Sausage King on Trial

When four inspectors arrived at his offices one day in June of 2000, words were exchanged, and then Mr. Alexander walked to his office, pulled out a Baretta 9mm and Walther .38, then returned and fatally shot three of the inspectors and chased the fourth down the block firing shots along the way. Since the murders of the three inspectors was caught on Mr. Alexander's own surveillance cameras, and the fourth inspector witnessed the whole thing, there is no doubt that he was responsible for their murders. What's at stake is whether or not the Alameda County prosecutors can prove that it was a premeditated crime and therefore calls for the ultimate punishment - the death penalty.

While the trial itself has been getting little press besides the coverage in the Oakland Tribune, it's been something of a circus. Mr. Alexander's mother has been banned from the proceedings after a juror tipped that judge that she was trying to get in the juries good graces in the hopes of engendering sympathy for her son. And then last week, Defense Attorney Michael Ogul presented urine-stained briefs obtained recently after the crime as evidence that his client was outside his faculties on the day of the murders. After the prosecutor mocked this evidence, the two attorneys exchanged words and almost got into a fight outside the courtroom. SFist googled Mr. Ogul and found that he's a member of the Intensive Advocacy Program faculty at the University of San Francisco School of Law. We doubt challenging another attorney to fight mano-a-mano is part of the curriculum, but at least Mr. Ogul has a decent rapport with his client - both of them seem to have a short temper to say the least.