MORE ON: courts

Daily Report: Public Safety

Audit: State Bar’s substance abuse monitoring falling short

May 31, 2011, 12:05 AM
The program that monitors lawyers recovering from drug and alcohol abuse at times fails to take action when attorneys skip lab screenings or even test positive, the California State Auditor has found. A report, published last week, details how the California State Bar’s Lawyer Assistance... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

Most prosecutor misconduct goes unpunished, study finds

April 4, 2011, 12:05 AM
Misconduct by prosecutors frequently goes unreported and unpunished in California, according to a study released last week. The courts are required to notify the California State Bar of prosecutorial wrongdoing only when it results in an overturned conviction. Meanwhile, 78 percent of... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

To get funds, wrongly convicted man must re-prove innocence

March 30, 2011, 12:05 AM
An Orange County man wrongfully convicted of assaulting police officers with a deadly weapon must prove his innocence anew to receive compensation for the five years he spent in prison. The California Attorney General’s Office is contesting Ernest Benefiel’s claim for $188,000 from... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

State's white collar convicts get lighter sentences

March 21, 2011, 12:05 AM
White collar criminals convicted in California’s federal courts were less likely to serve prison time than their counterparts nationally the past three fiscal years. And convicts also often received less time in a cell when judges did order incarceration, according IRS criminal... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

Wrongly imprisoned OC man waits for compensation hearing

March 15, 2011, 12:06 AM
Ernest Benefiel was wrongfully convicted twice for the same crime and spent more than five years imprisoned. Worse than that, the crime (assaulting police officers with a deadly weapon) prosecutors and juries in Orange County said he committed never technically took place. Released from... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

Audit: State courts computer system massively over budget

February 9, 2011, 12:05 AM
California’s effort to synchronize its 58 superior courts through a statewide electronic case management system is seven years behind schedule and the project’s costs have increased seven-fold, state auditors have found. And even if the state courts install the system by 2016, as... + read more
Daily Report: Health and Welfare

State auditor critical of Marin, Sacramento family courts

January 21, 2011, 12:06 AM
Family courts in Sacramento and Marin counties could not show whether mediators and other appointees handling child custody disputes met minimum qualifications and training requirements, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday by the state auditor. The audit, which covered... + read more
Daily Report: Money and Politics

Brown's court security plan 'problematic,' analysts say

January 20, 2011, 12:07 AM
Gov. Jerry Brown's plan for funding court security could make it difficult to ensure that courts are sufficiently protected, according to the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst's Office. In the realignment proposal outlined in Brown's budget, counties would no longer provide... + read more
Daily Report: General Assignment

Gay marriage backers, opponents argue in federal court

December 7, 2010, 12:05 AM
As a gaggle of noisy protesters shouted through bullhorns and brandished signs outside, lawyers for the backers and opponents of the initiative to ban gay marriage made their case inside a federal appeals courthouse Monday. The 2 1/2-hour hearing before a three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

Prosecutors escape discipline, court scrutiny for misconduct

October 6, 2010, 12:05 AM
In California, the odds that a prosecutor will face discipline for misconduct in a criminal case are miniscule. An analysis of appellate cases and media reports [PDF] released this week by the Northern California Innocence Project revealed that from 1997 to 2009, the courts found prosecutorial... + read more
Daily Report: Public Safety

In CA and elsewhere, huge backlog of immigration cases

August 20, 2010, 8:08 AM
The United States has again broken its previous record for the number of immigration cases waiting to be resolved by a federal court judge. There were nearly 248,000 cases pending by the middle of June this year, a whopping 33 percent higher than where the figure stood at the end of fiscal year... + read more
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