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 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 reverses the denial of compassionate release for a prisoner whose severe medical deterioration — complete loss of lower extremity function, fused spine, and incontinence — made any realistic possibility of future harm impossible.
The Fourth District conditionally reverses gang murder convictions, finding the trial court applied the wrong legal standards when denying Racial Justice Act motions and discovery requests based on the prosecution’s introduction of a rap song at trial.
The Ninth Circuit reverses summary judgment for prison officials who denied a California prisoner prescription transitional lenses based on a blanket policy rather than individualized medical judgment, finding triable Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference issues.
The Fourth District affirms a murder conviction where a suspect’s incriminating statements to a jailhouse undercover agent were admissible despite his prior Miranda invocation, because no known officer stimulated conversation after the invocation.
The Fourth District holds that arrest records cannot be sealed under Penal Code section 851.91 when the arrest led to a conviction in a separately filed case arising from the same underlying conduct.
California appellate court reverses juvenile’s commitment to a Secure Youth Treatment Facility because the minor’s most recent offense by date was not a qualifying crime under section 707(b).
California appellate court rules that defendants must be allowed to argue aggravating sentencing factors to a jury, reversing an upper-term firearm enhancement where the trial court denied closing argument on those factors.
The Ninth Circuit held that hash-value matches between a suspect’s files and known child pornography can establish probable cause for a search warrant without agents first downloading and visually confirming the files.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed denial of “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s habeas petition, finding his defense team’s strategic decisions did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel despite acknowledged shortcomings in trial performance.
Ninth Circuit affirms denial of Section 2255 habeas petition by former CEO convicted of wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction, finding overwhelming trial evidence defeated ineffective assistance and right-to-maintain-innocence claims.
California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal upholds lifetime sex offender registration for offenders convicted of lewd acts with minors under Penal Code section 288(c)(1), rejecting an equal protection challenge comparing them to section 288(a) offenders who face shorter registration periods.
First District affirms bail bond forfeiture, holding that a trial court’s on-the-record acknowledgment of an off-the-record explanation for a defendant’s nonappearance suffices to retain jurisdiction over the bond under Penal Code section 1305.1.
Fourth District affirms that People failed to prove teenage accomplice guilty of murder under current law at section 1172.6 evidentiary hearing, but remands to redesignate his manslaughter conviction as attempted robbery rather than dismissing the case entirely.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a sentencing enhancement for maintaining a drug distribution premises, holding that a defendant’s apartment can qualify even when it also serves as his primary residence.
The Ninth Circuit held that courts may not include departures when calculating the amended guideline range in sentence reduction proceedings under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), making defendants whose original sentences fell below the amended range ineligible for reductions.
The California Supreme Court unanimously held that defendants who accepted upper term sentences as part of a plea bargain may seek retroactive benefit of SB 567’s amendments to Penal Code section 1170(b), but the remedy is a remand for the defendant to waive, renegotiate, or withdraw the plea—not an
The Third District Court of Appeal granted a writ of mandate ordering dismissal of a misdemeanor DUI case after the trial court’s policy of not empaneling juries on Mondays prevented the defendant from being brought to trial on the last statutory day under Penal Code section 1382.
The First District Court of Appeal affirmed a middle-term sentence for witness dissuasion, holding that evidence of childhood trauma alone does not trigger the lower-term presumption under Penal Code section 1170(b)(6) without sufficient evidence linking that trauma to the specific offense.
The Sixth District ordered a trial court to reinstate blood-alcohol evidence in a DUI murder case, holding that a defendant’s breath-test request is irrelevant to blood-draw warrant probable cause and that the implied consent statute does not override a valid warrant.
The Second District vacated a murder conviction because the trial court improperly added and underlined ‘unintentionally’ in the voluntary manslaughter jury instruction, misleading the jury about when heat of passion applies.
The Ninth Circuit held that Loper Bright’s elimination of Chevron deference does not undermine AEDPA’s deferential standard in habeas cases, reversing a district court’s grant of relief to a California death-row inmate.