October Case Management Hearing: William Ayres Molestation Civil Cases

[Original post date: 10/28/09 1:45pm PST by Deep Sounding]
The Case Management hearing for some of the civil cases against william hamilton ayres, (“john doe 1”) with multiple accusations relating to his molestation of his “patients,” was heard today, just before 10am in courtroom 2F by Superior Court Judge George A. Miram.

Mr. Carcione, the lawyer for three of the plaintiffs, was present in the courtroom and the lawyer for the other plaintiff was on the conference phone. Also on the conference phone were the several of “john doe 1’s” lawyers. There were two members of the public in support of the victims present in the courtroom. Neither “john doe 1” nor “Svea Schwein” were present. As always, there was no press present. (Who needs press when you have dumb-ass gadflies always hanging around in the courtroom, blogging it for free… right?)

Mr. Carcione has filed for a motion to have a stay of discovery lifted, as suggested by the judge at the last case management hearing, now that “john doe 1” himself has testified in the criminal case, and his 5th amendment plea status in the civil trials is now changed. That motion will be heard on December 8, 2009. Unfortunately, the judge was hoping that this motion would have been ruled on by the date of today’s case management hearing.

Mr. Carcione asked to schedule a trial date, stating that he is “Ready for Trial.” The judge agreed and wanted to set a date in October 2010 for trial.

The defense lawyers immediately began arguing that setting the court date at this time is premature, given the fact that the motion had been completed prior to today’s hearing. That tactic did not seem to sway the judge from wanting to set a trial date which “would be the same date as the one that would be set” after another (pointless) case management hearing.

Suddenly deciding to try another tactic, one of the defense attorneys interrupted “OH!... Sorry to interrupt your honor…” she then stated that she “noted” that in the documents submitted prior this hearing “there is an additional defendant in the case who has been served, but not yet appeared…” She was referring to “John Doe 2” -- who has been listed in case management submissions for more than a year.  Stumped by this statement, the judge said that all named defendants were served more than a year ago.  Carcione confirmed this, as did the other plaintiff’s attorney, who also clarified for everyone present exactly who the John Doe 2 defendant is. Discussion proceeded on this red hearing until the defense lawyer finally issued an only half apologetic "my bad." (something to that effect, anyway...)

The judge appeared a bit frustrated that the plaintiffs had not yet completed the motion for relief, but he was clearly very irate with the defense lawyers bickering and making inaccurate statements.  He told the defense attorneys that it was likely that there would be no change in court date, as he would be setting the same trial date at the next hearing anyway, and he would track the trial “normally.”( Not allowing an extended trial date if it was to wait until another case management hearing.) He kept insisting that another case management hearing would be a waste of the court’s time (and the defendant’s money) but they continued bickering.

“You’re reading things into this that I REALLY don’t appreciate!”  The judge said at one point, just before ruling.

Ultimately the judge said that since the motion should have been completed by now, and since the defense wasn’t getting his point,  he reluctantly set a continuance of the case management hearing to one week after the motion hearing. 

The next case management hearing is December 18, 2009 at 9am. He said: “I’m going to be setting your trial date” and told them to be prepared with their calendars.

Case numbers for four of the civil cases against ayres on charges including and relating to: child molestation and fraud perpetrated in the guise of providing "medical care" with the intent to molest: CIV467273, CIV467741, CIV467742, CIV467743 

NOTE: there is a glitch with links into the court document system, and you will have to click on one of those links AGAIN after the first click results in a blank results page. The links should work after that. NOTE ALSO that those case information pages have some Acrobat files attached with additional detail. See the links on the right-hand side under the "Image" column on the court information pages.

Superior Court Civil Division: 650-363-4576