Southern California Defense Blog

Being arrested for theft is bad enough. But using your 10-year-old daughter to commit the crime, then abandoning her at Target when she got caught seems to be a lot worse. That is exactly what happened this weekend, and now Tiffany Foster is going to need a good criminal defense lawyer as well as an incredible family law attorney if she hopes to keep custody of her child.

Security cameras at Target captured the woman trying to conceal approximately $600 worth of merchandise under some coats in a shopping cart. She then allegedly instructed her daughter to push the cart outside the store. When security guards stopped the little girl, her mother and another woman took off running.

After questioning the girl, police tracked down Foster at her home and ordered her back to the Target. Foster claimed that she had no knowledge of the items hidden under the jacket, basically throwing her daughter under the bus for her crime. Thankfully, the little girl had come clean to police already, saying that she and her mother had entered the Target with the intention of shoplifting and had done it before.

In California, shoplifting is a serious crime and can carry with it a jail sentence of up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine for petty theft or up to 1 year in jail for grand theft.

With the current state of the economy, shoplifting is becoming more and more prevalent. But the price you pay if caught is never worth the value of the items you take.

With the LA Unified School District under fire for the recent child molestation scandal involving two different teachers at the same elementary school, down the road in Orange County, another case of alleged inappropriate behavior between a student and a teacher has flown a bit under the radar. A high school teacher in Anaheim Hills has been accused of lewd and lascivious acts with a 14 year old student.

Details surrounding the case are unclear, but initial police reports suggest that Joshua Evans developed a relationship with one of his students through text messages and a game played via cell phones. That relationship eventually led to Evans and the student meeting at a second student’s house, where Evans allegedly hugged the student and kissed her on the mouth.

The sex crimes attorneys at Wallin and Klarich have handled dozens of cases like this where a student exaggerates a story to get a teacher in trouble. Whether or not that is the case in this situation remains to be seen, but what we do know is that because the girl is between the ages of 14 and 15, and there is more than a 10 year discrepancy in age between Evans and the girl, he can be charged with either a felony or a misdemeanor. If convicted, he faces up to 3 years in state prison and would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

We’re still waiting for more details to emerge, and we will keep you posted on this case as we find out more information.

Human trafficking for the sex trade is something that most people have heard about on the news, but it really doesn’t seem to be “real.” At least one family in Stockton, CA can tell you just how real of an issue it is here in the United States, as the FBI helped to rescue their 14-year-old daughter from a life of prostitution. The sting led to the arrest of one man, charged with creating child pornography and sex trafficking.

The FBI has a task force known as the Lost Innocence Task Force that works in conjunction with local law enforcement agencies to try and track down children that are suspected of being sucked into the underground world of human trafficking.

In this particular instance, the task force discovered a picture of a missing girl on an internet website known for soliciting prostitution services. They confirmed the identity of the girl with the girl’s parents and set up a sting operation, in which the girl was rescued and her pimp was arrested.

Because both creating child pornography and human trafficking are federal crimes, a federal criminal lawyer will most certainly get involved in this case. As for the girl, her identity is being protected by law enforcement.

To date, the Lost Innocence Task Force has reportedly rescued 1,800 children and arrested 800 pimps and madams. To find out more about the work that the task force does, you can follow the link to the FBI website. As hard as it might be to believe, this is an issue that is far more prevalent within our borders than one might suspect.

In a tragic case of punishment gone horribly wrong, a grandmother and a stepmother have been charged with murder in the death of a 9-year-old girl. As more details in the case unfold it may become clearer if a murder defense attorney will have their hand full or if they will have a slam dunk defense. What is beyond a shadow of a doubt is that an absolute tragedy has occurred.

Initial police reports indicate that Savannah Hardin (9) lied to her grandmother, Joyce Hardin Garrard, about eating some candy bars. To punish her for lying the grandmother and stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, force Savannah to run in the yard for 3 hours straight without stopping.

Eventually, Savannah got so dehydrated that she had a seizure, was rushed to the hospital, and died three days later. Police are still trying to determine if Savannah was forced to run via physical coercion or simply from verbal threats. At least one neighbor has come forward saying they recall seeing the little girl running around the yard but doesn’t recall seeing anyone chasing her or yelling at her to keep running.

Local police have said that the received several calls from concerned citizens who saw Savannah running around in the yard.

The severe dehydration is the sticking point in this case. Prosecutors could easily argue that denying the child water during the punishment qualified as malice aforethought. In essence, the argument is that a reasonable person would have known that lack of water would have been severely hazardous to the little girl’s health. By continuing on with the punishment, it showed a deliberate disregard for human life.

If the prosecution can convince a jury that the stepmother and grandmother meted out the punishment with little to no regard for the health and safety of Savannah, both could be convicted of murder.

In what could become a landmark case that could reshape the criminal court system across the country, the cyber-bullying case of Dahrun Ravi has begun jury selection. Ravi is facing 10 years in prison for various charges, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. But if the court of public opinion had their druthers, he’d be on trial for manslaughter.

The victim of Ravi’s alleged crimes was Tyler Clementi, a gay student at Rutgers University who was Ravi’s roommate in the dorms and committed suicide. This case has been highly publicized for the past two years since Clementi took his life by jumping off of the George Washington bridge.

Prosecutors allege that Clementi killed himself after discovering that Ravi had captured a romantic encounter between himself and another man on webcam. While Ravi has already been cleared of any responsibility in the death of Clementi, prosecutors are trying to paint Ravi as a hateful homophobe who intentionally tried to intimidate and bully his roommate by recording a private moment.

Most experts agree that the prosecution has its work cut out for them. Both Clementi and Ravi had several exchanges with each other and with friends acknowledging their differences, but being overall indifferent to the other’s lifestyle choices.

Ravi’s criminal defense lawyer also plans on introducing an apology text from Ravi to Clementi expressing remorse for violating Clementi’s privacy by spying on his encounter via webcam the morning after the incident occurred. Furthermore, Clementi even texted Ravi, asking if he could use the room for a few hours for a second rendezvous with the same man he was caught on camera with. Ravi’s three word reply to that text: “Yeah, no problem.”

Evidence, especially the exchanges between Ravi and Clementi seem to suggest that while they might not have been perfect roommates, there was little to no animosity or hatred between the two prior to Clementi’s suicide.

Which calls into question exactly where the line is drawn in a court of law when it comes to cyber-bullying? At what point does a juvenile prank become a malicious act of intimidation? What Ravi did was morally and ethically wrong. But was it a crime?

Should Ravi be found guilty it would give criminal defense attorneys very little leeway when trying to defend a client accused of cyber-bullying. While bullying in general has been a hot button topic – deservedly so – it appears as though the court of public opinion focused on the wrong target without really understanding the facts first.

Aside from Nicolas Cage using a traffic camera to help him decipher an ancient Olmec tablet in National Treasure 2, those little cameras mounted next to traffic lights have caused nothing but headaches for people. Today, the 2nd District Court of Appeal dealt a heavy blow to the validity of those traffic cameras in all future cases.

Before we get into the decision, we need to rewind just a bit. Annette Borzakian, an attorney in Beverly Hills was issued a ticket after a traffic camera allegedly caught her blowing through an intersection. The validity of these traffic camera tickets have been fought, and deemed nearly unenforceable. But Borzakian took it one step further by asking for an opinion to be written on traffic cameras that can be cited in any traffic court in California from now on.

The opinion essentially states that the police officer who ultimately issues the ticket is not an expert on the technology involved in the traffic cameras, and as such, the officer has no credibility. This means that photos and videos of the incident are inadmissible in traffic court.
The written opinion affirms a 2010 case in the same jurisdiction. (People vs. Khaled 30-2009-304893)

In short, this means that it will be virtually impossible for any jurisdiction in California to enforce a traffic camera ticket without bringing in the manufacturer of the traffic camera to testify. Of course, if you don’t know the law, local law enforcement might try to pull a fast one and get you to pay that ticket anyway.

So share this will all of your friends and tell your family. You might end up saving them a few hundred dollars.

One of the most infamous assassinations in US history is making headlines agains as a California appeals attorney is trying to get the man found guilty in the assassination of Robert Kennedy a new trial. Kennedy, the younger brother of JFK was shot and killed in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel in 1968. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, still sits in prison.

A little known audio recording of the actual assassination has been analyzed by an acoustics specialist, and that specialist has determined that at least 13 shots were fired during the attack. Sirhan’s gun only held 8 shots, and eyewitnesses all report that Sirhan did not reload his weapon.

If this acoustic analysis is to be believed, it means that there had to be a second gunman and conspiracy theorists may have their day of vindication.

California States Attorneys initially dismissed the analysis, but have been forced to acknowledge the “new” evidence. They have even gone as far as to say that “if” there was a second gun, it still doesn’t dismantle their original case against Sirhan.

Even if there was a second gunman, under California law, Sirhan would still be guilty of the crime he was convicted of. His legal defense is claiming that he was a victim of hypno-programming, and was simply meant to be a diversion so that the real assassin could take advantage of the chaos. The hypnosis argument has some merit, as it was derived based on the report of psychologist Dan Brown, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard, following 60 hours of interviews with Sirhan.

What comes of this is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain; federal lawyers will definitely be arguing the merits of this case for some time, and a Pandora’s box has been reopened for conspiracy theorists everywhere.

If you are accused of grand theft person you are facing much more serious punishment than someone who is facing petty theft charges. The difference is tremendous. With a conviction for grand theft person you can be found guilty of a felony and serve up to 3 years in custody. A conviction for petty theft carries with it a maximum penalty of six months in custody and is a misdemeanor offense. It is critical that your criminal defense lawyer be familiar with the recent case of People vs. Getter, decided that the 3rd District Court of Appeals.

In that case, the accused took money from an ATM that a customer had accidentally left his PIN code activated on seconds before. In that the case the District Attorney sought and received a conviction against the accused for a violation of Penal Code Section 487c, grand theft person. However, the defendant appealed and argued that he did not take the property directly from the victims “person” and so the conviction had to be reduced to petty theft.

Understanding the defenses to criminal charges is a must when you are accused of a crime. It can mean the difference between spending several years in prison or receiving probation. The 3rd District Court's decision could save thousands of people countless time in prison and jail. But only so long as their criminal defense attorney is versed on the ruling.

While the use and sale of medical marijuana is considered to be a federal crime, it is still legal according to California State law. But it isn’t an inalienable right. Just like an individual can have their driver’s license take away for committing certain crimes, a person can have their medical marijuana card taken away too.

A recent court decision in People vs. Hughes decided that if an accused individual pleads guilty to a crime that involves the use of drugs, the court can order that the accused not use medical marijuana during the entire term of the individual’s probation. This ruling has major implications for someone with a legitimate need for medical marijuana. After all, people aren’t prevented from going shopping if they are convicted of shoplifting.

It certainly seems that those that have a legal prescription to use medical marijuana are finding that their legal rights are slowly being taken away by government and court decisions. Recently many cities have closed down medical marijuana dispensaries. The legality of that question is before the courts of our state. However, some courts have already ruled that the closures are legal.

Now this case further restricts people from using medical marijuana. Please be wise and before you plead guilty to any crime that may involve in any way the use of drugs consult a criminal defense attorney immediately. It could be something as simple as being arrested for driving while under the influence of marijuana. You need to fight for your rights before the courts take them all away.

Many California jails are overcrowded and to comply with the law must release inmates early from their sentence. Due to this fact many of those accused of crimes are choosing to serve their entire sentence and reject probation.

This is happening because it is becoming a well known fact that inmates are not serving the jail sentence imposed by the court.

Los Angeles County Jail is probably the best example of abuses of our legal system. In one case a defendant was sentenced to 2,390 days and was released from custody after serving only 21 days. This is less than 1% of his sentence. This also means that the defendant is not on probation for this offense because he has served his entire sentence.

District Attorneys from around the state have expressed their anger and frustration with the current system. Many other counties are being forced to release inmates prior to them doing 50% of their time.

It will be very interesting to see how things develop on this issue over the next few weeks.

If you are accused of any crime you need to contact Wallin and Klarich to help you decide what are the bst options for you in your case. Call us at 877-466-5245 toll free 24/7. We will be there when you call.

In a story straight out of the wild wild west, two men broke into the Siskiyou County courthouse in the early morning hours and smashed open a display case containing approximately $3 million in gold nuggets. This particular act of burglary was brazen to say the least, and if caught, the duo will need one heck of a criminal defense attorney to wriggle out of this one.

Siskiyou County is located on the border between California and Oregon, and was part of the Gold Rush that prompted settlers to move west in search of fortune. And just as crime was rampant back then, it seems as though these two bandits have gotten away with burglary and grand theft.

The case they broke into was protected by an alarm system, but the system malfunctioned and the alarm never sounded. The thieves knew what they were looking for too. The surveillance video shows the pair ignoring most of the smaller pieces and historical items, focusing rather on the larger pieces of gold.

It wouldn’t be too hard for a thief to case the courthouse and determine what was worth taking and what wasn’t. The gold nugget collection is prominently displayed in the courthouse for tourists and citizens alike to enjoy.

If caught and convicted, the thieves could face as many as 5 years in prison, including enhancement for stealing more than $3 million worth of assets. For the sleepy little town on the Northern California Border, this theft has been the talk of the town, and bringing the criminals to justice is priority number one.