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In an appeal of an order granting a prisoner’s petition for a writ of habeas relief after governor Schwarzenegger reversed the Board of Parole Hearings’ granting prisoner parole, the order of the superior court is affirmed where: 1) the superior court’s order reinstating the Board’s decision does not divest the governor of his right to review the Board’s parole decisions; 2) the superior court’s order did not grant relief beyond the process due; 3) the superior court’s order did not violate the separation of powers doctrine; and 4) allowing the governor an unlimited number of reviews of the Board’s parole decision would violate a prisoner’s due process rights and render the writ of habeas corpus meaningless....

A finicky feline refused to go jogging with its owner, police say. Now a Colorado teenager faces an animal-cruelty charge for tying the cat’s leash to a rock. Seth Franco, 19, a senior at Boulder High School, decided to go for a jog March 14, when the temperature soared past 70 degrees, Denver’s KUSA-TV reports. Franco thought his cat Stella would enjoy jogging with him in the unseasonably warm weather....

A Montana man who police say felt “ripped off” when a stripper accepted $350 for a private dance but refused to have sex with him may have gotten a little bit more than he bargained for in the end. William McDaniel, 53, of Butte, called 911 to report the stripper’s failure to provide him with the happy ending he had envisioned for his private dance, reports The Montana Standard. Police responded, but not in the way McDaniel had hoped....

Dead weasel assault! Dead weasel attack? Assault with a deadly weasel? Take your pick. A man was arrested in Washington state for allegedly bursting into an apartment and assaulting a man - while holding a dead weasel. Now let’s take a pause here. Why bring a dead weasel to an assault? And yes, the victim was also baffled by the suspect and why he was holding a dead weasel. “Why are you carrying a weasel?...

Conviction for kidnapping is affirmed where: 1) constitutional double jeopardy principles did not bar retrial of the factual sentencing allegation of kidnapping on which defendant’s first jury deadlocked as the mistrial due to jury deadlock was not an event that terminated jeopardy on the allegation; 2) defendant’s retrial of the factual sentencing allegation of kidnapping did not violate California’s statutory provision against double jeopardy as the allegation on which defendant’s first jury deadlocked was not a greater offense that incorporated the underlying lewd act crime as a lesser included offense under California law; and 3) retrial of a penalty allegation may be limited to the deadlocked allegation alone....

Court of Appeals judgment holding there was insufficient evidence to convict the nonshooting defendants is reversed where there is substantial evidence to support the murder and attempted murder convictions of the defendants and a rational trier of fact could have concluded that the shooting death of the victim was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the assault. Read People v. Medina, No. S155823 in HTML. Read People v. Medina, No. S155823 in PDF....

A man who allegedly posed as a TSA screener and gave two female passengers a pat-down has been arrested at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) for public drunkenness. The 53-year-old man, whose name has yet to be released, was arrested Tuesday after duping real TSA agents long enough to “direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat downs,” reports SFGate.com. Apparently the ruse was accomplished by the use of khaki pants, a blue polo shirt, and blue rubber gloves....

While neighboring state Arizona handles the legal show down over SB 1070, the state of New Mexico has a few pressing problems of its own. Governor Bill Richardson has said he is considering issuing a posthumous pardon to the legendary thief and gun-slinger Billy the Kid, a.k.a. Henry McCarty or William H. Bonney. There are those up in arms against the possible pardon and no, it is not the descendants of any of Billy’s victims, it is the family of the man credited by many (but not all) with killing the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett....

The jury in the Jerry Sandusky trial was unable to reach a decision Thursday night after deliberating for more than seven hours. In fact, during the night, the jury asked Judge John Cleland if they could rehear testimony from two witnesses, Mike McQueary and Dr. Jonathan Dranov. Last week, McQueary testified that he saw Sandusky pressing a boy against the shower walls in a Penn State locker room and sexually assaulting him....

Parents beware! Your fingerprints may no longer be secure against hackers. No, hackers haven’t discovered some new fangled technology to lift your fingerprints over the telephone. The danger is right under the noses of parents, and when parents nap, the newest generation of hackers are getting a head start on disrupting household economics. While the reports about the six-year-old hacker state that only a few items were returned, it seems unlikely that any retailer would refuse to return purchases made under these pretenses....

If you’re looking to end a marriage, you have options. If you don’t think your union was ever legally valid in the first place, you could have it annulled. If you’re tired of your spouse, but maybe want to retain some of the legal benefits of the marriage, you could opt for a legal separation. And then there’s always the classic divorce. One option many people don’t know about is called a summary divorce or summary dissolution....

A nonprofit representing California sex workers is currently suing to overturn the state’s laws against prostitution and solicitation. The organization, Erotic Service Provider Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLER, a very unsexy acronym), argues that the state’s prohibitions on sex work violates the Fourteenth Amendment. So, is California about to go the way of Amsterdam or certain counties in Nevada and decriminalize the world’s oldest profession? It’s doubtful, but ESPLER thinks it’s possible....

Prime Gas, Inc. v. City of Sacramento, No. C062628, concerned a plaintiff’s petition for a writ of administrative mandate challenging a city ordinance that requires local tobacco retailers to be licensed by the city. The court affirmed the trial court’s judgment finding no preemption, as a local ordinance that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to minors through the sanction of suspending or revoking the retailer’s local license to sell tobacco is not preempted by state law which also prohibits tobacco sales to minors....

Robert Mueller won another round in the Russia investigation, fending off a challenge to his authority as special counsel. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his appointment in the case, In Re. Grand Jury Investigation. Andrew Miller had sued to void the special prosecutor’s subpoena. A former aide to Roger Stone, Miller was held in contempt for refusing to comply with the subpoena. Now things look worse for both men and dozens of other people charged in the case....

Ben Seisler is an attorney from Boston. He’s also the father of about 75 children. And surprisingly, the 33-year-old lawyer expects his child count to explode to upwards of 120 to 140. He made this startling discovery after he signed up on an online registry that matches children conceived by sperm donors with their biological father and half-siblings. How did this begin? Chalk it up to law school. It’s all because Seisler wanted to make some part-time cash when he was a law student at George Mason University....

The nation as a whole may have avoided a debt default, but Brooklyn Law School’s outlook isn’t quite as rosy. Though the school is far from default, Standard & Poor’s warned the school on Tuesday that it needed to stop the fiscal bleeding or face higher borrowing costs and a change from its current BBB+ debt rating. (The ratings system can be found here). The credit ratings agency also lowered its outlook on the school’s debt, from stable, to negative, with a one in three chance it could downgrade the debt, reports Crain’s New York....

When it comes to speeding, just about everyone thinks about it as a mere nothing offense. After all, the newest judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was found guilty of speeding nine times in the last 15 years and it didn’t matter. That’s right, nine times. However, while the judge, like Ferris Bueller, just seemed to get away with it, others just aren’t so lucky … with a little effort, or lack thereof, an attorney can kill their license with speeding tickets....

The Court of Appeals for the Federal District ruled on Friday that human genes can be patented. The decision in the genome patent case, which could affect the long-term cost of genetic testing, came as a relief to the biotechnology industry and a shock to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation, which challenged the patents in the case. Appellant Myriad Genetics, the company that holds the patents, argued that isolating the BRCA1and 2 genes from a person results in a new material that has utility beyond the DNA that naturally occurs in the human body....

Back in June, Skadden associate Lisa Johnstone was found dead in her San Diego home. The news was shocking, as she was only 32-years-old. Some speculated that overwork was responsible for her death. Autopsy results are out, and they’re inconclusive. There were no drugs or alcohol in her system, meaning the most likely cause of death was a cardiac arrhythmia. However, the coroner could not rule out any anatomical defects....

Does a mandated reporter have a duty to report abuse when he’s responsible for that abuse? According to a recent decision from California’s Fifth Appellate District Court, the Fifth Amendment trumps the mandatory reporting law. Kassey S. was sexually assaulted by Turlock Police Officer Jorge Cruz on multiple occasions when she was participating as a minor in the Turlock Police Department explorer program. The assaults took place during one-on-one ride alongs while Cruz was on duty....