The California Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence for Marcos Barrera, convicted of torturing and killing his two young children in Los Angeles, rejecting challenges including claims under the California Racial Justice Act.
The California Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence for Alex Demolle, convicted of raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl in Oakland in 1999, rejecting Fourth Amendment and other challenges.
The California Supreme Court affirms a double gang-murder defendant’s convictions but reverses his 1994 death sentence under the retroactive California Racial Justice Act of 2020, requiring a new penalty-phase trial in a case that has been on automatic appeal for over three decades.
The California Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the death sentence of a Los Angeles father convicted of the torture-murders of two young children, holding that months of deliberate beatings, starvation, and medical neglect provided sufficient evidence of premeditated torturous intent, and that con
The California Supreme Court reverses a death-row defendant’s convictions entirely because his attorney conceded guilt over the client’s explicit objection — a structural constitutional error requiring automatic reversal — while affirming the co-defendant’s death sentence and vacat
The California Supreme Court affirms a death sentence for the 1999 rape-murder of an Oakland 11-year-old, holding that a suspect who voluntarily accompanies police to the station and is briefly placed in a lockable interview room has not been seized under the Fourth Amendment — and clarifying when v
The Ninth Circuit revived an asthma-based ADA accommodation claim that a California federal court had dismissed as time-barred, holding that the district court erred by failing to consider whether California’s worksharing agreement with the EEOC extended the charge-filing deadline to 300 days.
The Ninth Circuit held that a California conviction for assault with a firearm under Penal Code § 245(a)(2) is not a deportable aggravated felony, vacating a removal order and signaling that thousands of similarly situated non-citizens may have grounds for relief.
The First District holds that San Francisco has discretion to develop a fishing program and complete CEQA review before applying for a water supply permit to open the Calaveras Reservoir to public fishing.
The Second District holds that DCFS satisfied its ICWA initial inquiry duty despite not reaching the maternal grandmother, who was unreachable and whose contact information a relative declined to share.