A defendant is entitled to have a jury determine any factors in aggravation other than the bare fact of a past conviction, including whether or not the accused performed unsatisfactorily on probation based on incurring new charges or has engaged in a pattern of increasing seriousness in criminal activities, the California Supreme Court held yesterday.

Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal has held that a judge, in deciding whether a wife needed protection from her husband, erred in rejecting evidence of purported abuse when the couple resided in China in 2018-22, but declined to decide, for now, whether incidents there that don’t bear a resemblance to ones that allegedly took place when they returned to California can be considered.

California’s weather whiplash has left the Golden State in a place of severe uncertainty about its diminishing water supply and increasing human and environmental demands for water. Research that my colleagues and I published last year, “The Magnitude of California’s Water Challenges” showed that Californians can expect their water supply to shrink 12 to 25% by 2050, up to 9 million acre-feet, or equal to one to two Lake Shastas. 

The order was the latest ruling to reject Trump’s efforts to punish law firms for legal work he does not like and for employing attorneys he perceives as his adversaries. The orders have sought to impose similar sanctions, including the suspension of security clearances of attorneys and the restriction of access to federal buildings.