California Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Last week, at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, five junior high students were kicked by fellow students. These attacks came after a Facebook group sent a message around to students claiming it was "Kick a Ginger Day" which meant students were supposed to kick redheads at their school. Police believe the kids got the idea from a "South Park" TV episode. No arrests were made and it is unclear if these suspects will be prosecuted.

Committing a crime against someone based on their hair color may be viewed as a hate crime. It's likely, though, that these suspects will be treated informally by the court, rather than be charged with a crime since they were so young and likely had no prior criminal record. Juveniles are increasingly prosecuted more frequently because parents cannot or will not supervise their own children and teach acceptable social values. Now the courts deal with misbehavior and crime, a task for which they are ill-suited. Whether you live in Laguna Hills, Orange, or Yorba Linda, if your child has been charged with assault or battery, call an experienced criminal defense attorney right away to assist you.

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If a minor is caught spraying graffiti or tagging property, they will be charged with a misdemeanor. In Santa Ana this week, the city council voted to adopt a law that will also make parents liable for their child's crimes. Not only will the minor have to pay fines, restitution and do community service, but the parents will also be forced to do community service with their child. If parents do not pay or participate in their child's punishment, they will be taken to civil court by the city and be forced to pay.

These spray-pay laws were enforced because Santa Ana has been majorly affected by graffiti and tagging by rival gang members. Getting the parents involved may help deter this behavior because children will know that their parents will also have to suffer the consequences of their criminal behavior. These tough laws will likely be followed by other cities plagued by graffiti problems, like Garden Grove, Westminster and Fullerton. If you get charged with graffiti or tagging, you will need an experienced attorney to help lower fines, restitution and community service hours.

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At the Block at Orange and the surrounding areas on Thursday night, police nabbed 29 juveniles who were in violation of city curfew ordinances. The city of Orange has a curfew ordinance that restricts minors from being out without their parents between the hours of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The curfew sweep was conducted by the Orange Police Department and the Orange County District Attorney's Office. Once the minors were found in violation, they were taken to the police station and told to wait until their parents came to pick them up. The consequences of violating a curfew ordinance could be misdemeanor charges and jail time for either the parent or the child. In this sweep, none of the parents or children were charged because the police department wanted to send a warning to the community.

The reason that many cities have curfew ordinances is to help prevent crime, gang association and youth victimization. Whether you live in Irvine, Fullerton, or Foothill Ranch, each city has a curfew ordinance of about 10 p.m. Normally, police will just warn the juvenile and call the juvenile's parents to come pick them up. Sometimes however, if the police think that juvenile is up to no good, they may request charges to be pressed against the minor for a curfew violation. An experienced attorney will likely be able to fight the charges and make sure the incident is not recorded on the minor's criminal record.

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Last week I posted on the sexting “epidemic” among U.S. teens, citing a statistic that one of five teenagers have shared nude pictures of themselves via cell phone or online. Now, reports are surfacing that show that those alarming statistics are inflated.

The Wall Street Journal reports claim that statistic, which was generated by CosmoGirl.com and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, may be exaggerated because the same teenagers who have engaged in such behavior could be the ones most likely to say they have done so in an online poll. In other words, the sample was skewed towards those likely to be on the internet to begin with. Sources say that cohort might two to four times more likely to send nude photos of themselves than the average teen. The criticism of the study is that it didn’t poll teens by phone or by mail, which would make the group sampled more representative of the population.

So what’s the reality of teens and texting? Probably something probably less than the one in five statistic, but it may be nearly impossible to get information from teens by any other means but the internet. The chance that Janie or Johnnie will respond to a phone call on Mom and Dad’s landline regarding posting nude pictures of themselves on the web seems unlikely.

Regardless of what the statistics say, teens caught texting are being charged by prosecutor offices across the U.S. for crimes ranging from indecent exposure to child pornography. If your child has been charged in the Orange County Juvenile system, please contact me for a consultation at (714) 834-1400.

Two juveniles are in custody relating to allegations of a litany of street robberies committed over a one-month period in the Silver Lake and Echo Park areas of Los Angeles. The crimes appear to be gang related.

The L.A. Daily News reports that this weekend, LAPD gang officers arrested two juvenile gang members for allegedly committing a series of street robberies in late December and throughout January of this year. The suspects in the robberies targeted lone men walking on the street between midnight and 3:30 a.m. during this month-long time period.

Reports say that police served a search warrant at one of the juvenile's residence and evidence recovered may be related to the robberies. Some of the items recovered included cellular phones, walkie-talkies, and several knives and guns that are believed to have been used during the commission of some of the Los Angeles robberies.

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He may have changed, but he'll have a lot of time to reflect on what happened. That's the future (at least 15-17 more years) for Sam Nelson, a drug-addicted kid who killed his neighbor in a vicious attack. Judge Frank Fasel felt there was no middle ground and maxed him out. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/thompson-nelson-fasel-2007781-home-knew

This is the growing and disturbing trend in juvenile law. Treating kids as adults, punishing them as adults. But more and more studies show that kids can't make decisions as well as adults because their brains aren't ready to do so. http://www.tresearch.org/headlines/2008Jan_TeenBrain.pdf

Locking kids up earlier and earlier, for longer and longer terms won't solve the problem. One solution is to provide county governments with resources to study and treat kids earlier in their lives to avoid these crimes from occurring. http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9747&page=107 With any luck, and a realization that incarcerating ever-younger kids isn't helping, we may be able to treat kids as kids, and help them realize a brighter future.