“It’s a program that has helped many, many Californians,” Shelley Curran, administrative director of the Judicial Council, said in remarks July 12. Since the 2019 launch, about 177,000 people have filed MyCitations requests to cut their fines by an average of $277 totaling about $49 million in reductions, according to the Judicial Council.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Friday that a party prevailing in an action to enforce an indemnity agreement is not entitled, under California law, to an award of attorney fees, finding that the circuit’s contrary view expressed in a 1983 opinion has been rendered obsolete by virtue of a rejection of it by state courts of appeal.

California lawmakers are pursuing legislation aimed at protecting children from the dangers of social media, one of many efforts around the country to confront what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and other public health experts say is a mental health emergency among young people.

(Subscription required) He said he had especially enjoyed the misdemeanor assignment because many of the defendants were young and appeared before him because of a drunken driving arrest. "I had them write a two-page essay on the dangerousness of DUIs and have them read it in open court and you get a lot of tears, and it's breathtaking because I think I am making a difference with them," said the judge, who lost his father in a car accident when he was 4 years old.