(Subscription required) State bar prosecutors say Robert Finnerty knew, or should have known, Tom Girardi was concealing a multimillion-dollar payout due to a San Bruno pipeline explosion victim. Finnerty's lawyer told a court Tuesday that Girardi deserves all the blame.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has rejected a water agency’s challenge to endangered species protections for the Southern California steelhead trout.

Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that the conversion of biological materials recovered from a crime scene, which did not return any DNA matches when run through the FBI’s national DNA database, into a different type of profile useful for genetic genealogical testing via private ancestry-services websites does not violate the constitutional prohibitions on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Third District Court of Appeal has held that a suspect’s history of relapsing after attending a residential drug-and-alcohol treatment program may be considered in deciding whether to grant him diversion on the condition that he receive rehabilitation services by the same provider under a law designed to give certain defendants with “mental disorders” the opportunity to seek help in lieu of facing criminal sanctions.