DEFENDANT #9: MICHAEL HERMAN SALMAGGI #201301 (The Vernon Patterson Dossier)

 

Role in People v. Michael Taylor (XNEGA111132)
Appointed public defender who assumed representation upon venue transfer to Hollywood Court. A graduate of Southwestern Law School, Salmaggi is named in the Dossier for declaring an ex parte conflict of interest in response to the defendant asserting his constitutional rights — effectively vanishing from the case and leaving the defendant without active legal representation during a critical window of proceedings.

Summary of Involvement
Michael Herman Salmaggi entered People v. Michael Taylor as court-appointed counsel the moment the case was transferred from Pasadena to Hollywood Court. But instead of establishing a constitutionally sound attorney-client relationship, Salmaggi’s tenure would be marked by immediate conflict, covert withdrawal, and systemic avoidance.

After receiving a written assertion of constitutional rights from Mr. Taylor — including objections to psychiatric misconduct and sealed order violations — Salmaggi responded not by engaging in defense advocacy, but by declaring a conflict of interest for both himself and Danielle Daroca-Bell, the prior counsel. This declaration was done ex parte, outside of court, and without notifying the defendant in any procedurally recognized way.

Salmaggi’s actions left the defendant effectively unrepresented during critical stages in which prior evaluations were being used to justify continued detainment, medication, and court determinations of mental incompetence. Neither Salmaggi nor the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office ever provided written justification or procedural basis for the conflict, violating California’s Rules of Court and due process standards.

Further compounding the issue, Salmaggi passed the case to Hannah Mandel of the Alternate Public Defender's Office — another Southwestern Law School alum — in what appears to be a closed-network rotation of defense actors, shielded from accountability and immune to external oversight.

Why He Is Defendant #9 in the Dossier

• Abandoned his client without notice or justification, at the moment when zealous representation was most needed.
• Declared a conflict in response to the client asserting constitutional rights, raising serious questions of retaliatory disengagement.
• Participated in a sealed-court shell game, handing off the case in silence without ensuring lawful transition or redress.
• Reinforced the pattern of Southwestern Law alumni occupying key defense positions — perpetuating a web of institutional complicity.

> “Salmaggi did not litigate, he evaporated — the kind of defender who declares retreat at the first sign of constitutional assertion. In his silence, the Dossier finds the loudest proof of systemic abandonment.”