He has served as acting public defender since December 2024. "Damon has served the county Office of the Public Defender for nearly three decades, and his longstanding commitment to public service clearly demonstrates that he is exceptionally well-suited for this role," said Board President Otto Lee. "We are proud to see a leader with such deep institutional knowledge and community partnership rise to lead the Public Defender's Office."
We do not fear advances in technology - but we do have legitimate concerns about some of the products on the market now... AI continues to develop and we are hopeful that we will reach a point in the near future where these reports can be relied on. For now, our office has made the decision not to accept any police narratives that were produced with the assistance of AI.
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2025. There are eight days left in the year. Today in history: On Dec. 23, 1972, in an NFL playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders, Steelers running back Franco Harris scored a game-winning touchdown on a deflected pass with less than 10 seconds left. The Immaculate Reception, as the catch came to be known, is often cited as the greatest NFL play of all time.
Silver, a 55-year-old North County resident, said he was appreciative of the support from county leadership, adding that his appointment preserves vital continuity in the office that will help them maximize their mission to help vulnerable and indigent people disproportionately ensnared in the criminal court system. The office has a long tradition of being very client-centered and focusing all decisions through the lens of what's best for the community and the specific clients we serve, Silver said in an interview.
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'.
These facts are not in dispute: In a span of four years and nine months, gang member William Arnold Armendariz III shot to death five people in three separate attacks, including the slayings of three people at a Banning cemetery in August 2020 as they held a memorial birthday party for a relative. Five years before that, just after midnight on Nov. 7, 2015, Armendariz had gunned down 51-year-old Charles Neazer on 5th Street in Banning.
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.
