(Subscription required) After decades in criminal law, the Orange County judge has found fresh challenges -- and new perspectives -- in civil litigation. 

As the Sacramento Superior Court settles into the new Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye Sacramento County Courthouse at 500 G Street, the former Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse has entered a very different phase of public life. The six-story downtown building, roughly 470,000 square feet, is now for sale at $13.6 million.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found discretionary immunity on the part of a deputy sheriff who undertook to provide a courtesy ride to a man who had been discharged from a hospital, determined based on his conduct that she needed to take him to a hospital and set out for the nearest one, but, when he groaned as if he were about to defecate, let him out of the vehicle, with his trying to board a moving train and being killed.

The Supreme Court on Thursday restricted the use of a relatively new law enforcement technique that allows police to tap into giant tech-firm databases to see who was near the scene of a crime. The justices sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether the search was "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment.