His attorney, Richard Ceballos, filed a motion Nov. 24 asking to continue the hearing to Jan. 28, citing "a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship." "The reason for the continuance is that Mr. Huffaker has advised me that he no longer wants me to represent him and has taken affirmative steps to obtain new counsel for his sentencing hearing," Ceballos wrote. "Furthermore, Mr. Huffaker has expressly directed me not to file any sentencing memorandum on his behalf until he has secured new counsel."
President Donald Trump may be stretching executive power to its outermost bounds, but in one very significant area he is simply not getting his way: criminal prosecutions. In many cases-such as those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, charges against whom were thrown out by a federal judge in Virginia today-the basic, ground-level machinery of the criminal-justice system has thwarted the administration.
A man has pleaded guilty to the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Warwickshire, in a case that prompted anti-asylum protests in Nuneaton. Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, of no fixed abode, changed his plea at Warwick crown court on Friday, admitting to the single charge of rape of a child under 13 on 22 July. Mulakhil, an Afghan national, had previously denied abducting a child, three counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault of a child under 13 at a hearing on 28 August.
Convicted drug dealer Jonathan Braun, who had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump during his first term, is being sent back to prison after he violated terms of his supervised release with a series of heinous acts, including allegedly assaulting a three-year-old and sexually abusing a nanny. Braun was sentenced to 27 months in prison on Monday in New York City.
On an August night in 1985, five members of one family were shot dead at Whitehouse Farm, a country manor in the rural county of Essex, in southeastern England. The police were alerted by Jeremy Bamber, the twenty-four-year-old scion of a local farming dynasty, whose parents, June and Nevill, occupied the estate. Inside the locked house, officers found the bodies of Jeremy's parents, sister, and six-year-old twin nephews.
Lester is on lifetime parole after he was sentenced in 1998 to 25 years to life in prison for a series of robberies in New York City. He was convicted of two counts of robbery and one count of burglary. An appellate court panel, in a 2001 decision denying Lester's appeal, noted witnesses had not been willing to testify in court against Lester because he intimidated them in phone calls from Rikers Island. Instead, prosecutors read the witnesses' grand jury testimony in court.
Gavin Newsom this week again denied parole for Patricia Krenwinkel, who has spent more than half a century in prison for her role in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings orchestrated by Charles Manson and perpetrated by his followers. Nearly five months after California's parole board found the 77-year-old suitable for release, the governor on Monday reversed the decisionand said Krenwinkel currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time'.
Sending text message reminders to indigent South Bay defendants reduced jailings for missed court appearances by at least 20%, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford, Harvard and New York universities that devised an automated system to help people remember their court dates. The study, which involved thousands of people represented by the Santa Clara County Public Defender's Office, contends that missed court appearances more often than not the product of simple forgetfulness and a lack of familiarity with court procedure, rather than acts of defiance.
New York City is at the forefront of cannabis reform, and now it has a show dedicated to capturing every layer of the movement. On September 16, CJEI filmed the pilot episode of "Cannabis in the City," an engaging and informative series set to air on BronxNet TV at midnight on October 4. Viewers can catch it on Channel 68 for Optimum subscribers or Channel 2134 for FIOS.
Mission Local readers first met Church in 2019. It was a redemptive tale of a woman who had spiraled into the darkest corners hidden in plain sight in San Francisco. An underaged sex worker walking the streets at 14. An alcoholic paying for three-dollar bottles of vodka with small change. A heroin addict. A barefoot homeless woman washing her hair in the gutter. A " High User of Multiple Services " with a rap sheet six pages long.
During the pending hearing, Williams may decide if Torres-Mendoza should be placed in MHM Services Inc. - which provides mental health services to government agencies and which operates a secure facility in Vallejo - or one of five State Hospitals in California. Criminal charges have been suspended against Torres-Mendoza under Penal Code section 1368, which stipulates that a defendant in a criminal case cannot be tried or punished if they are mentally incompetent.
The fate of a 24-year-old Sacramento man, who is charged with stabbings on an Amtrak train last year, is at the intersection of the state's massive mental health care and criminal justice systems. Reversing her March decision, a Solano County Superior Court Janice M. Williams in May ruled that Brandon Torres-Mendoza was incompetent to stand trial. He faced a mental health facility placement hearing and a report from the North Bay Regional Center on Monday,
Fox News' Andy McCarthy pooh-poohed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump targeting cashless bail policies on Monday during an appearance on The Story with Martha MacCallum later that afternoon. Guest host Gillian Turner kicked off the segment by observing that Trump's new executive order signed today threatens to revoke federal funds to any jurisdiction in the United States that continues to employ no cash bail.
Kemp must begin home monitoring within two weeks, The Seattle Times reported. He must also serve one year of state Department of Corrections supervision and complete 240 hours of community service. Prosecutors had recommended the six-time NBA All-Star be sentenced to nine months in jail, a year of supervision and pay restitution. Judge Michael Schwartz of Pierce County Superior Court found the circumstances surrounding the crime warranted a lesser sentence, allowing Kemp to avoid incarceration.
