Sentence challenge is denied because the plea waiver is enforceable and the cited guideline change is not retroactive.
A guilty plea does not preclude factual litigation at a Penal Code section 1172.6 hearing, though Hawthorn failed to show the error changed the result.
The Sixth District reversed a sexual-assault conviction because inflammatory messages with little connection to the charge became improper propensity evidence and denied a fair trial.
United States v. Suel: The Ninth Circuit affirmed in a nonprecedential memorandum.
A person accused of murders committed at 15 could not be transferred to adult court because he was apprehended while juvenile jurisdiction remained available.
Due process requires actual or constructive control over foreign property before a federal court may exercise in rem forfeiture jurisdiction.
The Second District held that Lopez removed a procedural bar to Campbell’s instructional theory but that his jury necessarily found a still-valid form of malice.
The court denied a Section 2255 motion because the record defeated Khan’s ineffective-assistance, supervised-release, and plea-breach arguments.
The California Supreme Court held that striking firearm enhancements on habeas review did not automatically require full resentencing under all later ameliorative laws.
The Ninth Circuit upheld a California death sentence, finding the state court reasonably rejected claims involving counsel, competency, and intellectual disability.
Probation terms allowing warrantless property searches did not clearly authorize officers to conduct a suspicionless search of a probationer’s phone photographs.
The Ninth Circuit required item-by-item judicial review of graphic evidence under Rule 403 but found the failure harmless in Doyle’s case.
Prosecutors may withhold the third acceptance-of-responsibility point after a stipulated trial, and federal judges must exercise discretion when classifying uncharged California wobbler conduct.
Race-related gang testimony tied to the evidence did not itself violate the Racial Justice Act, though counsel must timely preserve an RJA claim.
False-evidence murder claim requires an evidentiary hearing.
The Ninth Circuit ordered a new trial because the district court delayed and inadequately investigated an alternate juror who had expressly prejudged the defense.
The Third District reversed a civil asset forfeiture judgment as to one claimant because the jury’s special verdict was internally inconsistent: it found he had an ownership interest in the seized cash and that some of it was innocent, yet awarded him nothing.
The Fifth District held that driving under the influence causing injury is not a lesser included offense of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, because the manslaughter statute can be committed in ways that do not require violating the DUI-with-injury statute.
The First District publishes this opinion specifically to flag a recurring error: at a section 1172.6 evidentiary hearing, the trial court is an independent fact-finder who must decide whether the petitioner IS guilty beyond a reasonable doubt under current law — not whether a jury ‘could̵
The Ninth Circuit vacated a sophisticated-laundering sentencing enhancement because the district court applied the enhancement without first working through the required preceding step in U.S.S.G. § 2S1.1(b)(2), remanding for limited resentencing of three defendants convicted in a large-scale gift-c
The Fourth District reversed a DUI conviction, holding that a warrantless blood draw from a sedated hospital patient was unconstitutional where the arresting officer faced no competing investigative demands and never considered seeking a warrant.
The First District holds that a trial court’s mathematical error in calculating presentence custody credits is a clerical error the court can correct at any time — but that correction does not render the judgment nonfinal or entitle the defendant to full resentencing under ameliorative legisla
The California Supreme Court holds that Penal Code section 2900.5 awards custody credits on a case-by-case basis — consolidating multiple prosecutions at a single sentencing hearing does not entitle a defendant to credit the same period of custody against all cases.
The First District reversed a second-degree murder conviction because the trial court failed to clarify — when the jury asked mid-deliberation — that the rule ending self-defense once danger passes does not also eliminate the lesser defense of imperfect self-defense.