CA Pub. Decisions

Trial court did not abuse its discretion in proceeding with voir dire as means of evaluating whether murder defendant could obtain a fair trial in county, instead of granting his motion for a five week continuance so he could conduct a public opinion survey to assess how media publicity garnered by his codefendant's trial would affect his ability to receive a fair trial, where his trial had been scheduled to begin that very day and he did not refute prosecution's claim that the requested delay would cause hardship with regard to the 40 potential witnesses it had subpoenaed; court and parties had developed a juror questionnaire that took into account the recent completion of the codefendant's trial and posed questions relating to the pretrial publicity of the case; and defendant did not exhaust his peremptory challenges and did not object to the jury's final composition. Court did not err in failing to instruct jury on lesser included offenses of second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter where defense counsel told court that defense was not requesting any instructions on the lesser included charges. Any error would have been harmless where jury was properly instructed that a torture murder special circumstance requires the intent to kill and found true that special circumstance, necessarily determining that defendant intended to kill victim when he tortured her. During voir dire at penalty phase of trial, court did not err in failing to excuse six allegedly biased potential jurors for cause where defendant neither made a peremptory challenge to any of the six jurors nor exhausted his available 20 peremptory challenges; and even if he had, five of the potentials jurors did not actually serve in defendant's jury, and the remaining one, who at first candidly said she initially formed an opinion of defendant's guilt after reading a newspaper story about the codefendant's trial, later stated she would need to hear evidence to overcome her suspicion of defendant's guilt and understood that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Court at penalty phase did not err in instructing jury regarding governor's commutation power where, though jury did not specifically ask about commutation power, it implicitly inquired about it when it asked if "life in prison without parole really mean[s] without parole forever."

Although an order denying a petition to vacate an arbitration award is not appealable, Court treat this appeal as a petition for writ of mandate. Petitioners sole claim is that an arbitrators failure to personally make written disclosure required by the California Arbitration Act (Code Civ. Proc., 1280 et seq.) and the Ethics Standards for Neutral Arbitrators in Contractual Arbitration (the California Standards) violates section 1281.9 and requires vacation of the arbitration award pursuant to section 1286.2. An arbitration service made complete disclosure on behalf of the neutral arbitrator, and there was no claim or evidence that this disclosure misrepresented or omitted material matters which should have been disclosed. We hold that this disclosure satisfied disclosure requirements, affirm the order denying the petition to vacate the arbitration award, and deny the petition for writ of mandate.

While attempting to contact defendant Eric Hall Knapp on his sizable rural property, sheriffs deputies detected the odor of marijuana emanating from a barn located near a mobile home that appeared to be the only living quarters on the property. The deputies obtained a search warrant and seized 47 pounds of marijuana from the barn. The trial court denied defendants suppression motion because the barn was outside the curtilage of the mobile home. Defendant thereafter entered no contest pleas to charges that he cultivated marijuana and possessed it for sale. On appeal, defendant reiterates his argument that the search warrant was founded on evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Like the trial court, Court conclude the argument lacks merit. Consequently, Court affirm the judgment.

City's 2002 general plan substantially complied with Housing Element Law, as it then read, where the plan provided an aggregate inventory of what the city identified as vacant sites and sites potentially available for development. Law at the time did not require that the inventory identify specific sites both suitable for residential development and available to meet housing needs. Least Cost Zoning Law does not require that city take action to actually rezone a sufficient supply of adequate sites to meet lower income share of need following revision of general plan's housing element. Substantial evidence supported city's contention that implementation of the plan through rezoning, along with another city program, will have a positive effect on the supply of higher density, lower income housing and will satisfy the regional housing need in all income categories, thus complying with the law.

Father challenges an order of the Alameda County Juvenile Court, which set a hearing under Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26 to select a permanent plan for. Father's petition on the merits.

Claim of ineffective assistance of counsel cannot be raised by petition for writ of error coram nobis. Writ of habeas corpus will not issue absent showing that petitioner is in custody or otherwise deprived of liberty solely as a result of California conviction.

A modification decision.

Sufficient evidence supported defendant's conviction for the aggravated kidnapping of a maintenance worker at the club defendant robbed where defendant forcibly moved worker at gunpoint from parking lot to front door of club to gain entry to club, made worker get fellow employees to open door for him, forced worker inside club, and then threw him to the floor where he remained throughout the robbery.

Where attorney employed by county created entity that provided county counsel with "independent contractors" to assist in juvenile court cases brought suit alleging gender-based wage discrimination on the theory that the entity was merely a "payrolling scheme" enabling county counsel to maintain a two tier attorney work force where female attorneys were channeled into the independent contracting entity and worked for substantially lower pay and benefits than those in the predominantly male county counsel unit performing the same work under the same conditions district court properly granted summary judgment to defendants where evidence provided no basis for attorney's use of a male county counsel lawyer as a comparator, and wage disparity was based on a gender neutral business reason.

The mere service of an untimely interrogatory response, which may or may not reflect a good faith effort to comply with the party's discovery obligations, does not divest the trial court of authority to hear and grant a motion to compel responses under Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 2030.290(b).

The mere service of an untimely interrogatory response, which may or may not reflect a good faith effort to comply with the party's discovery obligations, does not divest the trial court of authority to hear and grant a motion to compel responses under Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 2030.290(b).

Public employee waived right to a predisciplinary or Skelly hearing where employer accepted employee's offer to retire in lieu of dismissal, even though employee rescinded that offer after date that hearing was to have taken place. Agency's selection of same official to investigate charges, recommend discipline, and conduct Skelly hearing did not violate due process where another official acted as agency's final decisionmaker in the matter, and employee had a further right of administrative appeal under civil service rules. Termination of employee for sleeping on the job, for reflecting negatively on city workforce by doing so in public, and for being insubordinate by refusing to remove hammock from his city vehicle was not a manifest abuse of discretion.

Trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that student athlete was a prevailing party entitled to attorney fees under Government Code Sec. 800 in suit to enjoin high school from barring her participating in athletics where, although court denied student's permanent injunction request as moot, it made a clear factual finding that school's conduct was capricious and issued temporary restraining order after considering in detail the merits of the action.

Investors established triable claim of fraud against accounting firm that allegedly deliberately or recklessly certified statements that showed corporation to be worth far more than its actual value, where plaintiff's expert opined that defendant's deviation from generally accepted accounting principles and other professional standards in approving company's financial statements and balance sheet was so egregious that it could not have been accidental, and defendant admitted that it approved company's placement of contingent assets on its balance sheet and financial statements even though the contingencies were still in place, contrary to assurances defendant had given the SEC. Where plaintiffs exchanged real estate for stock, then entered into contract to sell 80 percent of stock but did not complete the sale because buyer did not pay and instead held onto the stock for a time before attempting to sell it to another buyer, and where plaintiffs presented evidence that by the second time they tried to sell the stock, they had seen audit report and relied on it in pursuing the sale instead of hiring an attorney to rescind their stock purchase and recover their real estate, and that they additionally relied on the audit report in deciding to hold onto the 20 percent of the stock they never tried to sell, plaintiffs' initial attempt to sell their stock without reliance on audit report did not bar their claim for negligent misrepresentation.