Rizio and Nelson California Law Blog

Whistleblower Protection

No one wants to be a ‘tattletale’. As children, we are taught that it’s not nice to tell stories or lies about other people, and if we do, we are teased relentlessly, ostracized, and made to feel miserable. It’s no surprise, then, that when we grow up we still feel the need for acceptance from our peers. We don’t want to jeopardize personal or professional relationships...

Challenging Breathalyzer Tests

When an individual is tested by a police officer to determine whether they are drunk, it is common for them to use a breathalyzer test. These are devices that the individual blows air into and they measure the amount of alcohol in the blood by using a mathematical formula. The problem, though, is that these devices are not precisely accurate for each individual. There are many factors that can affect...

The History Of Capital Punishment In California

The Death Penalty is something that has raised much controversy in countries all around the world. In the United States, each individual state determines whether or not is hosts the death penalty as punishment for severe crimes and how that punishment is administered. In modern times, the most common method of execution in such cases is lethal injection although for many years the favoured method was...

Paternity

In legal terms, paternity is establishing who is the father of a child. In the case of married couples, it is assumed that the husband is the father. In the case of unmarried couples, it is required to establish paternity by filing a Declaration of Paternity form. The name of the father can be added to the child’s birth certificate only if: – The Declaration of Paternity is signed in...

Spousal Support

When a couple is legally separated or divorced, it is expected that the person with the primary income must financially support their former spouse. This is also called alimony. Historically, alimony arose from the idea that even though the husband and wife were no longer physically married, that is, no longer living together, the husband still had an obligation to support his wife because divorce...

Cocaine Abuse

Introduced to European society centuries ago, cocaine abuse has been a dark shadow on the history of mankind and our development. In the late 1800′s, Coca-Cola was known to use cocaine as a flavour additive in their new carbonated beverage. Abuse and addiction are left in the drug’s wake, destroying those who have touched it. With an extremely high import rate into the U.S. and Canada,...

White Collar Crimes – Embezzlement

The crime of embezzlement is something we often hear discussed through different media outlets. While these media outlets give us a general explanation of what embezzlement is, they do not explain what it means to be charged with this particular crime. Embezzlement is is defined under section 503 of the California Penal Code as “the fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom it...

Child Custody Laws

One of the things that makes divorce so very difficult is when there are children who will be affected by it for the rest of their lives. Deciding who has custody of the children is up to the judge if the parents cannot agree or are unable to make the decision. If the parents are able to agree on scheduled visitations and who has custody, then the judge will abide by their decision, but not until...

Process of Divorce

The process of Divorce or Dissolution of Marriage California’s “no fault divorce” policy basically means that a person can be granted a divorce by the state if one of the spouses finds that the marriage has broken down due to “irreconcilable differences”. Only one spouse has to initiate the process, even if the other spouse does not agree. There is a residency requirement. One of the...