California

With Appeal senior staff reporter Aaron Morrison

In 2009, Anaheim police shot and killed Theresa Smith’s son. A new California law promises police transparency, but her quest for answers faces a substantial cost.

Senate Bill 1421 requires law enforcement agencies to make public investigative records of officer-involved shootings and uses of force resulting in great bodily harm. But law enforcement unions argue that the law threatens the privacy of their members.

William J. Richards was cleared in the death of his wife. But he says he was the victim of medical neglect while he was behind bars, which led to a cancer diagnosis becoming terminal. Now he’s suing.

Corcoran state prison has a history of abuse that includes forcing prisoners into ‘gladiator fights.’

With Appeal contributor Darwin BondGraham

Lexipol, a private for-profit company, has quietly become one of the most powerful voices in law enforcement policymaking in the country.

California amended its felony murder law, which holds accomplices responsible for murder. But reform won’t reach a man sentenced to death in a deadly robbery—even though he was never accused of firing a shot.

In October 2018, Marshall Miles was taken into custody by Sacramento County sheriff‘s deputies outside a convenience store. About 14 hours later, he was dead.

As Kamala Harris begins her presidential run, her move to block gender affirming surgery for an incarcerated transgender woman deserves scrutiny, especially as new cases highlighting the struggle for the rights of imprisoned trans women emerge.

Los Angeles County’s jail system incarcerates tens of thousands of people at a multi-billion dollar cost. The communities most impacted by mass incarceration have had enough.

The departing governor has chosen to pardon immigrants whose past criminal offenses put them in danger of deportation.

In Santa Clara County, incarcerated people, and a former undersheriff challenging six-term sheriff Laurie Smith, have turned conditions of confinement into a potent electoral issue.

A lawsuit brought by a Compton resident detailing an alleged beating by deputies is just one of nearly three dozen federal civil rights lawsuits alleging brutality and racial bias at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Legislation in California would provide a direct route to resentencing, and a new tool for activists.

Prosecutors can subject those convicted of sexual offenses—and sometimes, those with no conviction at all—to an indefinite period of civil punishment at the end of their criminal sentence.

Critics say the Berkeley Police Department’s unusual practice of posting anti-fascist protesters’ mugshots on Twitter endangers activists and violates free speech rights.

In the wake of Nia Wilson’s murder, it’s critical that calls for justice in response to anti-Black violence are not contingent upon appeals to white-approved notions of innocence and respectability.

A new lawsuit says Riverside County’s probation officers threaten to prosecute kids for ‘pre-delinquent’ behavior.

San Francisco just became the first city in the nation to stop charging court fines and fees, but the rest of the state has a long way to go.

The judge who sentenced Brock Turner brought much-needed compassion to the bench, says public defender Sajid Khan.

By charging shoplifters with felonies, Jeff Reisig is circumventing Prop 47, intended to reduce CA prison populations.

On Jan. 23, public defenders in Los Angeles County got a new interim boss — over their own objections. For one thing, many have argued, Nicole Davis Tinkham, the appointee, comes from the Office of the County Counsel, where she defended the Board of Supervisors (the same governing body that appointed her), and the Sheriff’s Department, a frequent foe of their clients.

The plane’s voyage was commissioned by feminist group UltraViolet to protest former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner’s six-month sentence handed down by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky in 2016 for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus the previous year. The sentence ignited an outcry and an effort to recall Judge Persky.

Alameda County Superior Court reversed license suspensions for 54,000 people who were punished for their inability to pay fines.

Alameda and Santa Clara County jail detainees round out the first week of a hunger strike for better conditions.

The decision was unanimous.

There are approximately 22,000 intravenous drug users in the city.

District attorneys want to keep an outdated system alive.