In an Oct. 10 ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal granted the California AG’s emergency petition to stay a lower court ruling from just weeks earlier that struck down a penal code section prohibiting large capacity magazines. For now, they are illegal again.
Since the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision set standards to evaluate every state’s Second Amendment statutes, appellate courts have been reevaluating California’s restrictions on owning and carrying firearms.
A citizen reports a misdemeanor vandalism and the officer detains a suspect after a positive ID. But the citizen is hesitant to make a “private person arrest.” Can the officer initiate an arrest? One rule says no, but courts say the Constitution can allow it.
In this article, Professor Ray Hill provides an update on Canines, Consent Searches, Pretext Stops (SB50); LWOP cases (SB94) and decriminalization of certain drugs (SB58).
If investigators already have lawful possession of evidence, do you need to seek another warrant, or can you use that evidence just as the original agency could? What about cellphones, which contain huge amounts of personal information? Can victims’ DNA gathered to investigate their cases be used to prosecute them?
A bill wending its way through the state legislature would allow defendants in certain older life-without-parole murder convictions to ask to be resentenced, potentially making them eligible for parole. Judges would be asked to consider mitigating circumstances that are viewed differently today than pre-1990.
In this edition of “From the Classroom,” we explore whether it’s legal to serve a misdemeanor warrant after 10 p.m. if it’s not endorsed for night service. Some case law is clear, while some isn’t.
In this From the Classroom article, Raymond Hill discusses how important an officer’s experience and beat knowledge can be. It’s vital to understand the various cases that rely on what an officer observes and knows about his or her beat to articulate why a detention is legal, particularly before a crime has been committed.
In this latest edition of From the Classroom, we discuss the “flight, plus” rule and what it means for a detention or arrest. When a person runs after seeing police, is that enough to detain? It may be suspicious, but you likely will need to explain in more detail why you seized a person.
In this Legislative Update, we explore three recent law enforcement-related bill introduced in the California Legislature, two of which have failed and one that’s pending. Keep current on potential changes to the law and what they mean to you in your role within the legal community.
