Rizio and Nelson California Law Blog

Juvenile Facilities are Downsizing Too

According to a February 22 article on the Department of Justice Website, the Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility has been closed. The article states, “At its peak, it housed approximately 2,000 youth, nearly a fifth of the 10,000 youth committed to state custody.” Gordon Hinkle and Bill Sessa write, “Closure of the facility in Chino, which had been the state’s largest for juvenile...

PVDMI

With the focus of reducing California’s recidivism rate, and the mandate that the prison population be reduced, a risk assessment system is used to determine if a criminal should be released on parole, or be returned to prison. It’s called the Parole Violation Decision Making Instrument, or PVDMI. According to an article in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)...

Firearm Microstamping vs. Electronic Reporting of Firearms

There are two gun control measures on California’s DOJ Bureau of Firearms website that are worthy of discussion: Electronic Reporting of Firearms, which goes into effect July 1, 2010 Firearm Microstamping, supposed to be in effect this year but is still in the proposal stages, according to the webpage Let’s look at the first regulation, the electronic reporting of firearms. Basically,...

California’s Early Prison Release

Effective Monday, January 25, 2010, the new law providing early release for non-violent criminals will allow approximately 6,500 inmates to be set free. Under the new law, which was signed into effect last fall, only those prisoners who have completed educational and vocational programs, and who have been selected as not likely to commit another crime, will be released. The Federal Court had ordered...

The Tragedy of Vehicular Manslaughter

It is a fact of this life that one never knows when one’s life will end. You could be driving down the street one day, and without warning, BAM! It’s all over. It’s a disturbing thought, yes, but it’s something that happens all too often in this country. The death of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart in April of this year is a stark reminder to the public of the tragedy...

Probable Cause vs. Burden of Proof

In a criminal trial, the two main hearings before a judge and/or jury are the preliminary hearing and the trial. In the preliminary hearing, the prosecution must convince the judge that there is enough evidence against the defendant in order to bring them to trial for the crime that they have been accused of. This type of hearing is much less strict in that it is not bound to the rules of evidence....

Marijuana In The News

When we think about marijuana’s negative connotations, we envision prison cells for drug use, selling marijuana, growing the drug, and maybe even selling or forging prescriptions for it. There rarely come visions of wildfire when we mention the phrase “marijuana problems,” but this can actually be a major concern in the state of California. Case in point: Just this year people have...

Drug-Related Homicides

According to the Office of the Attorney General of California, the incarceration rates for drug-related crimes have been steadily on the rise. The last year recorded was 2005, which saw 39 drug-related homicides out of every 100,000 people. Alarming as this is, the high was in 1997, with 53.2 drug-related homicides. The rate had gone down to 31.4 in 2002, but began increasing again in the following...