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Michael Fitzgerald
Mike Fitzgerald is The Record’s award-winning metro columnist. His column runs in the paper three times a week. Born in San Francisco, he was raised in Stockton. His column covers diverse beats including, sometimes, the offbeat. Read FullCategories
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- Just passed a low-rider pickup on the Crosstown Freeway, custom painted and pinstriped. A rear-window decal read, "Praise the Lowered." 2009-11-11
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Speaking of prisons …
…Which we were, in the item below, I have been meaning to ask the obvious question about federal prison receiver J. Clark Kelso’s motion to move the Stockton area’s legal challenge (to the plans to open three new prison facilities here) into federal court.
Obviously he believes federal court is more to his advantage. But why? Michael Herum, the attorney for the local Chamber, offered his thought:
“I can ony speculate. And I speculate that since the federal court appointed him and ordered him to … develop and operate a prison hospital facility, he thinks that those judges would be less concerned about the niceities of state laws and would be more concerned about seeing that the constitutional rights of prisoners — (which) the federal courts believe have been violated due to the quality of medical care — would be taken care of. And our claims would not be given the consideration that they might by a state court.”
In other words Kelso, while professing to care about this area, is seeking to be heard in a court where this area is of lesser concern. O, forked tongue!