Articles Tagged with California criminal defense attorney

San Diego’s crime rate has continued its two-year decline, leading the city to the lowest crime rate in almost 50 years, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Overall, the newspaper reported a 7% decline in crime between 2016 and 2017. This followed a 2.3% decline between 2015 and 2016. According to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, the drop in crime rates was the result of increased trust between the community and the police officers along with an increased use of crime data and technology, which enabled the city to allocate its resources more efficiently.

The largest drop in crime rates in the city was among some of the most violent crimes, to the delight of San Diego residents. Murder rates fell a full 32% between 2016 and 2017, with only 34 homicides reported in the last year. The other two crimes with the largest drop include burglary, dropping 20%, and vehicle theft, with 12% fewer in the same time period. Overall, violent crime fell 2% and property crime fell 8% between 2016 and 2017.

According to the Mayor and the police department, the sharp reduction in homicides, including murder and manslaughter, may be attributable to “Shotspotter,” a new technology that “automatically informs police officers when shootings occur,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. After crime data revealed that the southeastern communities of San Diego, including Lincoln Park, O’Farrell, Skyline, and Valencia Park, were most likely to experience gun violence, the “Shotspotter” system was set up in the area. Since 2016, there have not been any deaths by gun violence in those areas. The Chief of San Diego Police attributed the drop in property crime to an undercover operation lasting eight months last year, leading to the indictment of 60 San Diego residents.

San Diego is not the only city in the area, or in the state of California, to see a reduction in crime rates. Escondido, notably, saw a 21% decline in the overall crime rate during the first half of 2017, the time period with the most recent data available according to the newspaper. According to Escondido Lt. Ed Varso, most of that reduction consists of a 24.2% reduction in property crimes caused by the police departments “proactive stance” to California’s criminal justice reform initiatives stemming from the passage of Proposition 47, which was approved by California voters in November 2014.

Proposition 47 significantly reduced penalties for non-violent, low-level crimes that occurred in the state of California, including shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, writing a bad check, and personal use of most illegal drugs. The reduction only applied to those crimes of theft below $950. The law, which went into effect in January 2015, allowed over 1 million Californians to change past felony convictions to lower-level misdemeanors.

The other nearby cities of Vista, Carlsbad, Chula Vista, El Cajon, and Oceanside saw a reduction in the crime rate, albeit a smaller one, when comparing the first half of 2016 and the first half of 2017. Continue reading

In 2017 alone, the California legislature passed nearly 900 bills that Gov. Jerry Brown then signed into law. Most of them take effect in January 2018. Here is a summary of the key criminal law changes that will take effect this year:  

• No California school employee can carry a concealed weapon onto campus. Before, school officials had discretion over the issue.
• Anyone who “willfully records a video” of a violent attack as an attacker or accomplice and streams it online on sites such as Facebook could receive tougher punishment.  See A.B. 1542.  The new law does not require a judge to hand down the tougher sentence, and applies only to the 23 existing crimes in California identified as “violent” felonies.
• No juvenile offenders will have to serve life without parole and those already behind bars would become eligible for release after 25 years. This reform is intended to ease punishment and fines for young people.
• Counties may no longer charge fees to a family for everything from detention to monitoring of juveniles. This old policy was criticized for disproportionately affecting low-income communities of color.
• It is now a misdemeanor to openly carry an unloaded long gun in public unincorporated areas outside of incorporated cities that are deemed by counties as not appropriate for such firearms. This law was requested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to expand state law that already bans openly carrying handguns in areas outside cities.
• Californians convicted of crimes that require them to get rid of their firearms must now prove they have done so before their court cases can be closed. This change is due to Proposition 63, a ballot measure that passed last November. The measure was obviously opposed by the NRA.
• Assembly Bill 41 would require law enforcement agencies to report to the state how many sexual assault kits they collected and have examined, and how many they have not. Agencies also have to explain why a rape kit was not tested. This law was opposed by the Sheriffs Association that claims testing every single rape kit will be a financial and resource burden to the state.

Continue reading

Blaming an erosion in public safety, California law enforcement and victims’ rights organizations recently introduced an initiative that would expand the list of violent crimes and make other changes. This is likely the backlash to the series of legislative changes that passed into law in 2017 that was intended to lower the state’s overcrowded prison population.

The proposed measure, backed by a state lawmakers such as Assemblyman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, and Sacramento County District Attorney Anne-Marie Schubert, could appear on next year’s November 2018 ballot. More information on this ballot initiative can be found here.

If approved by California voters, the proposed bill(s) would:

• Add 15 new offenses to the list of violent crimes. This includes trafficking of a child, rape of an unconscious person, or assault of a police officer. Under this proposal, those convicted would no longer be eligible for early release from parole under Proposition 57, which passed in California last year.
• Reinstate DNA collection for offenders convicted for seven drug or theft offenses. This is in reaction to the felony crimes that were reduced to misdemeanors under California’s Proposition 47, which was passed in 2014. Prop 47 had ensured that DNA samples were purged when someone’s crimes were reduced from felony to misdemeanor.
• Create a felony for serial theft if someone is caught stealing three times for goods worth over $250. Proposition 47 had set the felony threshold for crimes like shoplifting for goods worth $950.
• Require the state parole board to consider an inmates entire criminal history rather than its most recent offense.

Proponents of these new measures claim that the recent criminal justice policies have increased crime and emboldened repeat offenders that led to the increased crime rates in the state. It is reported that violent crime in California has increased by 13% in the past two years. However, it is debated whether this increase can be attributed to Proposition 47. Prop 47 was successful in dropping the recidivism rate to below 50%. Continue reading