past, WE are the blueprint.

Lisa Jensen has been training virtually completely felony regulation because 2012. She was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Region, and went to college or university at UC Santa Cruz exactly where she majored in psychology ahead of attending Santa Clara University School of Law.  She began a legislation observe in the SF Bay Space, wherever she built hundreds of court docket appearances all about the Bay Area, the bigger Los Angeles metro spot, as properly as several rural counties. She labored as a prosecutor in Southern California for two yrs right before relocating to Redding wherever she labored as a Deputy General public Defender. She has taken care of extra than 25 jury trials. She is effectively-acknowledged in the nearby legal neighborhood in Redding as a conscientious and capable legal professional who will work difficult for her clients, and is recognized by her clients as a person who will really fight for them.