Orange County Criminal Defense Blog

In a unanimous decision the justices of the United States Supreme Court have set some boundaries around the practice of “civil forfeiture” by state and local law enforcement.  While the ruling provides some guidance, it left the specifics to lower courts to decide. Civil forfeiture is the practice by law enforcement agencies of taking and…

New legislation criminalizing deepfakes has been introduced in the U.S.Senate. Video and audio recordings are widely relied on as “proof” that something happened or as a way to document the way something unfolded.  Investigators, law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and juries routinely rely on digital recordings to evaluate an event and reveal the “truth.”   Our…

What was a pilot program in only four California counties up until the calendar turned over to 2019 is now a statewide DUI program.  Californians convicted of a DUI as of January 1 will almost certainly be required to install an ignition-interlock device (IID) on their car for at least six months. Since 2010 there…

Bump stocks have essentially been illegal in California since 1990.  Any person who possesses, manufactures, imports into California, offers a bump stock for sale or gives or lends one, is committing a crime in the state.  But in September of 2018, the language of the existing law around bump stocks was expanded to specifically include…

The United States Senate this Tuesday passed a bill reforming the federal criminal justice system, and by a wide margin.  While being touted as a major overhaul, the bill, in fact, does some modest tuning of federal felony sentencing.  The bill still needs House approval, in a vote expected next week, but the House approved…

According to the Washington Post’s Fatal Force database, police shot and killed 162 people in California in 2017, and 99 so far in 2018. Under existing California law, police records of such incidents are largely unavailable to the public. The language in existing California law is broad allowing these police incident records to be classified…