Rizio and Nelson California Law Blog

Legal Issues – Caretakers

Any person who is a caretaker and commits a lewd act upon a dependent person by use of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person is guilty of a felony and shall be imprisoned in a state prison for three to eight years. Any person who commits a lewd act with sexual intent upon a child of 14 or 15 years, and is at least 10 years older...

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...

Dog Bites Account For 33% of Claims…

Dogs cause insurance companies serious headaches. Dogs have long been called “man’s best friend,” and this is largely due to the dog’s loyalty and affection to man. This may not be as true as we once believed, as recent studies have proven that dog bites actually accounted for a full 1/3 of all homeowner’s insurance liability claims in 2008 alone. This number is astronomical,...

Vehicular Homicide

California is famous for images of palm trees, sunset beaches, majestic mountains, and vineyards. You would think that Californians would be the most relaxed people in the world! Ironically, California is also famous for L.A. and Hollywood, two places where “fast as lightning” would be a better description of the speed at which people live. We’ve become a “I-can-do-it-all” society where...

Possession of Marijuana

The State of California treats drug offenses very seriously, prosecuting offenders to the full extent of the law whenever it is possible. However, the laws surrounding the possession of marijuana can be confusing and it can be intimidating to face these charges if one does not harbour a thorough understanding of the state laws. This makes it ultimately important to seek the advice and counsel of a...

Pandering

The most commonly used definition of pandering is “the act of recruiting a prostitute, finding a place of business for a prostitute or soliciting customers for a prostitute.” In some states, this definition is broadened to include the sale or distribution of textual or visual material explicitly designed to appeal to the recipient’s sexual interests. In most cases, a pandering charge...

Juvenile Justice

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the primary goals of the juvenile justice system are public safety and rehabilitation for the offender. Depending on the crime committed and the background of the juvenile, a treatment and education program is provided to service the juvenile’s needs. Many of these children are themselves victims of abuse and neglect, and wind up making unwise...

CA Gun Laws – More Confusion

According to an article posted recently on pe.com of the Press-Enterprise, new federal gun laws allow visitors to bring firearms into national parks. However, the federal law left it up to each individual state to apply the new law. The author, John Asbury, writes, “…how the new federal law will be applied in California is unclear, according to the state attorney general’s office.”...

When in trouble – know where to turn

The criminal justice system categorizes crimes by two types for statistical purposes: Part I crimes and Part II crimes. The FBI records the information in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Agencies that contribute to this data, such as police departments, submit the information to the FBI once a month. They write, “In 2002, law enforcement agencies active in the UCR Program represented...