“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” he said. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”

A man who broke into the home of an 85-year-old woman whom he violently raped was properly convicted under a vestige of the felony-murder rule where the victim died following a fall in her home while still traumatized by the attack, fractured her hip,  and experienced complications from surgery, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has determined.

Div. Six of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a defendant was properly convicted of felony false imprisonment based on testimony that he drove erratically with his then-wife in the car and, when she demanded that he let her out of the vehicle, told her “try it” with a “malicious” laugh, rejecting the assertion that prosecutors must show that he threatened force that is greater than that necessary to effectuate restraint on a person’s liberty.

The State Bar of California’s Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct