A defendant who was convicted of exchanging sexually explicit electronic messages with someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl—but was actually a vice detective—was wrongfully put to the choice of waiving his entrapment defense or having his conviction of a sex offense 50 years earlier brought up, Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday.

In Alameda County, Judge Sandra Bean works closely with other public agencies to best support the people appearing in her courtroom.

Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has reversed an order denying an anti-SLAPP motion brought by Orange County in response to a suit by a private company that runs a housing project and is seeking a declaration that it is immune from taxes on the ground that an exempt local joint-powers authority, with which it works, owns the real property.

Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that the owner of an Orange County mall was properly denied reassessment of its property taxes due to sharp declines in valuation of the real estate following the COVID-19 pandemic under a California law providing for such relief in the event of a “major misfortune or calamity” that causes “damage or destruction.”