San Francisco & Bay Area Criminal Defense Lawyers

The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously this past January that attaching a GPS device to suspect’s car constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus requires a valid search warrant. The case, United States v. Jones , arose when the Washington D.C. police department installed a GPS device on Mr. Jones’ car as part of a drug trafficking investigation. They tracked his movements for almost a month, ultimately leading them to a stash house in Maryland containing nearly 100 kilos of cocaine and $1 million. A trial court convicted Jones and sentenced him to life in prison. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed, finding that the police’s gathering of evidence after its warrant for the GPS tracking device had expired violated the Fourth Amendment. Once before the Supreme Court, the justices faced the question of what constitutes reasonable privacy rights in the digital era. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia – joined by Roberts, Ke...

The Second Appellate District in California affirmed a judgment of conviction for a physician who committed fraud for knowingly billing Medi-Cal for use of an expensive and approved medical device when he instead used a cheaper device that was not approved for reimbursement.  From 2004-2006, the office of OB-GYN Eduardo Guzman billed Medi-Cal for the insertion of 176 IUDs. The billings used the precedure code designated for teh trade name "ParaGard" when in fact he used a cheaper type of IUD manufactured in Mexico. The court found the evidence at trial was sufficient to show an intent to defraud Medi-Cal. The case is: People v. Guzman , ___C.A.2nd; Dec. 12, 2011; B232299.

Conrad Murray – to be known forever as the man associated with the King of Pop’s untimely death. Despite being convicted by a jury of involuntary manslaughter, Dr. Murray may never see the inside of a state prison cell. He has the California Realignment Act of 2011 and the United States Supreme Court to thank for that bit of good news (Brown v. Plata was discussed in our last email blast). Upon his conviction for a violation of California Penal Code § 192(b), Dr. Murray faced a sentence of 2, 3, or 4 years. Prior to the passage of AB 109 (the Realignment Act of 2011), Dr. Murray would have had to serve these years in state prison pursuant to Penal Code § 193. Post-AB 109 – no longer the case. Dr. Murray, sentenced to 4 years on November 29, 2011 by the Los Angeles County judge presiding over the case, will now serve his time in a local county jail, which comes with its own benefits. California’s Prison Realignment Act of 2011, passed in order to address prison overcrowding per a ma...

Defendants who plead guilty or no contest may not challenge on appear the trial court's conclusion that a factual basis existed for a plea, according to the 6th Appellate District in California.  The court held that a criminal defendant who pleads guilty or no contest is judicially estopped from seeking substantive appellate review of guilt or innocence by challenging a trial court's conclusion that there existed a factual basis for the plea. The case is: People v. Voit, C.A. 6th; November 18, 2011; H035882.

In United States v. Gilchrist , Dwight Gilchrist filed a civil law suit against Wells Fargo Bank after they refused to recover the amount of money that was supposedly stolen from his bank account. Failure to cooperate with Wells Fargo’s investigation on his fraud claim reports prompted a FBI investigation on Gilchrist and his bank accounts. This revealed he was involved in federal embezzlement and bank fraud. He pleaded guilty to those charges and was also sentenced for “obstruction of justice” because he committed perjury during his depositions in his civil law shit against Wells Fargo Bank. On appeal, Gilchrist believed the district court erred in applying the sentence enhancement for willfully obstructing justice. He argued he was unaware that he was under a federal investigation at the time he committed perjury during his civil law suit against Wells Fargo Bank.  The court disagreed with his contention and affirmed judgment. In Gilchrist , the Ninth Circuit agrees that ...

Federal Court proceedings indicted Richard Aguirre for racketeering and conspiracy to distribute narcotics after he pleaded guilty in state court to one count of maintaining a residence for purposes of selling cocaine in People v. Aguirre. Unaware that his guilty plea would be used in Federal Court, Aguirre appealed and entered a motion to withdraw his plea. During his appeal, Aguirre stated that his plea was not “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary” because he was unaware that it might be used against him in a federal prosecution. He felt the trial court was obligated to tell him about the federal jury proceedings and that the federal indictment was a direct consequence from his plea in state court. The Second Appellate District affirmed judgment on Aguirre’s case. They were not convinced with Aguirre’s contentions and held that the trial court does not have to advise the defendant that his plea might be used in a federal prosecution. In addition, Aguirre’s argument regardi...

In People v. Scott, an anonymous informant called the Riverside Police Department to notify them about David Scott, who was strongly suspected to have been involved in the murder of Brenda Kenny. The informant was Scott’s coworker at the movie theatre and told the police that he saw Scott several times dressed in an all black “ninja” outfit with a sword and a knife— the attire described to have been worn by Kenny’s murderer. The informant also stated that Scott told him he had a dream about killing someone, which closely matched the details of Kenny’s murder that the informant read about in the newspaper. The police felt the informant was a reliable source who did not have any motive to lie. His phone message to the police led to Scott’s arrest and he was charged with murder in addition to rape and other crimes. While he denied being involved in the “ninja” crimes, he told the second interrogating officer the same dream he relayed to the informant. This was said after waiving his M...