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Recent Blog Posts
Santa Cruz County law enforcement creates gang task force
The task force reportedly will focus on people law enforcement believes are gang members. A story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel does not explain how the task force arrives at the conclusion that a suspect is a gang member. Under California law, many offenses provide more severe sentences if prosecutors allege the offense was committed by an alleged gang member. Gang crimes in California can also lead to strikes under the California three strikes law.
The Santa Cruz task force reportedly plans initially to focus on alleged gang crimes in the South County. However, officials say the gang task force will also investigate alleged gang members in other areas of the county, including Santa Cruz, Live Oak and Soquel. Authorities claim they have identified as many as 19 gangs, each of which reportedly will receive task force scrutiny.
Officials have not disclosed the number of members will be included in the overall task force. Law enforcement says the gang task force reportedly will change in size, depending on the time of year and as the task force determines the need for additional officers.
Professor at Cal State accused of drug crimes
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is accusing a Cal State San Bernardino professor of running a drug operation. Law enforcement reportedly conducted a raid on the professor's home and arrested nine people on suspicion of committing California drug crimes. Authorities say the accused professor was not apprehended in the raid.
A report in the Los Angeles Times does not indicate what information led law enforcement to the professor's residence. Law enforcement claims they seized more than a pound of methamphetamine, as well as guns, body armor and biker gear at the professor's home during the recent raid. Police claim the professor led not only the methamphetamine operation, but also led a local chapter of a motorcycle gang.
San Bernardino deputies reportedly arrested the nine people after the raid, claiming they are all involved in the drug operation as mid-level and street-level drug dealers. Authorities claim the professor was the leader of a local chapter of the Devils Diciples Outlaw motorcycle gang.
Men charged with drug crime may not have had an illegal drug
Two men from out-of-state reportedly were traveling through California intending to make a documentary about a substance known as "bath salts." Bath salts are a synthetic substance that is not prohibited under California's drug laws. The men were traveling on a Vespa through the state, when they apparently lost their motorcycle saddlebags on a stranger's property.
The property owner reportedly turned over the lost saddlebags to law enforcement, who conducted a search of the bags, reportedly to find the owners. Law enforcement claims they found three bags containing a white substance, each weighing between 1.7 and 4.4 grams. The deputy conducting the search tested the substance with a Narcopouch and says the presumptive test was positive for cocaine.
The deputy then left a message for the people he believed owned the saddlebags, notifying them where the bags could be retrieved. When the two men appeared at the Sheriff' Office, the men were arrested for suspicion of drug possession.
California lawmakers debate warrants and cell phone searches
In January the California Supreme Court ruled that a police search of a cell phone after an arrest is constitutionally sound. This blog carried a story on the ruling on January 21. The January ruling involved an appeal of a case where Ventura County law enforcement searched a man's cell phone for text messages after the man was arrested on suspicion of committing a California drug crime.
The January ruling may not be the end of the story. Monday the California Assembly unanimously approved a measure aimed at requiring law enforcement to seek a valid warrant before they can lawfully search the contents of a cell phone. However, the Assembly measure differs from a bill that passed in the Senate last month. The Assembly measure waters down the warrant requirement by allowing law enforcement to conduct a warrantless search if they believe an exception applies.
The exceptions that would allow police to conduct a warrantless search under the Assembly bill would involve situations where police believe the search is necessary to prevent injuries, to stop the destruction of evidence or to prevent a crime from occurring.
U.S. Supreme Court to review eyewitness testimony
The United States Supreme Court has not taken a hard look at the reliability of eyewitness testimony since 1977. The Court has agreed to revisit the issue in November. Since the time the issue was before the Court, more than 2,000 studies have been published in professional journals regarding the reliability, or lack of reliability, concerning eyewitness identifications. The nation's highest court previously ruled that judges can exclude some eyewitness identifications if the testimony is unreliable.
The difficulty with the current state of the law on the subject is highlighted by the number of wrongful convictions that have been obtained based upon mistaken identity. Criminal defense attorneys in California and across the country have regularly argued and researchers have compiled a long list of studies indicating that of the roughly 75,000 eyewitness identifications used in the country each year, about one-third are simply wrong.
Santa Cruz tests crime prediction program
The California Highway Patrol says they are requesting felony DUI charges to be filed in relation to the accident. Authorities say a 19-year-old Carmel Valley resident was killed in the roll-over accident and a second passenger was severely injured. Neither passenger was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, according to the CHP. A third passenger, who was wearing a seat belt reportedly, suffered minor injuries in the incident, according to the CHP.
Law enforcement says the man accused of driving at the time of the accident crawled up the embankment after the crash to get a signal on his cellphone. The accused man reportedly called in a report of the accident after the crash.
California DUI laws allow prosecutors to seek felony level charges in cases where authorities allege a drunk driving accident caused an injury. A person need not have any prior driving offenses on their record to potentially face a felony DUI if an injury producing accident is involved.
18-year-old facing felony DUI charges
The California Highway Patrol announced Wednesday that an 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of felony DUI and vehicular manslaughter stemming from allegations surrounding a Saturday evening car accident. Law enforcement says they believe the 18-year-old lost control of a Jeep while traveling on Tassajara Road just after 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The Jeep reportedly rolled several times after leaving the pavement.
The California Highway Patrol says they are requesting felony DUI charges to be filed in relation to the accident. Authorities say a 19-year-old Carmel Valley resident was killed in the roll-over accident and a second passenger was severely injured. Neither passenger was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, according to the CHP. A third passenger, who was wearing a seat belt reportedly, suffered minor injuries in the incident, according to the CHP.
Law enforcement says the man accused of driving at the time of the accident crawled up the embankment after the crash to get a signal on his cellphone. The accused man reportedly called in a report of the accident after the crash.
California appellate court invalidates part of DNA Act
The issues were recently before the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco in regard to a man charged with failure to provide a DNA sample after an arrest on suspicion of arson in 2009. In January 2009, California law began requiring any person arrested for any felony to submit a DNA sample. The law requires the sample to be provided "immediately following arrest, or during the booking . . . process or as soon as administratively practicable after arrest."
The appellate court struck down the law as unconstitutional. The court says a person arrested for a felony, but has not appeared before a judge for "a judicial determination of probable cause" is more like an ordinary citizen than a prisoner.
Ordinary citizens, cloaked in the presumption of innocence, have the full expectation of privacy, free from unreasonable governmental intrusions. The court says convicted prisoners have a "limited expectation of privacy" under the Fourth Amendment.
The appellate court recognizes that only about half of California felony arrests result in a conviction of a crime. The same law is under review in the federal courts in an appeal that has already been argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court has not issued its ruling.
Governor Brown signs California jailhouse snitch law
Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new measure into law making it harder for the state to convict a person accused of a crime based upon the testimony of jailhouse informants. Criminal defense attorneys, civil rights advocates and at least two district attorneys in the state supported the measure. Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar vetoed the same proposal twice during his administration at the urging of the California District Attorneys Association.
Our criminal justice system has a variety of important safeguards built in to protect a person accused of a crime from being wrongfully convicted. Every person has the right to a fair trial. Our system places the burden on the prosecutor to prove allegations beyond a reasonable doubt in order to get a conviction. But individuals accused of a crime also have the right to a complete defense.
Among the safeguards the law affords Californians accused of a crime is the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses at trial. But what if a trial witness is unreliable? In 2004, the California Senate created a statewide commission to look into the causes of wrongful convictions in the state.
California three strikes law affects second strike sentencing
The California three strikes law actually increases a person's exposure to significant prison time before the third strike. The number of people crowding California prisons has received a high level of scrutiny since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to reduce the overcrowding of our state prisons.
Most Californians know the three strikes law allows prosecutors to seek a mandatory 25-year-to-life sentence in allegedly qualifying cases. Currently, roughly 8,700 are serving prison time on a third strike under the law. However, 32,390 people are serving increased sentences under the second strike provision of the law. Second strike prisoners account for nearly 20 percent of the state's prison population.
The provision under the three strikes law related to second strikers allows prosecutors to seek double the prison time for a second strike conviction. Barry Krisberg, a researcher at UC Berkeley's institute on law and social policy says the significance of the second strike provision "is having an enormous impact on our prison population, and many second strikers are serving more time than third strikers, but when people talk about the policy of reforming three strikes, nobody wants to touch the second strike."
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