Judge says Calif. must change how it executes
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A federal judge ruled on Friday that California's present method of execution through lethal injection is unconstitutional but said it could be fixed by changing the procedure.
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SANTA ANA, Calif. - A Nietzsche-quoting judge said a promise penned in blood by a businessman was not an enforceable contract. Superior Court Judge Corey S.
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(InfoWorld) - A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data, a public-interest lawyer arguing the case said Friday. In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election. A hearing on Friday morning in advance of a final ruling brought out nothing that indicated Smith would deviate from her preliminary decision, said attorney Gregory Luke, who is representing Americans for Safe Access. The medical-marijuana advocacy group is suing the county, assisted by the technology rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. The case points to the dangers of electronic voting systems, which make it harder to ensure fair elections, Luke said. Electronic voting machines have been widely adopted in the U.S. since the disputed presidential election of 2000. Laws in California and some other states now require paper records of all votes, but the California law wasn't in place for the Berkeley election. Both sides argued their cases before Smith on Friday in a last-ditch hearing on the proposed sanctions, according to Luke. The hearing brought out nothing new that suggested Smith would change direction, he said. Americans for Free Access sought a recount of the vote on Measure R, which would have established procedures for opening marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley. It lost by fewer than 200 votes. A recount wasn't possible because the city didn't share the necessary voting records, in violation of election laws, Judge Smith ruled in April. In May,Â the county agreed to share some data. The county reused voting machines from Diebold Election Systems without saving sufficient data to carry out a recount or review the election process, Luke said. Officials failed to save key evidence even after the suit was pending, he said. Data from the vote in question has only been found on 20 of the hundreds of machines used in the election, according to Luke. In addition to ordering another vote on Measure R, Judge Smith's preliminary ruling called for the county to pay the $22,604 cost of the recount as well as attorney's fees and the cost of a trip to Diebold offices in Texas. Ordering a new vote is a rare move for a court, Luke said. "This is a very severe sanction. ... and it's warranted," he said Friday. Luke expects a final ruling in the case within two weeks. The county could appeal to a higher court if the ruling goes against it, he said. Attorneys for the county were not immediately available for comment.
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The state must reject provisional ballots if they are cast in the wrong precinct, a federal judge said Thursday in the latest in a series of opinions on how such votes should be counted.
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California's major urban areas and farmers should brace for cuts in water supplies following a federal judge's ruling that limits how much water may be pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, water officials from around the state said on Wednesday.
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By DON THOMPSON  SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A federal judge on Monday gave California officials six months to ease crowding in the nation's largest prison system, warning that court-ordered remedies could include limiting the inmate population and releasing some prisoners early.
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Judges are not usually at risk of losing their jobs to modern technology but that may be changing in China, where new software is handing down sentences automatically.
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California's $7.8 billion prison reform plan will only make conditions worse behind bars, two federal judges said in ordering the creation of a judicial panel to recommend better ways to ease prison crowding.
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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered his staff on Monday to fix the state's use of lethal injection for executions so it satisfies a federal judge who declared it unconstitutional.
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A woman whose dogs fatally mauled a neighbor could get more prison time, after the California Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a trial judge to consider convicting her of second-degree murder rather than involuntary manslaughter.
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LOS ANGELES _ Justice delayed may be justice denied _but at the end of the day it is incontestably better than nothing. Societies that disrespect the professionalism of their courts ultimately court catastrophe.
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SAN FRANCISCO - A state commission rebuked a Placer County judge Wednesday for urging prospective jurors to lie rather than hide their animosity toward minority group defendants.    The Commission on Judicial Performance issued a public admonishment to Superior Court Judge Joseph O'Flaherty for telling potential jurors in two cases that they should think of a phony reason not to serve if they couldn't acknowledge they were racially biased...
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A judge Tuesday threw out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to transfer thousands of inmates to other states to relieve prison overcrowding. Schwarzenegger said he would immediately appeal, saying dangerous convicts might otherwise have to be released early.
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A California judge was wrong to throw out a murder conviction against a San Francisco lawyer whose dogs mauled a neighbor to death, the state's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
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It was a $100 million mistake, and a federal judge said Friday he doesn't have the power to fix it.
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Phil Spector's murder trial judge plans to withdraw an instruction given to the jury because he says it misreads US law.
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The judge in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case said Tuesday he would question some jurors in open court about their opinions in the case