Big Valley News
Central Valley's Independent News Source
FRESNO - Fresno Police are investigating the homicide of an Edison High School football player, Marquis Sutton (18). While police initially said a 911 caller reported someone was lying on a sidewalk, the truth is the young mans body was moved to that location following a game of Russian roulette gone bad.
Police now say Sutton was hanging out with four friends inside an apartment near the intersection of Ashland and Marks, where the body was found, when Terrance Lee shot the victim in the back.
MADERA - Madera County District Attorney Michael R. Keitz announced that the jury trial of Dustin Gran, scheduled in April 2012 to begin on September 25, 2012, has been postponed by the Stanislaus County Superior Court.
However the truth is the delays have been caused by the Madera County District Attorney's office not being ready to try the case. Keitz's office has tried to force new evidence into the trial without discovery and has been dragging their feet through-out the pre-trial phase of the case. The DA's office has been admonished by the Stanislaus County courts for allowing previous delays.
CLOVIS – Parents and physicians filed suit against the Clovis Unified School District over its high school abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education. The lawsuit charges that the district is violating California law and putting teens’ health at risk by teaching students misinformation and denying them critical instruction about condoms and contraception.
MADERA - The exodus continues at the Madera Unified School District as Associate Superintendent Kelly Porterfield has announced his resignation. He has accepted a position with the Central Unified School District as Assistant Superintendent of Business.
Porterfield said he was recruited by Central Unified after a phone call from the districts superintendent, Mike Berg. Berg was conducting a salary survey of neighboring districts and one thing led to another. He said it was a hard decision for him because his heart is at Madera Unified but this was a good move for himself and his family.
AZUSA, CA. - Special agents from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) arrested an inmate Thursday who escaped from custody nearly 30 years ago.
Decision brings a conclusion to a case which started in 2008
MADERA – A state appellate court has upheld a Madera County Superior Court judge’s decision regarding the amount of attorneys’ fees to be paid by the Madera Unified School District as part of a 2008 lawsuit which challenged the school district’s method of electing its governing board members.
In a ruling dated Feb. 28, 2012, the Fifth District Court of Appeals upheld Madera County Superior Court Judge James E. Oakley’s ruling from August 2010, which stated MUSD was responsible to pay only $162,500 in attorneys’ fees to the San Francisco-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the law firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher and Seattle University assistant law school professor Joaquin Avila. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Madera residents Maria Esther Rey, Carlos Uranga and Jesse Lopez Jr.
MADERA - Former Madera County Judge Eric Wyatt passed away Saturday at the age of 45 after a three year battle with brain cancer. Judge Wyatt was born in Visalia and raised in Salinas with his younger brother Keith. He graduated from Salinas High School and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis.
He earned his law degree from Santa Clara University and began his law practice in the early 1990’s with the firm of Mortimer and Oakley. He would later become a partner in that firm before leaving to begin his career with the Madera County District Attorney’s Office.
