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Conviction for felony petty theft is affirmed and subsequent fines in connection with the conviction are affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) a Penal Code sec 1202.5 (a) fine must be imposed principally in theft related cases, contingent on the ability to pay, and is also subject to additional penalty assessments, the state surcharge, the state court construction penalty, and two DNA penalties; and 2) on remittur, the court must assess defendant’s ability to pay in light of his financial obligations and whether to impose the full fine and the other assessments, surcharge, and penalties, a lesser amount, or none at all....

Court of appeal’s dismissal of defendant’s appeal on the ground that a certificate of probable cause was required is affirmed as, whether the appeal seeks a ruling by the appellate court that the guilty plea was invalid, or merely seeks an order for further proceedings aimed at obtaining a ruling by the trial court that the plea was invalid, the primary purpose of section 1237.5 is met by requiring a certificate of probable cause for an appeal whose purpose is, ultimately, to invalidate a plea of guilty or no contest as in the present case....

Court of appeal’s judgment holding that a prior dismissal of a felony complaint against defendant barred his current prosecution for the same conduct as a misdemeanor is reversed where the filing and dismissal of the originally charged felony for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, followed in immediate succession by the filing of the lesser misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter with ordinary negligence, did not constitute successive filings for the same offense and thus Penal Code sec....

Defendant’s rape with a foreign object sentence is affirmed where Defendant claimed that the prohibition on granting probation to one convicted of rape with a foreign object violated Equal Protection because no similar prohibition applied to simple rape, but prohibiting the trial court from exercising its discretion to grant probation to the parent of a child conceived by rape would run counter to a number of legitimate societal goals. Read People v....

Supplements, much like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. Just as one may debate the beauty of a wrinkly-faced bulldog, many will debate the usefulness of study supplements. Even amongst those who favored the books, there is disagreement over which ones are the most handy. Some prefer long outlines. Others prefer weighty tomes of treatises intended for practitioners (we call those people gunners). And of course, others think that supplements are for suckers who’d rather waste $20 on a book than study the materials provided for class....

In plaintiff’s action against the county to reduce the tax assessment on his residential property, dismissal of the action is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff’s claim that the Appeals Board failed to asses land and improvements separately is without factual foundation; 2) plaintiff had no authority to limit the jurisdiction of the Appeals Board to a reassessment of only the value of the land; 3) the Appeals Board was permitted on its own initiative to reassess the value of the improvements on the land; 4) a total reappraisal was necessary to fulfill the Appeals Board’s mandate to equalize property values; and 5) plaintiff’s exclusive remedy was not a petition for a writ of mandate against the Appeals Board, but rather a complaint seeking a refund of taxes, a remedy plaintiff belatedly pursued against the county after it was barred by the statute of limitations....

Granted, you don’t usually hear JDs say, “Yeah, I applied to law, med, vet, and dental school…and then chose law.” Considering the number of pre-requisites needed to gear up to apply to any of the medical profession grad programs, there’s not a ton of overlap between those graduate programs and law. Should there be? Okay, that’s probably another topic for another blog. In this one, we want to look at the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) report pitting law school against the other grad school options in terms of minority enrollment and cost of education....

David Wynn Miller (or David-Wynn: Miller as he is known in his natural habitat) is not a name you’ve probably heard of before, unless you’re in the most rarefied of far-right conspiracy theorist circles. Miller is a tax-avoidance acolyte most closely associated with the “sovereign citizen” movement. “Eccentric” is probably the most polite word one could muster up to describe Miller. (Miller has been, after all, included in the non-authoritative Encyclopedia of American Loons....

If you are among the lucky summer associates to snag a gig at BigLaw, then one of the things you’ve probably heard about are the over-the-top events that you get to attend. Granted, the events are not as over-the-top as they once were, but you can still bet on some entertaining after-hours work events. If you’ve never attended an after-hours work event, we’re going to clue you in on the three things you need to navigate one successfully....

We have an entire blog devoted to legally weird stories. So you know that a legal story must be really weird to crack our list of the Top 10 most legally weird stories of 2012. We covered some weird lawsuits, of course, but we also wrote about some weird law-enforcement officers and even a Red Lobster restaurant with some of the worst customers in the world. So without further ado, here is our Top 10 list for 2012:...

In an era where law jobs are scarce, is anyone surprised that unemployed law grads would eventually turn against their law schools?While this blog typically covers cases in the California Appellate Courts or the California Supreme Court, this case is newsworthy for the California lawyer. A class action suit names the Thomas Jefferson School of Law as the defendant, claiming that the school misled law school applicants into believing that they stood a chance in the tough legal job market....

Whale harassment. It exists. Just ask the pod of Humpback whales in Santa Cruz, Calif. These newly-arrived whales are attracting much attention. Hundreds of sightseers, kayakers and boaters have taken to the coast. Though no humans have been hurt, a lone sailboat struck a pod member near Monterey Bay. In response, the Coast Guard is striking back. Officials are concerned for the whales, and of course the public. The Humpbacks are “lunge feeding,” explains biologist Don Croll....

Saul Bellow is dead, but he still matters if you want to get a law job. A prominent intellectual property firm recently screened applicants based on their essays about Bellow, a 20th Century author who won numerous prizes for his work. The firm posted a job for a lawyer and “a literary artisan,” well-versed in the classics, with an essay assignment: Whether Saul Bellow deserved his 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature....

Spring break is over. The end of the academic year is just a few short weeks away. You can’t avoid it any longer. Law school finals are coming. Since law school exams tend to be all or nothing – your entire grade for a course depending on a few hours of maddening hypotheticals – you’ll want to make sure you’re well prepared. Here are some of FindLaw’s best exam tips to help you survive and thrive during law school exams....

As more law schools accept alternative admissions tests, the American Bar Association is considering doing away with the tests entirely. The Law School Admissions Test has been the standard for generations, but some law schools have started accepting the Graduate Records Exam. An ABA committee has proposed three alternatives for law schools: continue accepting the LSAT; accept alternatives such as the GRE; eliminate the testing requirements. The Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will consider the proposals at a meeting in November....

There have probably been times when you wanted to moon your boss but Jason Selch actually did moon his superiors at Bank of America. His reward for expressing his frustrations? Selch was initially given a warning but the company then did an about-face and fired him. That happened back in 2005 and he’s been fighting them about it since then. It’s not that Selch loved his job so much after his company merged with Bank of America....

The sports world is collectively scratching its head today, as reports that premarital sex and Brandon Davies’ girlfriend led to his BYU honor code violation and suspension. A college basketball player suspended for having sex with his girlfriend? At the Mormon school, it’s a BYU honor code violation and grounds for dismissal from the university. BYU, affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has an honor code which forbids students from engaging in premarital sex, and admonishes them to “live a chaste and virtuous life....

Trial court’s order directing that its surcharge order upon former trustee be satisfied from her distributive share of the trust estate is affirmed as the beneficiary of a spendthrift trust who also acts a trustee and commits a breach of trust causing financial harm to the trust can have her interest in the trust estate impounded to satisfy a claim arising from her misfeasance. Read Chatard v. Oveross, No. B213392 [HTML]...

Is Facebook privacy for real? Or is it a joke? He wasn’t finished. Though he never blasted Facebook by name, at the online privacy hearing, the target of his comments was obvious: In a rare step, Rep. Zachary Space, an Ohio Democrat, asked Moglen to avoid personal attacks in his introduction. “But Congress tries to foster the highest level of decorum. I would ask you to avoid personal attacks against any companies or company employees,” Space said, reports The Wall Street Journal....

A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled on Tuesday that 501(c)(4) organizations don’t have to disclose the contributors who fund their “issue ads” during election cycles, reports CNN. The decision upholds a Federal Elections Commission (FEC) rule providing that only those contributors who assent, in some reasonable way, to support an organization’s electioneering must be disclosed to the public, National Review explains. The challenge grew out of FEC rules promulgated under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also known as the McCain-Feingold Act....