Monday Morning Memo for June 12, 2017

The last time Bernard Melvin heard from his daughter Carrie, she was calling him to wish him a happy birthday. It was the summer of 2015, and she was living in Hollywood and starting her own social media business. She told him she was the happiest she had ever been and loved her life. Weeks later, her father received unimaginable news.

It’s a phrase only five words in length, long enshrined in state law but increasingly seen as a civic catastrophe waiting to happen. It purports to answer the most simple of political questions.

When does a statewide ballot measure approved by voters become law? “The day after the election,” according to the California Constitution. But then think about the way elections work.

It seemed like a sure bet for another display of California’s ultra-blue “Resistance”: Fresh with outrage over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the Democratic-dominated California Assembly considered a bill to curb both global warming and air pollution. But in a surprising twist that illustrated how California’s Legislature isn’t as knee-jerk liberal as the rest of the country thinks, the lower house rejected the closely watched climate bill late Thursday night.

Advocates for a voter-approved transparency measure allege that the California Assembly violated the law this week in votes on more than 90 bills. California voters approved a constitutional amendment in November that requires bills in the state Legislature to be published online in final form for at least 72 hours before a vote. This week, though, the Assembly voted on dozens of bills that had not been in print for three days.

Justice has been delayed for thousands of rape victims because their cases -are literally sitting on a shelf. There are thousands of untested rape kits in California. It’s evidence, that could put rapists behind bars but right now, there’s no way to track the massive backlog. How many, where and why, no one knows, but Tuesday, in a Senate Public Safety Committee hearing, a proposal to change that got one step closer to becoming law.

District attorneys in Los Angeles have accused a local activist of concocting “outright lies” to “grease the passage” of a bill moving through the California Legislature that could loosen sentencing for some gun crimes committed in the state. At one point in her testimony, Kim McGill of the Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) told lawmakers five provable falsehoods within a span of just twenty seconds.

Los Angeles County prosecutors plan to investigate an allegation that a Downey councilman doesn’t live in that city, but in a tiny coastal Long Beach neighborhood, according to a district attorney spokesman. The council member, Rick Rodriguez, said he does in fact live in Downey, a 12-square-mile city home to 114,000 residents and the world’s oldest McDonald’s restaurant still in operation.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office filed felony fraud charges against 10 attorneys and 6 others Monday in what prosecutors say is a massive workers’ compensation-referral scheme with more than 33,000 patients and an estimated $300 million-plus in insurance payouts received. DA Tony Rackauckas said the charges were the start of an investigation by his office and the California Department of Insurance, which scrutinizes the role medical providers played in an alleged fraud ring that targeted mostly Spanish-speaking communities.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office determined last week that the Burbank Hospitality Assn. violated the Brown Act back in September when the organization decided to donate money to the Committee for Yes on Measure B without properly placing the request on its agenda. According to a letter written by Bjorn Dodd, deputy district attorney, dated May 30, which was sent to Burbank resident David Spell, the district attorney’s office agreed with one of Spell’s complaints, which alleged the Burbank Hospitality Assn., commonly known as Visit Burbank, had inappropriately discussed and given $50,000 to the Committee of Yes on Measure B without placing the issue on the agenda.

The Board of Parole Hearings denied the request of Randy Cook, now 55, to be released on parole from his life sentence in state prison for kidnapping and killing ten-year-old Tami Carpenter in Avila Beach in July of 1979. In July 1979, ten-year-old Tami Carpenter was expected to testify against William Record in a child molestation case.

You might have noticed that there is a concerted effort by many conservative groups in recent years to reduce the prison population. Groups like the American Conservative Union and Right on Crime have come out in favor of legislation that reduces the sentences imposed on criminals in federal prison. Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions raised the hackles of some of these groups by issuing a directive that “could potentially ramp up criminal charges in cases involving nonviolent drug crimes,” according to CNN.

At a time when California is the epicenter of the liberal resistance to President Trump, Democratic politicians looking to lead the state’s 39 million residents are laying the groundwork for what could shape up to be the most contentious gubernatorial contest in the state in nearly a decade. Voters won’t cast ballots until 2018, but candidates are already raising millions of dollars, and courting donors, key political leaders and activists as they chart their paths for a shot at leading the state that boasts the sixth largest economy in the world.

The ADDA and prosecutors throughout California have grown hoarse warning about the public safety disaster known as Prop. 57. But even we didn’t envision that it would actually incentivize crime by luring criminals here from other states. Yet that’s exactly what appears to be happening. As Torrance police arrested two suspects from Colorado late last month in a vicious home invasion robbery, a private citizen began filming the incident.

The beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the violence that followed a year later carved such deep grooves in Los Angeles’ collective psyche that it seemed only natural last year and again a few weeks ago to observe the 25th anniversaries of those events – and to reflect on how profoundly the city was wounded then, and to what degree it has or has not healed in the two and a half decades since.

An NYPD Sgt. Hugh Barry was charged Wednesday for committing murder when he shot a mentally ill woman named Deborah Danner in October 2016 inside her apartment in Castle Hill neighborhood in the Bronx. Sgt. Barry’s indictment marked the first time since 1999 that a city cop faced a top homicide count. He became the first NYPD officer charged with murder on-duty since four police officers fired 41 shots at an unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999.

For years now, a battle has gone on between government-transparency advocates seeking more data about law enforcement’s use of force, and officers’ unions arguing that telling the public too much endangers their members’ safety and privacy. In our area, the most interesting such battle has involved the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS), a tug-of-war intensified by the arrival of a sheriff elected to restore public trust and an inspector general and civilian oversight commission committed to scrutiny of the scandal-torn agency.

In the last month, the investigation into who killed a well-known attorney in an execution-style shooting outside his Rolling Hills Estates home nearly eight years ago has gained momentum. New leads have surfaced, prompting detectives to release a composite sketch of a person of interest in the killing of Jeffrey Tidus. Here’s what we know so far:  What happened on the night of Dec. 7, 2009?

Homeland Security investigators in New Orleans were listening to phone calls made by a suspected Los Angeles drug dealer last year when they heard a disturbing snippet of a conversation, according to court documents. Their target, who they believed to be a methamphetamine trafficker, told the person on the other end of the line that someone had asked if he could carry out a “hit,” court records show.

Lompoc Police Chief Pat Walsh expressed major concerns about the future of his department during a presentation to the Lompoc City Council on Tuesday night. Walsh delivered a State of the Lompoc Police Department address early in the meeting. During the presentation, he touched on many of the challenges facing the department, including budget woes, an inability to retain personnel, difficulties with bringing on new employees, expected rises in crime and reductions in the services the department provides to the community.

Walmart has a counterfeit problem. Both Walmart, and third-party sellers Walmart allows to list on Walmart’s website, are selling counterfeit products. Walmart’s global name recognition and consumer perceived credibility provides a significant advantage in marketing (and profiting) from unaware consumers. Buyers place their confidence in, and rely on Walmart’s credibility to purchase authentic goods. Sometimes that confidence is misplaced.

It’s a simple scam, take a low capacity memory card costing a few cents and reprint it with a higher capacity label and a globally recognized trademark. Sell it on eBay as an authentic items for up to $100.00 or more. It’s no bigger than your fingernail, but this tiny replaceable memory card holds your data, photos and contacts in your phone, camera, iPad, tablet, laptop and GPS. However, it’s a fake and you are likely to lose your data, images, and you may damage your equipment.

Los Angeles police officer will not be charged for the fatal shooting of an African American woman in a South L.A. alley, a controversial killing that caused protesters to camp outside City Hall for weeks decrying the police. The decision from the district attorney’s office was made public Tuesday, nearly two years after Officer Brett Ramirez shot Redel Jones, 30, who authorities say was armed with a knife and suspected of robbing a nearby pharmacy about a half-hour before she was killed.

The co-owners of an Italian eatery in Sherman Oaks are being sued by two patrons who allege their images were recorded by a small video camera hidden in the women’s restroom by one of the restaurateurs, who was arrested last month. Nadereh Adeli and Remick Shaverdi Sapien brought the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Bahram Javaherian and Abe E. Siani, as well as their eatery, Cucina Bene in the 4500 block of Sepulveda Boulevard.

California’s $5 fee on gun sales, which funds laws to take firearms away from criminals and mental patients, will remain in effect after a federal appeals court rejected a constitutional challenge from gun groups Thursday. The fee is part of a $19 charge that the state collects on each firearms sale to pay for background checks and notify dealers if the would-be purchaser is barred from owning a gun under federal or state law.

California bill would bar hate crime offenders from owning guns

New California gun legislation would ban anyone convicted of hate crimes from purchasing a gun. Current law bans criminals convicted of felonies from owning guns. The Disarm Hate Act would apply to misdemeanor hate crimes. Charleston. Orlando. San Bernardino. It doesn’t matter where the shooting happens, Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), says the motive is often the same: hate.

California voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014,  downgrading many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, meaning offenders would no longer go to state prison. The authors of the initiative promised that it would yield savings from the state an that the money would be reinvested in programs designed to cut recidivism and prevent entry to the criminal justice system.

When voters were asked to approve Proposition 47 in 2014 and reduce many drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, they were promised that the prison and jail savings generated would be spent trying to prevent future crimes. That promise was kept Thursday: A state board awarded $103 million to 23 cities and counties to provide services such as substance abuse and mental health treatment in their communities.

Two and a half years after 60 percent of Californians voted for Proposition 47, the initiative is coming to a head. The measure reduced nonviolent drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and reallocated the money saved into programs for mental health, substance abuse treatment, victim services and truancy prevention. Now the money is finally going somewhere, and it’s a lot of money. $103 million, to be exact. What took so long?

The California Assembly will not renew its contract with Covington and Burling, the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder who Democratic legislative leaders enlisted earlier this year to help craft legal strategy to oppose Trump administration policies. “We have received valuable guidance from Covington & Burling over the past four months. We will continue to seek their guidance as the need arises,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, said in a statement Thursday.

Marbella Munoz was a foster child for most of her life. As is true for many foster children bounced through multiple placements, she was frequently forced to change schools. Despite the repeated changes, Munoz said she managed to keep up her grades. When she was 17, school administrators told her she had been referred to a program called “school-based supervision.”

Just in case anyone wonders what the real issue was in the very close race between Eric Bauman and Kimberly Ellis over who would become the next chairperson of the California Democratic Party, it was money. No, not salary or other personal emoluments, although Bauman – the party’s longtime Los Angeles County leader – has received his share of payments from ballot initiative campaigns.

Rick Cohen, who is serving as the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s interim chief executive officer, has clarified the anticipated length of his employment and revealed that his salary is expected to be set at $195,000 per year. LACBA announced his appointment on May 19 and said that he would start work on May 22 and “serve through 2018.” Cohen told members of the Senior Lawyers Section Executive Committee Thursday night that he will actually be at the post for 12 months.

The  Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to offer temporary shelter to victims of domestic violence at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center campus as part of a Family Justice Center there. Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl proposed designating space on campus, free of charge, for the East Los Angeles Women’s Center and the Los Angeles Police Department.

A $50 fee charged to defendants who seek legal counsel from a public defender is expected to come under a vote Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will discuss whether the payment should be revoked. Dozens of states and counties across California charge defendants with the up-front fee, including Los Angeles. But a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California found that the fee can turn into a steep debt for low-income or indigent defendants, who may then be contacted by collection agencies.

A Commerce resident called Hews Media Group-Community News this week – after the second round of articles published by HMG-CN exposed even more election fraud in the City – saying “it’s like the Wild Wild West out here in Commerce, the election is corrupt and no one is doing anything about it!” Count District Attorney Jackie Lacey in that group as she is turning a blind eye to what is obviously a corrupt takeover of this tiny Southeast Los Angeles County city situated on the 5 freeway.

In December, city and county officials announced that they were establishing a $10 million L.A. Justice Fund to help undocumented Angelenos ensnared in President Trump’s immigration crackdown to obtain legal representation. Along with tough talk from Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who vowed to continue to leave immigration enforcement to federal authorities, the announcement amounted to a middle finger to an anti-immigrant Trump administration.

California Supreme Court justices considering whether a ballot measure to speed up executions is unconstitutional expressed skepticism Tuesday about a provision that would require death sentence appeals to be completed within five years. Several justices peppered a lawyer from the attorney general’s office about how the deadline could be met without radically altering the court system and whether there would be consequences for failing to meet it or whether it was merely aspirational.

California Supreme Court justices considering whether a ballot measure to speed up executions is unconstitutional expressed skepticism Tuesday about a provision that would require death sentence appeals to be completed within five years. Several justices peppered a lawyer from the attorney general’s office about how the deadline could be met without radically altering the court system and whether there would be consequences for failing to meet it or whether it was merely aspirational.

The Commission on Judicial Performance yesterday publicly admonished an Orange Superior Court judge for an inappropriate Facebook post attacking a prosecutor who tried to unseat one of his colleagues in last year’s election. Judge Jeff Ferguson displayed a “knowing or reckless disregard for the truth” and violated several ethics rules in connection with his post about Deputy District Attorney Karen Schatzle, the commission said in a formal decision.

Efforts to block a second election this year of Los Angeles County Bar Association officers and trustees is continuing, with plaintiffs-who are seeking a judicial validation of the first election-relying on an ancient maxim that equity regards as done that which ought to be done. The six plaintiffs, including two officers, two trustees, and a past president, are arguing that the March election should be deemed final although LACBA President Margaret Stevens refused to perform her mandatory, ministerial duty of causing the results to be certified.