Eyewitness Full Movie Kickass Torrent
Kirby Apodaca
As a filmmaker, Catherine Hardwicke is used to smashing through boundaries and expectations. Now the UT grad swings into the burgeoning new wave of mid-budget action dramas with her cross-border drug war drama Miss Bala.
Miss Bala actually adapts an earlier film by the same name, a street-level crime flick that went on to be Mexico's entry for the 2011 foreign language Oscar. The original inspired was based on a real life incident, when the 2008 Miss Sinaloa, Laura Ziga, was busted by the cops in a truck filled with suspected gang members, cash, and guns. When the producers of the remake approached her, Hardwicke said, "They knew I was from the border of Texas, so they asked me, 'Does this appeal to you?' A kickass girl. Border identity issues. Yes!"
In the 2011 version, Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) lives in Mexico; in this rewrite, Gloria (Gina Rodriguez) is Mexican-born but lives in Los Angeles, and her cross-border identity is a major component of how she is treated on both sides of the divide. That's what binds her to gang boss Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who has his own cross-border story. "They both have this identity issue," said Hardwicke. " 'Am I too gringo to be Mexican? Am I too Mexican to be gringo? I don't speak fluent Spanish, I speak pocha Spanish."
AC: Talking with filmmakers like Joe Carnahan and his new War Party productions, they see the $10 million to $30 million budget film as this mid-ground that the studios have forgotten about, but that it's this great place for taking a few risks while still being a big production.
CH: Because you can stretch the dollars. They told me, "Make it look like James Bond," and I went, "James Bond for under $15 million? Awesome. Let's try it. Let's get the helicopter shots, let's get the drone out there, let's get the Russian Arm, let's get these beautiful landscapes." The fact that we shot it with the cool widescreen anamorphic, so you that you feel that epic intimacy. You're close to Gina, you know what she's feeling, but you also see the environment that she's dealing with at the same time.
CH: I think it's cool, and I think it's exciting. Most people are shocked when they see the footage of Tijuana. "I didn't know it looked like that. How long did you live there? Well you didn't stat in Tijuana, did you, Catharine?" Yeah, I lived there for five months, and I came back to the US for one night. I never felt any fear, except for a few moments with the helicopter.
CH: I was up in the helicopter at night, and I convinced them to let me shoot one scene. They'd say, "You can't shoot in a helicopter at night in Tijuana," but I said I need to shoot sunset over in the neighborhood where her friend Suzu lives ...
CH: Exactly. And then when the sun sets, I'll fly back to the airport. So I got a little bit of night, and we're flying over Suzu's house, and the pilot in the headset goes, "Do you think you've got the shot, because I think the cartel's about to start shooting at us." I go, "I think I got the shot. Let's go."
AC: And in the middle of this you have Gloria making some morally very questionable decisions, all taken with the knowledge that she could die at any moment. She's on a very slippery slope, the same one as Lino.
John K. Van de Kamp and George Deukmejian, Attorneys General, Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Arnold O. Overoye, Assistant Attorney General, Nancy Sweet and Vincent J. Scally, Jr., Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
On May 22, 1978, Jay Love, an inmate at the California Men's Colony (CMC) was found dead in his cell, asphyxiated by a metal coat [35 Cal. 3d 92] hanger wrapped around his neck. Four months later, Richard Mroczko and Thomas Brindle, fellow inmates, were charged with Love's murder. After a six-week trial in the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, during which Brindle and Mroczko were represented by the same counsel, Mroczko was convicted of first degree murder and eventually sentenced to death. Brindle was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to a term of seven years. Mroczko's appeal to this court is automatic. (Cal. Const., art. VI, 11; Pen. Code, 1239, subd. (b).)
We hold that as a result of the joint representation of Mroczko, Brindle, and Dennis Hall a witness to and uncharged suspect in Love's death Mroczko was denied effective assistance of counsel. His conviction must therefore be reversed. fn. 1 We further hold that in the future separate and independent counsel should be appointed for jointly charged indigent defendants at the outset of criminal proceedings.
The prosecution's case against Mroczko was based almost entirely on six inmate witnesses: Louis Archuleta, Mark Asbill, Jerry Daniels, Marcelino Garcia, Ralph Jones, and Robert Schneider. These witnesses testified generally that Mroczko and Love had been sexually involved, that they fought on the morning of May 22, 1978, that Mroczko, Brindle, and possibly Hall another inmate murdered Love, and that Mroczko made a number of damaging admissions.
The evidence tying Mroczko to the murder was strong. However, the inmate witnesses disagreed on virtually all the particulars of the crime especially the respective roles of Mroczko, Brindle and Hall.
At the time of Love's death, Mroczko, Brindle and Love lived in nearby cells. While Mroczko and Love had been sexually involved, they quarreled often during the two weeks before Love's death. A guard testified that Mroczko was attempting to break off his relationship with Love. Between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on the morning of the murder, Jerry Daniels, an inmate who lived on the same corridor as Mroczko, saw Mroczko, Brindle and Dennis Hall standing in front of Hall's cell. At trial, Daniels testified that Mroczko said, "I think we ought to kill him." Hall added that "[h]e needs to be killed." Hall was "stirring it up" and "wanted to see something happen." Brindle said little except that he wanted to "kick his ass" but did not want [35 Cal. 3d 93] to kill the person they were discussing. Daniels did not know at the time who was being discussed but the person was "supposed to be an informant."
Pretrial, Daniels had given a different version of this story to Richard Moreno, a state investigator. Moreno testified Daniels told him that Mroczko wanted to "kick Love's ass to get him to shut up" but it was Brindle who thought Love should be "taken out completely." Daniels explained to Moreno that Brindle had a particular motive to kill Love: to prevent him from "snitching" and jeopardizing his upcoming parole. fn. 2
Later the same morning Louis Archuleta, Robert Schneider, Mark Asbill and Ralph Jones heard Mroczko and Love arguing. fn. 3 About 9:30 or 10 a.m., Archuleta saw Mroczko enter Love's cell. About two hours later he heard someone scream "Louis." The scream was cut off and Archuleta heard what sounded like kicking against the metal cell wall. Archuleta left his cell to check the time. It was 11:27 a.m. He then picked up a broom and began to sweep the hallway. As he passed Love's cell, he looked through a crack between the door and wall and saw Brindle crouching, looking out, as though watching for guards. Although he did not see Mroczko, Archuleta knew he was still inside the cell because he would have had to pass Archuleta's open cell door to leave the area. According to Archuleta, Brindle and Mroczko remained in Love's cell during the 11:30 lockup. fn. 4 [35 Cal. 3d 94]
Marcelino Garcia testified that after the 11:30 lockup ended, he went to pick up a friend, Jose Lopez, to go to lunch. Garcia lived in another section of the building, but Lopez's cell was on Love's hall. As Garcia walked down Love's hall, he saw Mroczko and Brindle enter Love's cell. Garcia looked through the window of Love's cell door, hoping to see a sexual act. Instead, he claimed to have seen Brindle squeezing Love's neck with a wire or rope and Mroczko holding Love from behind. He then contradicted himself, testifying instead that Brindle held Love while Mroczko had him by the neck. fn. 5 Garcia watched for a few seconds and then continued down the hall to his friend's cell. After discovering that Lopez was not in, he walked back down the hall and again looked into Love's cell. This time he saw Love spitting saliva as Brindle and Mroczko were placing him on the bed.
About 1 p.m. that afternoon, a broken sink caused a flood in the hallway. Archuleta saw Mroczko in the hall and told him that water was running into his cell and that his belongings were getting wet. Instead of mopping his own cell, Mroczko was "all excited" and used a broom to keep the water from flowing further down the hall in the direction of Love's cell. Dennis Joller, a guard on the floor, also noticed that Mroczko seemed anxious to keep the water from flowing in the direction of Love's cell.
In the evening, Garcia, who was apparently still unaware that he had witnessed a murder rather than a sex act, approached Mroczko in the television room and said: "I saw what you did." Mroczko got red in the face and told him to go away.
A number of other witnesses testified to admissions and incriminating conduct by Mroczko. However, all of these "admissions" suggested that the murder was not premeditated. Between 11 a.m. and noon of the day of the murder, Mark Asbill heard Mroczko tell Todd Young, "I didn't mean to." He repeated the phrase two or three times. Robert Schneider saw Mroczko leave Love's cell, shaking badly. Later in the day he heard Young say to Mroczko: "I didn't know you were going to kill him." Mroczko did not respond. Late in the evening, Ralph Jones heard Brindle call Mroczko a "stupid asshole." In response, Mroczko told Brindle to get off his back and that it was an accident. Mroczko sounded upset. Brindle was angry. [35 Cal. 3d 95]
During the 10 p.m. lockup, guard King noticed that Love had been lying in the same position on his bunk since the 4 p.m. lockup when he had assumed Love was asleep. King entered the cell, removed the blanket covering most of Love's body and face, and discovered a wire hanger wrapped tightly around Love's neck. An autopsy determined Love died as a result of strangulation by means of the wire coat hanger. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy concluded that his death was not a suicide because of the tightness of the loops in the hanger and the fact that the hanger had been knotted twice. He believed Love could not have made the second knot before passing out. In addition, bruises on Love's right palm were "defensive" and consistent with trying to push away a wire.
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