by Bert | May 22, 2017 | California
The Open File has taken stock of the ongoing jailhouse informant scandal surrounding the Orange County District Attorney’s office and the Orange County Sheriff’s office with some regularity over the past few years. Remarkably, the fallout continues three years after...
by Bert | Mar 2, 2017 | California
Prosecutors take note: in several recent decisions, California appeals courts have enforced rules governing prosecutors’ closing arguments. In December, Ian Hudgins received a new trial in his murder case because the California Fourth District Court of Appeal found...
by OpenFile | Feb 16, 2017 | California, The Open File Blog
Another California Court of Appeals has thrown out a murder conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument. We recently wrote about an Oakland murder conviction that the California First District Court of Appeal vacated because Alameda County...
by Bert | Feb 8, 2017 | California, The Open File Blog
At a symposium at UC Berkeley School of Law last week, keynote speaker Judge Alex Kozinski commented that the public live video streams of oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals served as a “great tool.” That observation was confirmed yesterday as the LA...
by Jane | Feb 2, 2017 | California
The California First District Court of Appeal has overturned a recent murder conviction out of Oakland in the case of DeShawn Reed, finding that prosecutors committed a host of misconduct in the case including arguing facts not in evidence and failing to correct the...
by Bert | Dec 22, 2016 | California
The long-running Orange County informant scandal has taken a sharp turn towards reform and accountability this week. Last month, we compiled coverage of a California appellate court’s decision to affirm a trial judge’s removal of the entire OCDA office from a...
