San Francisco & Bay Area Criminal Defense Lawyers

This case held that: If the trial court fails to advise a defendant of immigration consequences, the defendant may seek to withdraw his plea pursuant to Penal Code section 1016.5, subdivision (b). In 1988, appellant, a non-citizen, was convicted of felony drug offenses and granted probation with a condition requiring him to serve a jail sentence. In 1995, he was deported but returned illegally in 1987, and in 2008, he filed a motion pursuant to section 1016.5, subdivision (b) to vacate judgment and withdraw his guilty pleas. The trial court denied the motion. The denial was affirmed. To prevail on a section 1016.5, subdivision (b) motion, a defendant must establish that he was not properly advised of immigration consequences as provided by statute. Because the trial court properly advised appellant of immigration consequences when it accepted his pleas, appellant’s statutory claim was found to be without merit. People v. Limon , District: 5 DCA , Case #: F056907 Opinion Date: 12/1...

Broadcom Corp's former chief executive and financial officers won dismissal of criminal charges over stock-option backdating after a federal judge found that prosecutors had intimidated three critical witnesses. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, at a hearing in federal court in Santa Ana, ended the trial of former finance chief William Ruehle and threw out the charges against former CEO and co-founder Henry Nicholas, who was scheduled to go trial in February. Judge Carney also dismissed the SEC complaint filed against four Broadcom executives. This came after Judge Carney vacated a guilty plea by former by Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli in the same case after hearing him testify for two days last week as a defense witness for Ruehle under a grant of immunity. Judge Carney found that prosecutors tried to prevent three key defense witnesses from testifying, improperly contacted attorneys for defense witnesses and leaked information about grand jury proceedings to the media. R...

In People v. Rios , the California Court of Appeals held that where a defendant impliedly waived his rights to silence and counsel, subsequent admissions were admissible. In that case, Defendant Rios was arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car. He was advised of his Miranda rights by a deputy, who did not ask for a waiver. The deputy then left the patrol car for 5 to 10 minutes. When he returned, he questioned Rios, who then made incriminating statements. The trial court found that Rios had been properly advised of and waived his Miranda rights, and denied the defendant's motion to exclude the statements. On appeal from his subsequent conviction, Rios contended that admission of the statements was reversible error because the prosecution failed to show that he waived his rights to silence and to counsel. He argued that the deputy's interrogation technique of not soliciting a waiver of rights was similar to the tactics disallowed by J. Souter's plurality opini...

In United States v. Ruckes , the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals upheld the admissibility of drug and firearm evidence in a case where law enforcement conducted an illegal search of a vehicle under the doctrine of inevitable discovery. The Court followed the recent Supreme Court decision of Arizona v. Gant, which limits searches of automobiles, pursuant to the driver’s arrest, to situations where the driver is “unsecured and within reaching distance” of the interior of the car at the time of the search or where it is reasonable to expect evidence related to the crime underlying the arrest might be found in the vehicle. In Ruckes , the driver was arrested for driving without a license and secured in the back of a patrol vehicle. The Court found that since no evidence related to unlawful driving might be found in the car, and since Mr. Ruckes posed no danger of getting a weapon from the car at the time of the search, the search would otherwise be illegal under the Gant decision. However,...

Last Thursday, the California Supreme Court ruled that positioning a uniformed deputy next to a testifying criminal defendant isn't inherently prejudicial. Justice Carol Corrigan wrote that "jurors may view the sight of an officer accompanying the defendant to the witness stand as nothing more than a routine measure." On the dissent, Justice Carlos Moreno, joined by Justice Joyce Kennard, said that such an act posed a "serious risk" to an individual's right to a fair trial. This case occurred in Alameda County, when the trial judge directed a deputy to stand at a defendant's side as he testified on his own behalf in a rape trial. The defense argued that this was akin to a "human shackle" unjustified by good cause. Nonetheless, the majority of the Court held that the presence of a deputy "does not directly impair the accused's mobility, nor does it create the affront to human dignity that we have lamented in the context of visible shack...

Taking effect on November 1, 2009, the U.S. Sentencing Commission has made several changes to the federal Sentencing Guidelines in a number of ways relating to sex crimes . The amendments address an enhancement for undue influence of a minor as well as changes to the child pornography and human trafficking guidelines. Undue Influence Amendments §2A3.2 (Criminal Sexual Abuse of a Minor Under the Age of Sixteen Years (Statutory Rape) or Attempt to Commit Such Acts) and §2G1.3 (Promoting a Commercial Sex Act of Prohibited Sexual Conduct with a Minor; Transportation of Minors to Engage in a Commercial Sex Act or Prohibited Sexual Conduct; Travel to Engage in Commercial Sex Act or Prohibited Sexual Conduct with a Minor; Sex Trafficking of Children; Use of Interstate Facilities to Transport Information about a Minor) each contain an enhancement for undue influence where “a participant otherwise unduly influences the minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct.” Two issues have arisen invol...

In the highly-publicized trial of former BART police officer accused of murdering Oakland resident Oscar Grant, the defense's motion to have the trial moved out of Alameda County has been granted. Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson ruled that the defense had shown that Johannes Mehserle could not get a fair trial in Alameda County for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant on the platform of BART's Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year's Day. A hearing is to be held to determine where the trial should be held. In support of his ruling, Judge Jacobson wrote that: "The incident is viewed by many as being a case about race relations between the police and minority communities . . . In essence, this case is an allegation of murder under color of law, inseparably entwined with a broad-scale political controversy." The centerpiece of the defense's argument to move the trial was a telephone survey it commissioned of 397 Alameda County residents. It found that 9...