A California judge on Thursday denied an appeal for qualified immunity from a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department sergeant who is accused of shooting and killing a man with excessive force. Nearly every key detail of the years-long case against the sergeant and the county is disputed, including whether the man was retreating from the property at the time of the shooting; whether he was holding a baseball bat in an upright position or with its tip pointed down; and whether he posed a threat to bystanders.

The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday affirmed the criminal-threats conviction and sentence of a man who threatened to murder Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Hayden Zacky as well as a county prosecutor unless he received an apology from each of them and was paid $10 million. Defendant Ahmad Talal Smadi uttered his threats in a April 12, 2018 email to his probation officer.

Retired Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Georgia A. Huerta and the County of Los Angeles were served yesterday with a writ petition seeking to bar Huerta’s use of the ballot designation, “Deputy District Attorney” on the June 7 ballot. The writ petition was filed Monday. Bringing the challenge is Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Melissa Hammond who is competing with Huerta and four others for Los Angeles Superior Court Office No. 118.

The Supreme Court said Monday it would review a challenge to a California law that set certain conditions for pork sold in the state. The case stems from a 2018 ballot measure where California voters approved the nation’s toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Two agricultural associations challenging the law say almost no farms satisfy those conditions.

The Supreme Court said Thursday that states must accommodate the wishes of death row inmates who want to have their pastors pray aloud and even touch them during their executions. The court ruled in the case of a Texas inmate, John Henry Ramirez, who challenged state rules that would have forced his pastor to remain silent and apart from him as he is put to death.

The Los Angeles Superior Court judges’ political action committee on Friday announced the disbursal of $165,000 to two judges who are challenged in the June 7 primary. Elaborating on a press release, Judge Dean Hansell, president of the PAC, said that $100,000 is going to the coffers of Judge David B. Gelfound’s committee and $65,000 to the committee of Judge Carol Elswick.

When Judge Kimberly Menninger endorsed Michael Murray’s campaign for judge in 2016, several of his alleged indiscretions as an Orange County prosecutor had already been brought to light, according to a recent legal motion. According to the motion filed by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, Menninger could have a bias toward Murray - a current O.C. judge - because she supported him despite Murray’s admittance during the much-publicized Scott Dekraai hearings in 2014 that he withheld evidence from three defendants who were sentenced to death and a 2007 court of appeal opinion that cited multiple instances of misconduct from Murray.

The D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that a Tunisian athlete who was extradited to the U.S. in 2013 for allegedly plotting a suicide attack on an American military post in Europe can be tried again for charges he already faced abroad. The federal appellate court rejected Nizar Trabelsi’s claim that it should defer to the Belgian executive branch’s ruling that he could not be tried twice because the Belgian judiciary’s opposing ruling trumps it.

A law professor with whom then-President Donald Trump concocted a plan to overturn the will of the people following the 2020 presidential election must turn over most of his emailed communications with Trump and the president’s advisers to the Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, a federal judge ruled Monday.

A law firm that successfully moved for an order compelling arbitration of a malpractice action against it will have to pay the entire fee of the arbitrator itself or litigate the action in court if the plaintiff can show an inability to pay his share of the fee, the First District Court of Appeal held yesterday. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Ross, siting on assignment, wrote the opinion for Div. Four. It reverses an order by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman.

The Supreme Court justices were skeptical that states could avoid lawsuits from veterans during oral arguments on Tuesday, questioning Texas’ claims of sovereign immunity to dodge an injured soldier’s wrongful termination case. “It would be bizarre not to allow suits in the war powers area where the national interest is at its apex,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. Justice Elena Kagan expressed similar confusion.

If you signal a turn after reaching a stop sign, can police stop you for not turning on your blinker earlier? Not in most cases, says a state appeals court in San Francisco in a ruling setting aside a driver’s convictions for drugs that were found in his car. A Vacaville police officer stopped Andrew Holiman’s car on a downtown street in June 2017 after Holiman had stopped at a sign, signaled a right turn and then turned right.

The effort to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has reached a new milestone. Campaign organizers announced Thursday the effort has collected over 200,000 signatures and raised $4 million. In order to make it on the November 2022 ballot, recall organizers need to collect a total of 566,857 signatures by July 6 from registered voters in Los Angeles County. The 200,000 signatures show a notable increase from the 125,000 the campaign announced two weeks ago.

When former San Francisco district attorney and police chief George Gascón was sworn in as Los Angeles County DA in December 2020, he promised to fix what he called a broken criminal justice system, one he said often victimized poor Black and Latino defendants without improving public safety. “LA is the poster child for the failed tough-on-crime approach,” he said at the time. “The status quo hasn’t made us safer.”

Pasadena community leaders are demanding increased accountability after learning that a Pasadena police sergeant who fled from a CHP officer on foot into desert brush near Santa Clarita last year was quietly offered diversion rather than face prosecution on allegations of resisting arrest, drunken driving, child endangerment and leaving his weapon unattended in a vehicle.

A former Los Angeles County district attorney said Monday that Will Smith could and “should” still be prosecuted for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars - even though the comedian declined to press charges. “The [Los Angeles] city attorney could bring charges based upon the evidence without necessarily relying upon the victim,” Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County District Attorney from 2000 to 2012, told The Post.

The couple accused of killing 6-year-old Aiden Leos in a road rage incident on the 55 Freeway in Orange County will stand trial for the boy’s murder, authorities said Wednesday. “A monster with a gun murdered a little boy on his way to kindergarten - because he was cut off on the freeway,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. 

Lady Gaga‘s dog walker described the harrowing scene that unfolded as he tried to save the singer’s pooches, and himself, when he was allegedly attacked in February 2021 by a trio of men who shot him in the chest during a scuffle. In a newly unsealed transcript from a secret grand jury proceeding in Los Angeles last October, Rolling Stone reported that Ryan Fischer testified that he was “confused at first” when the alleged dognappers - who’ve been charged with attempted murder - jumped out of a car and demanded he hand over the singer’s three dogs: Asia, Gustav and Koji.

The leader of the megachurch La Luz del Mundo was charged in a string of phony sexual assaults by California prosecutors who fabricated victim text conversations and lied to the court about their evidence, defense attorneys claimed in a pretrial brief. Naason Joaquin Garcia, referred to as the apostle of Jesus Christ, has been in jail for nearly three years awaiting trial on dozens of charges pertaining to the grooming and rapes of teenage girls who have grown up in his congregation.

A correctional officer became the fifth staff member charged in a still-unfolding sexual abuse scandal at a federal women's prison in the East Bay, authorities said. A two-count indictment accuses the officer, Enrique Chavez, of touching the genitals, breasts and buttocks of a woman incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin on at least two occasions in October 2020.

Five people illegally trafficked more than 500 guns from Georgia to California, where they would sell them on the black market, for more than $160,000 over nearly two years, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The federal investigation began after authorities discovered that a gun used in a Sacramento, California, shooting was traced to Georgia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento said in a news release.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has recovered $5.2 million in unpaid workers’ compensation payments from a former Orange County Reserve Sheriff’s Captain who intentionally underreported the number of unarmed security guards he had working for him and his payroll in order to avoid paying $17.2 million in insurance premiums. An additional $8.56 million in additional restitution is expected to be paid by the defendant when he is sentenced in May.

Assemblywoman Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Santa Clarita, announced that her bills to protect crime victims passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday. Assembly Bill 1846 and AB 1847 “combat the reckless policies of Los Angeles (County) District Attorney George Gascón by breaking down barriers that make it harder for crime victims and their family members to be heard during parole or resentencing hearings,” said a prepared statement issued by Valladares’ office.

Ed Buck, the wealthy white California Democratic donor who was convicted on charges after he injected gay men with methamphetamine leading to two deaths and other overdoses, has asked a federal judge to overrule the jury’s guilty verdicts. On Monday in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge Christine A. Snyder will hear a motion for judgment of acquittal. The motion rests on the claim that the evidence at trial was insufficient for a conviction.

The California Retailers Association and the California Hotel and Lodging Association have partnered with Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D - Torrence) to propose Assembly Bill 2390, with the intent of strengthening Proposition 47. Passed by California voters in 2014, Prop 47 increased the dollar amount by which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials attempted to cover up an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed inmate for three minutes because they feared the "negative light” it could shed on the department, according to internal records reviewed by The Times. Department officials were worried about the optics of the kneeling, “given its nature and its similarities to widely publicized George Floyd use of force,” a commander who was critical of the coverup wrote in an internal force review.

The Los Angeles County assessor’s office is alleged to have continued to give favorable treatment to connected taxpayers, allowing them to pay lower property taxes for years and costing the County millions of dollars in lost revenue. The three employees suing, alleging retaliation, have been allowed to amend their complaints to include misuse of public funds under Penal Code section 424.

"See yourself in blue.” It's a line in a Los Angeles Police Department recruitment ad that captures the personal side of a male and female officer. In it you see young kids transform into police officers. One officer in the ad is real-life officer Danielle Lopez. In the video, you see an off-duty Lopez in sweats working out, in blue jeans returning a lost wallet, with friends celebrating a birthday.

The Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) is launching an investigation into "deputy gangs" or groups participating in gang-like activity at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department, the Commission said Thursday. The investigation, which will be conducted by pro bono attorneys and is expected to last up to six months, will look into the "continued existence and impact of deputy gangs and evaluate what is needed to eradicate them," the Commission said.

The city of Los Angeles is seeing a harrowing spike in people killed in car crashes. From Jan. 1-March 5, 62 people died in vehicular collisions, compared with 53 during the same period in 2021, according to LAPD Traffic Division COMPSTAT data. The current year’s tally marks a 77% increase over the 35 people who died in the equivalent period in 2020. That was before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the Los Angeles mayor’s race chugs toward the June 7 election, there is a lot of talk about money. Much of this involves billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso. The guy has the cash to pay for those TV commercials that run incessantly. His holdings include the $100 million yacht, Invictus, which was referenced twice by other candidates in Tuesday’s debate, and which prompted Caruso to remark on stage, “I do have a nice boat.”

In the post-COVID, post-George Floyd crime wave, few cities have been hit as hard as Los Angeles. It’s gotten bad enough that the Los Angeles Police Department is warning people not to wear expensive jewelry. This comes as the city is experiencing an 18 percent increase in robberies and a 44 percent increase in armed robberies over 2021’s numbers - an alarming trend by any measure, especially when you consider those armed robberies are up 57 percent from 2020 and 60 percent from 2019.

A California Highway Patrol task force investigating an organized retail theft operation announced Friday the arrests of nine people and the combined recovery of nearly $200,000 in stolen merchandise and cash. The arrests were the result of a three-month investigation by members of the CHP's Organized Retail Crime Task Force into a criminal operation known as the South American Theft Group, according to the CHP.

The three women who were arrested in connection to a vicious attack on a driver in Bell are back on the streets after posting bail. Last week, FOX 11 reported on the shocking video that showed three women appearing to smash the car's windows. The 22-year-old victim, a working student, was on her way to pick up her sister on Thursday, March 24 when she noticed an unfamiliar car following her, according to the victim's family friend.

A 21-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at two people, striking one, after the pair saw him beating a dog in the Hollywood area, authorities said Saturday. Saalih Mousa was arrested Wednesday. His girlfriend, 20-year-old Athena Mansour, was also arrested on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact and was initially held in lieu of $500,000 bail, but prosecutors opted not to pursue criminal charges against her and she was given a citation and released Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department reported.

St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica was targeted in a brazen burglary Thursday evening, when a group of thieves targeted the church, stealing over $100,000 worth of video equipment the church used to reach followers during the worst day of the coronavirus pandemic. In spite of the loss, the church's community is coming together to try and give back to the church.

Saturday, April 2 marks the start of the second season for KFI’s (640 AM) “Unsolved” series hosted by Steve Gregory. The program runs every Saturday from 8 to 10 p.m. “Unsolved” tells the story of major crimes that went cold. They remain on the books of local and federal police agencies - LA County Sheriff, Los Angeles Police Department, Riverside Sheriff, the FBI and more - waiting for a new witness or last bit of evidence to finally be solved.

Bodycam footage shows police shooting rubber bullets at reporters. Smartphone videos capture police taking them into custody. Throwing them to the ground. Striking them with batons. Over the past two years, 200 journalists have been arrested or detained while doing their jobs, right here in the U.S. Journalists have complained that police kept them far from the action, shut them down, even brutalized them and destroyed their equipment - in short, intimidated and prevented them from reporting.

Amid rising concerns about crime and recent criminal justice reforms, California’s law enforcement groups are spending big this year in several high-profile races. So far in the 2022 election cycle, these groups have contributed more than $1 million to campaigns for the state Legislature and several statewide offices, slightly less than the $1.2 million contributed at the same point in 2020 and significantly more than the roughly $305,000 in 2018, according to a CalMatters analysis.

President Biden's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year includes a new minimum tax on billionaires and increased funding for police and gun violence prevention. It also calls for additional defense spending and ongoing support for Ukraine's effort to repel Russia. And it includes elements of Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda, which is stalled in Congress. In essence, the 157-page budget - not including its hundreds of pages of tables and graphics - is a bigger, numbers-heavy version of the vision Biden laid out in his State of the Union address earlier this month.

More than a year before police accused Gerald Brevard III of carrying out deadly shootings targeting five homeless men in D.C. and New York City, he was facing several felonies in Northern Virginia for another string of unsettling crimes that could have landed him in prison for years. Brevard was charged with slamming a hotel worker’s head into a wall, before crawling on top of the dazed woman and trying to smother her with his hand, according to a police report. She screamed, and he fled.

Chesa Boudin and Lorenzo Charles became friends during monthly visits to their mothers in a maximum-security prison. Lorenzo’s mother was behind bars for a relatively minor drug offense; Kathy Boudin, a leader of the radical Weather Underground, was doing 20 years to life for her role as an unarmed getaway driver in a 1981 Brinks robbery near New York City that ended with three dead.

Over the objection of the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, a building owner charged in connection with a massive fire and explosion in the downtown Los Angeles Toy District that injured a dozen firefighters was allowed today to enter a two-year diversion program that could result in the case against him eventually being dismissed.

An Orange County man was sentenced today to 188 months in federal prison for selling nearly four pounds of methamphetamine while he was on supervised release following a 2009 terrorism conviction. Ahmed Binyamin Alasiri, 45, a.k.a. Kevin Lamar James, of Garden Grove, was sentenced by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney.

A Texas real estate agent who chartered a private plane to Washington, D.C., for the pro-Trump rallies-turned-riot on Jan. 6, 2021, pleaded guilty Monday for his role in the Capitol attack. Jason Hyland entered his guilty plea in Washington federal court to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building in exchange for the more serious charges against him to be dropped, including disorderly conduct and violent entry in a restricted building.

A convicted felon who was previously sentenced under California’s “three strikes” law was granted his release on parole earlier this month. In a March 1 hearing at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, the State Board of Parole Hearings granted parole for Isabello Joe Rivera, 66, of Patterson, the Office of Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced in a press release on Tuesday.

The last of three men convicted of hijacking a school bus full of children and holding them and their driver for $5 million ransom in 1976 was recommended for parole on Friday with the support of two of the victims. Parole commissioners decided Frederick Woods, 70, no longer is a danger to the public after previous panels had denied him parole 17 times.

District Attorney Dan Dow announced today that he is pleased with Governor Gavin Newsom's decision to reverse the Board of Parole Hearings' November 18, 2021, decision to grant Jason Adam Greenwell parole. Greenwell was convicted in 2013 based on his plea to second-degree murder for his participation, along with four other individuals, in the horrific murder of 15-year-old Dystiny Myers.

A top legal analyst at CNN said it is possible President Biden’s son Hunter Biden could be indicted by the U.S. government following an investigation into his foreign business dealings. “This is a very real, very substantial investigation of potentially serious federal crimes,” Elie Honig said Wednesday morning on the network. “We are seeing federal prosecutors in Delaware do exactly what you would expect to see federal prosecutors do in this situation.”

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer filed a defamation lawsuit against The Athletic and a reporter, alleging that they misled readers by intentionally omitting information in reports about a sexual assault allegation against him last year. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Central California, accused The Athletic and its former writer Molly Knight of a harassment campaign to malign him.

Some of the state’s biggest cardrooms announced Wednesday their opposition to a tribe-backed initiative that would legalize retail sports betting at California tribal casinos. Cardrooms want in on legal CA sports betting, but their opposition to the tribal initiative is about more than that. The tribal measure would also give California’s tribes more power to sue the cardrooms for offering certain types of card games.

U.S. and British officials on Thursday accused the Russian government of running a years-long campaign to hack into critical infrastructure, including an American nuclear plant and a Saudi oil refinery. The announcement was paired with the unsealing of criminal charges against four Russian government officials, whom the U.S. Department of Justice accused of carrying out two major hacking operations aimed at the global energy sector.

The Supreme Court sided with the Defense Department on Friday afternoon, blocking a lower court ruling that would force the military to deploy unvaccinated Navy SEALs fighting a Covid-19 vaccine mandate. There was no majority opinion on the ruling but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented.

Two women who were shot at a colleague’s home by her mentally incapacitated son can’t sue her employer, a California appeals court ruled, rejecting plaintiff arguments the company had a duty to provide a safe working environment or should have prohibited employees from working at home. Carol Holaday was a dispatcher for Colonial Van & Storage who worked from her Fresno home when she wanted.

In Rotstain v. Trustmark Nat’l Bank, plaintiffs sued banks for assisting Stanford and his entities regarding a Ponzi scheme. No. 3:09-CV-2384-N, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10332 (N.D. Tex. January 20, 2022). Stanford and the entities under his control sold fraudulent certificates of deposit (“CDs”) issued by the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Limited (“SIBL”).

Rain rarely falls in Los Angeles, but storm clouds are shrouding Mayor Eric Garcetti’s political future. Concern is mounting on Capitol Hill around the viability of Garcetti’s India ambassadorship nomination. As the Senate considered making Garcetti emissary to the world’s biggest democracy, consternation was initially confined to the GOP.

Stone Brewing alleged that its customers may have been misled by the marketing into thinking that they were buying Stone Brewing beers, when actually they were buying Keystone Light, and that this could explain why Stone Brewing suffered sales losses in those years. Stone Brewing sued Molson Coors for $216 million, and last Friday, after a three-week trial, an eight-member jury unanimously awarded Stone Brewing $56 million in damages (via Courthouse News Service).

In an 8-1 opinion released on Thursday morning, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an employee in a gender-based discrimination claim and settled a jurisdictional issue in an arbitration dispute. The ruling reverses a lower court decision and finds that in some circumstances, federal courts do not have jurisdiction to confirm, vacate or modify an arbitral award. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion of the court and Justice Stephen Breyer was the sole dissenter.

One of California’s big pension funds said on Wednesday it will push companies to add more women to their boards and to disclose more about their carbon emissions, setting out strong markers for the 9,000 companies in its global portfolio. In votes to be cast at upcoming shareholder annual meetings, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) will vote against the entire board of directors at companies that do not have at least one woman, the $318 billion retirement system said in a press release.

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