Recent Articles

Overview: This week’s Law Review explains how a ‘crow’ and a ‘spark plug’ are considered under the Penal Code as Burglar’s Tools, so think twice before you take your pet crow into a store shopping and risk getting caught for shoplifting/burglary. And consider whether minor H.W. could be convicted of possession of burglar’s tools for [...]

The Second Amendment gives citizens “the right to keep and bear arms”.  May that right be taken away because a person with a chronic or debilitating medical condition holds a state Medical Marijuana Registry Card?  That my friends is the question of the day. I’ll Take That Pistol Please S. Rowan Wilson acquired a Nevada [...]

Overview: You’ve heard the joke where the son kills his parents, then pleads for leniency because he is an orphan? Well the Law Review discusses a similar case where two admitted ‘thugs’ robbed a home in Sacramento, killed the occupant and burned down his home, then argued in court that they could not be convicted [...]

Overview: Everyone throws out the phrase Assault and Battery like they know what that is! If you want to know what a plain old battery is, read this week’s Law Review, where Jim Porter rules right on the money as a would be judge---that you can have a battery and not even touch the victim. [...]

Overview: California is always on the cutting edge, or edge of jumping off a cliff, depending on your point of view. This time California has passed a voter registration law that automatically registers adults to vote when an application is made to get or renew a driver’s license or obtain a state identification card.  The [...]

Overview: This Law Review addresses a question that frequently arises in California: is there insurance coverage if a wildfire burns a hillside above a house, which is followed by a mudslide destroying the house?  Hopefully you do not need to know.   Here’s a first.  We’re writing about Arizona law of which I know nothing.  [...]

Overview: Who likes mobile billboards, the kind you see parked on public streets, like a large trailer or a car —advertising some stupid product?   "Eat at Simon’s Sandwich Shop!"  Well, towns and cities now have state new laws to prohibit mobile billboards on public streets, whether motorized like a parked car or non-motorized like a [...]

Overview: Once again the California Courts of Appeal have ruled against a sports participant determining he ‘assumed the risk’ inherent in the sport, in this case of skateboarding and running into a manhole cover on a street in Mammoth Lakes; read all about Bertsch v. Mammoth Community Water District in this week’s Law Review.   [...]

Overview: What duties does a jail owe to its arrestees? If the jailors ignore pleas for protection or screams by an arrestee, may the jailors and the County be liable? You bet. Read this week’s Law Review on the recent criminal law/civil rights case, Jonathan Michael Castro v County of Los Angeles.   Sometimes I [...]