A state appeals court panel Thursday rejected an appeal filed on behalf of a gang member serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole for the robbery and murder of a 15-year-old boy targeted while walking home from Cabrillo High School in Long Beach.

A federal judge in San Francisco is mulling the competency to stand trial of a Mexican man who shot and killed 32-year-old Kate Steinle, a shooting that figured prominently in President Donald Trump's run for the White House four years ago. The case against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate on federal gun charges has been pending since U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria raised “serious concerns” about his mental capacities back in January.

In a case that could decide whether $4.5 billion will be used to improve regional transportation options, the California Supreme Court this week agreed to take up a challenge from taxpayer advocates on whether a $3 toll hike on Bay Area bridges is legal.

A federal judge has vacated the conviction and death sentence of a San Bernardino man who killed a Rialto police sergeant in 1986, concluding he did not receive a fair trial due to racial discrimination during the jury selection process. And now, San Bernardino County prosecutors and public defenders are at odds over whether Dennis Mayfield, now 61, should be retried for the March 3, 1986, shooting death of Sgt. Gary W. Wolfley.

A U.S. District Court judge on Thursday, saying he was “concerned with a lack of candor and honesty,” ordered the federal government to reduce its prisoner population at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center by more than 38 percent beginning Monday. Judge Terry J. Hatter ordered ICE to release 50 prisoners a day beginning Monday until the private prison’s population whittles down from 772 to 475.

An Alameda Superior Court judge who was slammed in a Court of Appeal opinion for misconduct that necessitated a reversal yesterday received a public admonishment from the Commission on Judicial Performance. Incurring the discipline was Judge Frank Roesch, 73, who was appointed to the bench Oct. 4, 2001, by then-Gov. Gray Davis.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the belief alone that a person has committed a misdemeanor is enough basis for police to enter a home without a warrant. The case involves Arthur Lange, of Sonoma, California, who was playing music loudly in his car while headed home in 2016. 

A federal judge indicated Monday she’s likely to advance a wrongful death lawsuit filed against a Los Angeles Police Department officer, saying a jury should determine whether police were justified in killing a Black man who attorneys say was unarmed and posing no threat to anyone.

A full federal appeals court has rejected a request by prominent National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer to take up a case about graphic emails she received after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Recently-signed California legislation SB 1146 immediately modifies the California Code of Civil Procedure on electronic service and remote depositions. Additionally, SB 1146 extends certain civil deadlines for the duration of the COVID-19 state of emergency, plus 180 days after the emergency ends.

Finding that state officials have acted with “deliberate indifference” to the health of prisoners at San Quentin - where 75% of them have tested positive for the coronavirus and 28 have died - a state appeals court took the unprecedented step Tuesday of ordering at least half of the prison’s 2,900 inmates transferred or released.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, who allegedly arranged to meet an undercover officer posing as a teenage girl on a dating app, pleaded not guilty today to felony charges. Miguel Cabrera, 38, was charged this week with one felony count each of meeting a minor for lewd purposes and distributing pornography to a minor, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

A Los Angeles man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he tried to kill two officers at the LAPD's Harbor Station in San Pedro, including one who was pistol-whipped and another with whom he allegedly exchanged gunfire. Jose Cerpa Guzman, 29, is charged with two counts each of attempted murder and assault with a semiautomatic firearm, along with one count each of second-degree robbery, evading and resisting an officer.

A federal grand jury in Texas has indicted former Angels employee Eric Kay on two counts in the overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs. Returned late Thursday and filed Friday morning in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, the indictment charges Kay with distributing the fentanyl that resulted in Skaggs’ death last year.

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday accused six Russian computer hackers of causing power blackouts, financial losses of nearly $1 billion and targeting the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Court documents said the six were officers in the Russian military's main intelligence directorate and used "some of the most destructive malware to date."

A rapper who bragged in a YouTube music video about getting rich from an unemployment scam was arrested Friday on federal charges of fraudulently applying for more than $1.2 million in jobless benefits, the Department Of Justice officials said. Fontrell Antonio Baines, 31, of Memphis, Tenn., is known online as Nuke Bizzle.

A man is facing attempted murder charges after allegedly stabbing two transgender women in separate attacks at a Westlake neighborhood park, the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office said Friday. Donoban Fonseca, 24, was charged with three counts each of attempted murder, conspiracy to dissuade a witness and attempting to dissuade a witness, plus two counts of extortion, the DA’s office said in a news release.

Calling it an “extraordinary election,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has urged law enforcement and prosecutors nationwide to ensure that voters are not harassed or intimidated when they go to the polls next month. “Here in Los Angeles, we need to be vigilant and ensure that every single person feels free to vote the way they intend to vote …,” the city attorney said Friday as part of a national briefing by Prosecutors Against Gun Violence and the organization Everytown for Gun Safety on the threat of voter intimidation.

San Francisco’s former district attorney, George Gascon, who left town before his term was finished so he could run for D.A. in Los Angeles, has a long history of going whichever way the winds blow, saying whatever suits his political purposes, and only looking out for himself. Nevertheless, I was shocked to read how Gascon is now trying to explain why I, along with San Francisco’s well-respected city attorney, Dennis Hererra, oppose his candidacy. 

Adriana Camarena abhors the idea that George Gascón is being touted as a reformer in the nationally watched contest for control of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. The Bay Area organizer spent years leading rallies against Gascón in San Francisco, and her voice rises with annoyance as she rattles off the names of men killed in controversial police shootings during Gascón's time as district attorney: Mario Woods, Luis Gongora Pat, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, Alex Nieto.

A strong woman stands up for herself. A stronger woman stands up for everybody else. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey is that stronger woman. It is no wonder that it was Lacey who was elected the first African-American and the first female top prosecutor after 162 years of the existence of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

The race for top prosecutor in Los Angeles has become one of the most important criminal justice elections in the US this year, with Black Lives Matter activists pushing the contest to the forefront of national debates on racist policing and incarceration. Jackie Lacey, the first woman and first African American to serve as LA district attorney, is facing a tough challenge from George Gascón, a former San Francisco district attorney who has positioned himself as a progressive candidate dedicated to police accountability and reducing the prison population.

Self-styled progressive political activists who win election as district attorneys with financial support from wealthy donors have made “social justice” initiatives more important than public safety, legal analysts say. George Soros, the Hungarian American billionaire investor, stands out as the big donor behind a super PAC that helped elect district attorneys who have overseen a dramatic increase in crime. 

If you love gang members roaming the streets, the Soros backed Gascon for DA is your candidate. If you think criminals should be on the streets instead of in jail, the Soros candidate for DA, George Gascon, is your candidate. Do you believe 17 year old convicted murderers should serve four years in juvenile hall - which in L.A. County is being closed, or in State prison for 20 years to life?  

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert appears on KFI’s John & Ken show to discuss her endorsement of Jackie Lacey in the upcoming LA County DA race.

After decades in uniform as an officer, commander and deputy chief for the Los Angeles Police Department, officer-turned-San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón is pledging to hold officers accountable when they use deadly force in controversial shootings if he’s elected in November. His campaign to unseat incumbent Jackie Lacey has critics looking closely at his own record at the LAPD.

ADDA President Michele Hanisee debated Lenore Anderson on the merits of Proposition 20. Proposition 20 expands the list of violent crimes for which early release is not an option. Under 2014’s Prop. 47, rape of an unconscious person, trafficking a child for sex, assault of a peace officer, felony domestic violence and other similar crimes are not classified as “violent felonies” - making criminals convicted of these crimes eligible for early release under Proposition 57. 

A convicted murderer will likely be released from prison unless Governor Newsom overturns the California parole board's decision. In 2001, Gerardo Zavala and two others lured a 17-year-old to a home in the small town of Delano to smoke meth. But while they were there, the teen, Eric Jones, was assaulted, electrocuted, sexually abused, kidnapped, tortured for hours, and then shot to death.

The 2020 election is taking place against a backdrop of extreme partisan rancor and social unrest, placing unprecedented strain on the police chiefs and sheriffs responsible for maintaining order at the polls. The situation is compounded by the increasing threat of right-wing militia groups and a president who has called for an “army” of poll watchers to monitor contested election areas.

In early June, four National Guard spy planes took to the skies over several cities to monitor street protests following the killing of George Floyd, triggering concerns that the military was improperly gathering intelligence on U.S. citizens. Three of the reconnaissance planes kept watch on demonstrations in Minneapolis, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., that drew hundreds or thousands of protesters and were marred by violence.

At least three Southland residents are speaking out against the Los Angeles Police Department after they claim they were injured in the streets of L.A. by police deploying hard foam projectiles. Among the events that the Angelenos say left them injured was a protest over the death of George Floyd, a celebration of the Los Angeles Lakers’ first championship title since 2010, and driving near a demonstration with a car window down.

While overall crime decreased in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of murders increased by 20% this year compared to 2019, according to a report released Monday. Between January and September 2020, 239 people were murdered in Los Angeles compared to 199 people during the same period in 2019, according to the report produced by Crosstown, a nonprofit news organization based out of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.

This summer, a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department filed a lawsuit against the city. Officer Matthew Garza, who had served on the security detail that protects Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, alleged that one of Garcetti’s top aides, Rick Jacobs, routinely assaulted and harassed him—and that Garcetti had witnessed the assault and harassment and did nothing to stop it, nor hold Jacobs accountable. 

One month after some members called on Alex Villanueva to resign, the county's Civilian Oversight Commission on Thursday is scheduled to consider a resolution condemning the sheriff's leadership and vowing to hold him accountable if he continues to "facilitate dysfunction" in the agency.

On three occasions, a judge ordered the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to produce a roster of deputies with histories of misconduct. Court deadlines came and went. Tens of thousands of dollars in sanctions against the county piled up. But the list was never disclosed. Janet Williams had requested the so-called Brady list in a 2017 civil rights lawsuit after a deputy shot and killed her son, Dennis “Todd” Rogers, 41.

L.A. City Councilman Herb Wesson was early into his bid for a seat on the Board of Supervisors when the endorsements and donations from law enforcement started flowing in. The biggest prize: $500,000 from the union that represents a majority of county sheriff’s deputies. But that was all before the police killing of George Floyd in late May and a spate of local police shootings that prompted protests and renewed calls for increased police oversight.

Two marijuana trade organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the nation’s largest legal pot market over restrictions on stand-alone delivery services that have blocked them from obtaining licenses until 2025. The lawsuit against Los Angeles and its Department of Cannabis Regulation seeks to overturn rules enacted earlier this year that postponed the availability of those licenses for certain businesses, even though broad legal sales began in the state in January 2018.

Deputies Saturday shot at a burglary suspect during a getaway attempt, but he was not struck by the gunfire, sheriff's officials said. The incident unfolded after a residential burglary was reported at 8:50 a.m. in the 29000 block of McVickers Canyon Park Road, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Two teen boys were shot and killed while driving through a Willowbrook neighborhood late Thursday night, and the gunman remains at large. The shooting occurred at about 11 p.m. in the 12200 block of Maple Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. A group of five teens were riding in the car, traveling slowly down the street searching for an address when a suspect approached them and opened fire, a family member told CBSLA.

A recent report on a fatal deputy-involved shooting was likely delayed due to the Borderline investigation, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. The report, which was released Oct. 2, covers the death of 26-year-old Thousand Oaks resident Michael Johnson, who was shot and killed by two Ventura County Sheriff deputies on Oct. 10, 2018.

A man allegedly carjacked a running vehicle with an 8-month-old child and the baby’s grandmother inside Saturday, leading to a slow-speed police pursuit through downtown Los Angeles and his eventual arrest. The grandmother and infant were left inside a running car about 2:45 p.m. at Ninth Street and Maple Avenue when the suspect jumped in and drove off with them, according to Officer Tony Im of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section.

A woman has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a Metro employee at the 7th Street train station in downtown Los Angeles. Shortly before 11 p.m. on Friday, a woman got into an argument with the employee at the Red Line station, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The dispute escalated and ended with the suspect stabbing the employee in the chest.

After months of seeing its shelves repeatedly cleaned out by brazen shoplifters, the Walgreens at Van Ness and Eddy in San Francisco is getting ready to close. “The last day is Nov. 11,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said. The drugstore, which serves many older people who live in the Opera Plaza area, is the seventh Walgreens to close in the city since 2019.

Santa Monica Police Chief Cynthia Renaud has announced her retirement after more than 60,000 people signed a petition calling for her to be fired in response to her handling of recent unrest. Interim City Manager Lane Dilg announced Friday that Renaud was retiring after 'recognizing that recent events both here in Santa Monica and around the nation have strained community-police relations'.

On Saturday, October 17, the second community-organized “Defend The LAPD” rally took place in Elysian Park, adjacent to the LA Police Academy. More than 700 people gathered to show their support, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Joe Buscaino outlined the measures the Los Angeles Police Department has already put in place to not only protect the city’s residents from crime but to help individuals and the community in a greater way.

A Texas man who allegedly killed a 17-year-old Boyle Heights girl in 1996 was in custody Wednesday after DNA evidence connected him to the crime, authorities said. Jose Luis Garcia, 42, of Dallas, was arrested in September in the death of Gladys Arellano, whose partially clothed body was discovered at the bottom of a ravine in the Topanga Canyon area of Malibu on Jan. 30, 1996, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Someone set fire to a historically Black Venice church early Thursday. By the afternoon locals were sitting in a circle at the parking lot across the street from the First Baptist Church of Venice, calling on the Los Angeles City Council to protect the neighborhood and preserve the church. The fire happened about 1 a.m. at 685 Westminster Ave., near Oakwood Avenue, and reached the second floor of the building, according to SaveVenice, a community news and action group.

When the website that displayed the election results for Knox County, Tennessee, crashed during the hotly contested Republican mayoral primary in 2018, officials assumed the worst. It had only been a year and a half since the 2016 election, when Russia had launched cyberattacks on several states’ election systems. The county hired a local cybersecurity firm that appeared to confirm that a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack had meant to flood the website with fake traffic.

Foreign hackers who have been trying to hack the Biden and Trump campaigns are now using fake McAfee and YouTube videos and Dropbox-based malware, Google said in a report. After revealing in June that Chinese and Iranian hackers attempted phishing against the personal email accounts of staffers on the Biden and Trump campaigns, Google outlined other Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), a term usually reserved for nation-state actors.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it has scheduled the first federal execution of a woman in almost 70 years, setting a Dec. 8 date to put to death Lisa Montgomery, convicted of a 2004 murder. Montgomery, who was found guilty of strangling a pregnant woman in Missouri, will be executed by lethal injection at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana, the department said in a statement.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s chances for a cabinet post in a Biden administration are increasingly in doubt now that two more men have accused Garcetti’s close adviser of sexual misconduct. Rick Jacobs, who has served as the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, announced on Tuesday that he will “take a leave” from his work amid the allegations.

In an effort to boost the public’s trust of investigations into police shootings and other potential misconduct, Oakland Asm. Rob Bonta on Thursday announced new legislation that would require prosecutors to recuse themselves from those cases if they have received campaign donations from the union representing the officer involved.

This should be a no-brainer: The rape of an unconscious woman is a violent crime. But under current California law, such an assault is categorized as nonviolent. So is trafficking a child for sex. Or firing a gun into a house if no one is hit. It matters because under previous ballot propositions approved by voters, state prison inmates who have been convicted of felonies categorized as violent are not eligible for early release and parole.

Proposition 20 limits access to the parole program established for non-violent offenders who have completed the full term of their primary offense by eliminating eligibility for certain offenses. It increases state and local correctional, court, and law enforcement costs in the tens of millions of dollars annually, depending on how it’s implemented.

As much of the country weighs changes to the criminal justice system, California has had a head start, adopting a series of laws in the last decade that, among other things, helped reduce the state's prison population by more than one-third, or 50,000 people. Now a group of prosecutors and law enforcement leaders has placed Proposition 20 on the November statewide ballot, which would expand the list of felonies for which the convicted are ineligible for early parole; increase penalties for repeat shoplifters; and collect DNA samples from adults convicted of some misdemeanors.

The movement to eradicate bail from America’s justice system will face a crucial test Nov. 3, when California voters will decide whether to end the centuries-old practice of trading money for freedom and replace it with algorithms that try to predict whether defendants deserve to be released before trial. 

Longtime adversaries are clashing once again over changes to California's criminal justice system, with a group representing the state's sheriffs endorsing Proposition 20 on Thursday, while former Gov. Jerry Brown is attacking the initiative in television ads. The ballot measure would expand the list of felonies for which those convicted are ineligible for early parole, increase penalties for repeat shoplifters and collect DNA samples from adults convicted of some misdemeanors.

A California mother whose 2-year-old daughter died after being left alone overnight in a sealed car while the mom drank nearby with a friend and then fell asleep will be sentenced to more than 14 years in prison after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced the plea by the mother, 35-year-old Lacey Ana Mazzarella, on Tuesday.

A 54-year-old woman was sentenced to prison after admitting to drugged driving and other charges in a wild chase through the San Fernando Valley with two dogs in her recreational vehicle last year, prosecutors said Friday. Santa Clarita resident Julie Ann Rainbird, aka Julie Ann Fehlman, pleaded guilty Thursday to six felony counts in the pursuit that involved multiple crashes, including one that left a bystander with major injuries, and sent one of the dogs to the hospital after it leapt from the moving vehicle, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

An MS-13 gang member - arrested two years ago as part of a multi-agency gang crackdown - was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to three years in prison on drug charges. Oscar Reyes, 31, of Mendota, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute controlled substances on behalf of the MS-13 gang, a criminal organization that has become the target of federal, state and county law enforcement agencies.

A 38-year-old man pleaded guilty in the fatal stabbings of his three children, whose bodies were found in a parked SUV in in the Historic South-Central neighborhood of South L.A. five years ago, prosecutors said Tuesday. Luiz Fuentes entered the guilty plea to three counts of first-degree murder, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The judge immediately sentenced him to 78 years to life in prison.

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission Tuesday imposed a fine of $7,500 against Lorena Saucillo, a former city clerk who sent people's credit card information to her incarcerated husband. "This kind of egregious behavior erodes the public's trust in city processes," Ethics Commission President Melinda Murray said. "Today's decision demonstrates that the Ethics Commission is committed to upholding the laws that protect the public and help to foster public confidence."

A Richmond man serving a life sentence at an Amador County prison for child rape and sex abuse was found dead in his cell and his cellmate was being held in his killing. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said officers found 46-year-old Deandre Austin unresponsive in his cell at Mule Creek State Prison Wednesday evening after responding to a call of a “man down.”

Authorities are investigating the death of a 42-year-old inmate at the state prison on the North Coast as a homicide. The inmate, from Humboldt County, had been serving a life sentence for murder, officials said. About 12:30 p,m. Saturday, prison staff found Joshua E. Kirtley unresponsive in his cell at the Pelican Bay State Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.

More people would be released from jail prior to arraignment if California voters approve a statewide ban on cash bail, but racial disparities in pre-arraignment release rates would still persist, a new study finds. The study, published Tuesday by the California Policy Lab at the University of California, finds that pre-arraignment custody levels will likely decrease if a law eliminating bail is upheld through the passage of Proposition 25, an initiative that has divided civil rights groups fighting for criminal justice reform.

Appalled by recent reports of people calling 911 for non-emergencies to intimidate people of color, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance to outlaw the practice Tuesday. “Communities of color have the right to go about daily activities without being threatened by someone calling 911 on them due to someone’s racism,” Supervisor Shamman Walton, who introduced the legislation, said Tuesday.

About 20 years ago, I typed Google.com into my web browser for the first time. It loaded a search bar and buttons. I punched in “D.M.V. sample test,” scrolled through the results and clicked on a site. Wow, I thought to myself. Google’s minimalist design was a refreshing alternative to other search engines at the time - remember AltaVista, Yahoo! and Lycos? - which greeted us with a jumble of ads and links to news articles. Even better, Google seemed to show more up-to-date, relevant results.

A pension fund for Pennsylvania teachers said it had frozen new investments with Apollo Global Management amid concerns about ties between its founder, Leon Black, and Jeffrey Epstein. The $63 billion Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System said it spoke with Apollo officials last week after a New York Times report detailed the financial ties between the two men. 

For more ADDA news and information, visit www.laadda.com.