• Proposition 36 Doesn’t Bar Pretrial Mental Health Diversion

    Metropolitan News-Enterprise
    January 2, 2026

    The First District Court of Appeal has rejected the position of the Office of Attorney General that a 2024 voter-enacted measure cracking down on possessors of hard drugs with two or more priors are ineligible for pre-trial mental health diversion.

  • Reconsideration of Another Judge’s Decision Required in Light of New Case, C.A. Holds

    Metropolitan News-Enterprise
    January 2, 2026

    One judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court erred in declining to review a “no-bail” decision by a member of that same tribunal in light of an intervening appellate opinion rejecting the analysis contained in the decision relied upon by the first bench officer, Div. One of the Court of Appeal for this district has held.

  • Resentencing Need Not Result in ‘Meaningful Modification’

    Metropolitan News-Enterprise
    January 2, 2026

    Div. One of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that resentencing initiated under the catchall provision allowing for reconsideration of a term of imprisonment based on any legislative changes need not result in a “meaningful modification” of the sentence, rejecting the defendant’s assertion that a trial judge abused his discretion in reducing his sentence from 369 to 225 years to life in prison because the reduction does not carry any practical weight. 

  • America’s toughest privacy protections have finally kicked in

    The Washington Post
    January 2, 2026

    On New Year’s Day, a government website opened to let Californians demand that more than 500 intermediaries called data brokers wipe their personal information from the data on sale and regularly repeat those deletions in the future.