California Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

An alleged drug dealer's five-year prison sentence was overturned last week and charges dismissed after Los Angeles County prosecutors conceded that police included false information in an arrest report to protect the identity of a confidential informant. The Los Angeles Daily News reports the District Attorney’s office told a judge that while the evidence overwelmingly supported Michael Edward Baker’s drug conviction, the conviction should be overturned because in an attempt to protect a confidential informant, there “were certain statements made in a police report that weren't accurate."

The inaccuracies were discovered after Baker’s defense attorney found a sworn declaration by a federal agent that contradicted the version of Baker's arrest given by Torrance law enforcement. Torrance officers contend that they fell upon Baker last year when they were patrolling near a 7-Eleven store and noticed that he matched the description of a suspect in a robbery at the store earlier in the day. They say they stopped him, found PCP in his car and arrested him on drug charges.

But according to the federal agent, the Torrance police set Baker up. The agent -- who was part of a task force investigating Baker -- said that Torrance police used one of their informants to call Baker and arrange a drug deal near the 7-Eleven. When it became clear that the CI’s identity was in danger of being uncovered, Torrance police concocted a story to protect the informant.

It is entirely legal for police to use an informant to set up a drug deal with a targeted criminal, however officers lying to protect the informant's identity is illegal. The Los Angeles D.A.’s office is considering whether they will file criminal charges against the lying cops.

Continue reading " L.A. County prosecutors admit Torrance police falsified drug dealer’s arrest report " »

Posted by William Weinberg | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Criminal

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Actress Heather Locklear was arrested in Santa Barbara County about two months ago on suspicion of driving under the influence. Today, the Los Angeles Times reported that she has been charged with DUI in relation to that arrest.

The arrest occurred after a California Highway Patrol officer saw Locklear in a parked car blocking a freeway traffic lane in Montecito and later determined she was under the influence. Locklear was charged with a single misdemeanor count of DUI. According to prosecutors, Locklear was under the influence of prescription medications—which, contrary to popular belief, can be the basis of a DUI charge.

Locklear is scheduled to be arraigned in late January.

Continue reading " Heather Locklear charged with DUI in Santa Barbara " »

Posted by William Weinberg | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: DUI

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The Los Angeles Times reports that California's Proposition 5—aka the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA)--was defeated by a margin of roughly 60 percent to 40 percent. As I discussed in an earlier post, the measure, which drew the attention of drug policy advocates nationwide, was regarded by some as "the biggest sentencing and prison reform in United States history" but was condemned by national drug-court advocates and California law-enforcement groups.

NORA called for more funding for addiction treatment and less imprisonment of drug offenders. Those supporting NORA stressed that it would increase funding for drug courts, but critics complained that NORA would have limited the ability of drug-court judges to jail drug offenders.

Continue reading " California's Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act defeated " »

Posted by William Weinberg | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Criminal

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That's the question the U.S. Supreme Court was considering when they heard oral arguments in Oregon v. Ice-- a case adressing whether under Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), a sentencing judge violates the Sixth Amendment by imposing consecutive sentences based on a fact not found by the jury or admitted by the defendant. Do I think that the Supreme Court will find that consecutive sentences amount to more severe punishment, so the jury must find the facts necessary to justify them?

For some context, in 2000, the Apprendi decision changed the face of Sixth Amendment implications of criminal sentencing when the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that any facts that lead to a higher sentence--if they go beyond the facts that justified a guilty verdict--cannot be decided by a judge, but must be determined by a jury. Essentially, the Court held that this is a critical aspect of the right to be tried by a jury and since that ruling, the jury’s role in determining punishment have been significantly increased by sentencing schemes and legal precedent from lower courts.

The case before the High Court this term (Oregon v. Ice) involves Thomas Eugene Ice, an Oregon man convicted of two counts of first-degree burglary, and four counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Oregon Prosecutors claimed that, on two separate occasions, he entered the apartment of a family in the complex, went into an 11-year-old girl’s bedroom, and each time touched her breast and vagina.

As a result, Ice faced trial on six separate offenses--the burglary offenses and the molestation counts--and he was convicted on all six. (Under Oregon law, sentences imposed for multiple crimes must be concurrently served, unless the judge finds that the offenses did not occur as part of the same course of conduct). In Ice’s case, the judge found that the convictions for the two burglaries and four sex crimes arose out of separate incidents, and thus ordered consecutive sentences, totaling over 28 years, which was the result of requiring that three of the sentences be served back-to-back.

From what legal analysts are saying and the types of questions the Justices were asking the parties at the oral argument, it appears that the Court will continue to require juries to make the factual determinations to justify a consecutive sentence. It is likely though, that California Judges will maintain that this ruling doesn’t apply to California sentences because of our sentencing structure and the District Courts will be the ultimate enforcers of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

Continue reading " Will Orange County Juries have to be involved in deciding whether defendants get consecutive sentances? " »

Posted by William Weinberg | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Constitutional Rights

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