Donald Richard Wright

In Baker v. Wadsworth, three boilermakers employed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power refused to cross a union picket line at their workplace and were terminated after seven consecutive days of unauthorized absence under Civil Service Commission Rule 7.2, which treats such absence as resignation unless proven excusable. The employees had been warned that their actions constituted an unlawful secondary boycott, were offered a separate gate to return to work, and rejected assignments even after the picket line ended. They petitioned for a writ of mandate to overturn the terminations and restore seniority rights, but the trial court denied the petition, and the appellate court reviewed the denial based on the facts that the absences were not excused and the rule was properly applied. The core reasoning centered on the employees' awareness of the rule, the lack of any labor dispute with their own employer, and the distinction from protected primary strikes.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case concerned a 14-year-old minor, Donnie, who was the subject of a juvenile court petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 alleging murder and assault with a deadly weapon after two young children in his temporary care were found injured, one fatally. Following an initial adjudication hearing before a referee and a rehearing before the juvenile court judge, the court dismissed the section 602 allegations, added a new allegation under section 601 that the minor was in danger of leading an idle, dissolute, lewd, or immoral life, sustained that allegation based on the incidents, declared the minor a ward of the court, and ordered suitable placement. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from the placement order as not separately appealable and reversed the judgment declaring the minor a ward under section 601.

criminal lawprocedurefamily law

In People v. Smith, defendant Ernest Smith was charged with the murder of Louis Michael Turpin under Penal Code section 187 and, after a bench trial, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to state prison. The main issue on appeal was whether the trial court erred by allowing a key prosecution witness's preliminary hearing testimony to be read into the record at trial, allegedly violating the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confrontation because the prosecution failed to show the witness was unavailable. The court examined the prosecution's efforts, including multiple police investigations in Pasadena and San Francisco, contacts with parole officers and the Youth Authority, and inquiries in Texas, and concluded these constituted a good-faith effort to secure the witness's presence under Barber v. Page and related U.S. Supreme Court precedents. It therefore held that admission of the former testimony was proper and affirmed the judgment.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved the County of Los Angeles suing Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company to recover unpaid property taxes on an apartment building planned for conversion to condominiums, based on a surety bond required by Business and Professions Code section 11601 as a condition for recording the final tract map. The trial court granted summary judgment for the county, but Hartford appealed on the ground that liability on the bond required the actual sale of at least one condominium unit. The court noted that the bond's statutory purpose is to protect individual lots or units from a blanket tax lien for the year the map is recorded. It reasoned that, unlike a standard subdivision where recording automatically creates separate assessable lots, a condominium project under Civil Code sections 783 and 1350 does not create separate units until at least one is sold, so the bond's protective purpose never arose and the surety had no liability.

propertytaxesbusiness & regulatory

The case involved appellants Jake Orlando Ortega and Floyd Dan Rodriguez, who were jointly tried and convicted by a jury of first-degree robbery under Penal Code section 211, with findings that they were armed with deadly weapons during the offense. The prosecution presented evidence of the June 1968 robbery of a delicatessen, including victim identification of the defendants and recovered items like marked coins and a wallet matching the victim's, along with weapons found in their vehicle the next day. The defendants raised defenses of alibi and denial, challenged the denial of their severance motions, and contested certain jury instructions and evidentiary rulings on appeal from their convictions and sentences. The court affirmed the judgments, finding sufficient evidence supported the identifications and verdicts, the joint trial was proper, and the jury instructions and cross-examination were not prejudicial error.

criminal law

The case involved appellant Charles Gene Mack, who was convicted of grand theft and second-degree burglary after waiving a jury trial; the convictions stemmed from a break-in at a trucking business and a nearby service station where stolen items including a battery charger and hydraulic motors were found in his car along with a matching screwdriver. The trial court denied his motion for a new trial and committed him to the Youth Authority on both counts to run concurrently. On appeal, Mack challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and argued that the dual commitment violated Penal Code section 654's prohibition on multiple punishments. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that circumstantial evidence such as the items in the vehicle, paint matching, and pry mark analysis supported the convictions despite contrary testimony from Mack, his wife, and his cousin. It further ruled that Youth Authority commitments are rehabilitative rather than punitive, so they do not trigger section 654, though the issue could be raised later if the Authority returned Mack to court.

criminal lawprocedure

In People v. Wright, the defendant was charged with possession of marijuana for sale after an undercover purchase by a police agent, but the trial court dismissed the information under Penal Code section 995 due to a five-month delay between the offense and arrest, which it found violated the right to a speedy trial. The Court of Appeal reversed the dismissal. The court reasoned that section 995 allows dismissal only if the defendant was not legally committed by the magistrate, which can include denial of a substantial right like due process from prejudicial delay, but here the delay served the legitimate purpose of protecting the undercover agent's identity during ongoing operations and the defendant made no showing of prejudice such as inability to recall events or defend against misidentification. The court further held that no fixed time limit applies to arrests short of the statute of limitations and that balancing public interests against individual rights favored the prosecution absent evidence of unfairness.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a challenge by distant relatives seeking to invalidate an amended birth certificate naming William A. Poff as the father of Bill Earl Poff. The certificate had been issued by the state after an affidavit was filed and following a probate court order in the estate of Poff's sister that found Bill to be Poff's legitimate son. The trial court denied mandamus relief, concluding that while the original affidavit process was flawed, the probate order qualified as a judicial decree establishing paternity under Health and Safety Code section 10450. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the probate findings and their affirmance on appeal satisfied the statute's requirements for issuing an amended birth certificate, making further correction unnecessary.

family lawprocedure

In People v. Stewart, the defendant pleaded guilty to one count of robbery, after which he was granted immunity under Penal Code section 1324 to compel his testimony against his codefendant. The trial court later sentenced him on the robbery conviction based on that plea and dismissed the remaining charges. The defendant appealed, contending that the immunity precluded imposition of sentence. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment and sentence, reasoning that the punishment stemmed solely from the voluntary guilty plea—which admitted every element of the offense and fell outside the statute's protection—rather than from any compelled testimony, and that no promises of leniency had been made to the defendant.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a nine-year-old pedestrian struck by a southbound vehicle while crossing a marked crosswalk on Orange Avenue in Long Beach; the plaintiff sued the driver for personal injuries arising from the November 1965 collision. The trial court entered judgment for the defendant after refusing a last-clear-chance instruction and giving an instruction based on Vehicle Code section 21950(b). On appeal the court reversed and remanded, holding that the evidence, viewed most favorably to the doctrine, could support findings that the plaintiff was in a position of danger from which he could not escape, that the defendant knew or should have known of that inability, and that the defendant thereafter had a last clear chance to avoid the accident. The court further held that the section 21950(b) instruction was inappropriate because the facts did not show the plaintiff suddenly leaving a place of safety into the immediate path of a vehicle.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved the conviction of Michael Ray Morrow on three counts of first-degree robbery while armed with a gun, following a jury trial and a court finding of not guilty on a fourth count. The defendant appealed, contending that pretrial lineup identifications were improperly admitted because he lacked counsel at the lineup and that subsequent in-court identifications were tainted by the lineup. The court dismissed the appeals from the denial of the new trial motion and the motion to suppress in-court identifications as nonappealable, found that the lineup was conducted fairly without taint, noted that no timely objection was raised at trial regarding the absence of counsel, and affirmed the convictions with modifications to the judgment to specify that the defendant was armed with a gun and to clarify the inapplicability of certain sentencing enhancements.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a driver arrested for DUI who refused to submit to any chemical sobriety test after being advised of the implied consent requirements under Vehicle Code section 13353, leading the DMV to suspend his license for six months following an administrative hearing. The petitioner sought a writ of mandamus to overturn the suspension, arguing that the hearing officer lacked proper qualifications, that he was not adequately advised of rights to counsel or medical advice before choosing a test, and that delayed access to a phone call violated due process by preventing him from consulting an attorney. The court affirmed the suspension, holding that Vehicle Code procedures governed the DMV hearing rather than the Administrative Procedure Act, that the officer's advisements were sufficient, and that the refusal occurred before any phone delay and was not excused by it. The decision emphasized the need for prompt testing to avoid suppression of evidence of intoxication.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved appellants Billy G. Chambers and Thomas H. Oxenreider, who were charged with multiple counts of burglary and grand theft following a series of residential burglaries in the East San Gabriel Valley area in 1967. After a bench trial, they were convicted on three counts, with prior felony convictions found true, and sentenced to prison terms, though the grand theft sentence was stayed. On appeal, the court rejected challenges to the validity of their arrests and warrantless searches of residences, holding that consent was voluntarily given by occupants and that officers' observations provided probable cause. The court also upheld the admission of a confession obtained after an initial Miranda invocation because questioning had properly ceased and was not renewed coercively, found no evidence that a witness's testimony was coerced after immunity was granted, and determined there was no improper multiple punishment since the theft sentence was stayed permanently. The judgments were affirmed.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved the appeal of David Morris Vessell’s convictions for robbery under Penal Code section 211 and assault with a deadly weapon under section 245, stemming from an armed robbery of a restaurant where a manager was grazed by a bullet. The defendant moved to suppress identification evidence from photo arrays and a police lineup conducted without counsel, arguing violations of constitutional rights, and also contended that the judgment’s recitation that he was armed subjected him to double punishment under Penal Code section 654. The trial court denied the suppression motion after a hearing, and the jury convicted the defendant, finding the robbery to be in the first degree and that he was armed. On appeal, the court held that the identification procedures were not unduly suggestive and that the witnesses’ identifications were reliable and independent, so the evidence was properly admitted. The court affirmed the convictions but remanded for resentencing to modify the judgment to reflect that certain enhancement provisions were inapplicable while specifying the nature of the weapon, consistent with People v. Floyd.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved defendant Mary Gonsalves's conviction for possessing heroin for sale under Health and Safety Code section 11500.5, following a police search of her residence that uncovered the drugs and her subsequent confession claiming ownership. She appealed the judgment, arguing that her confession was involuntary and should have been excluded because officers made statements about endangering children present and the possibility of additional charges, which she claimed pressured her into confessing to protect family members from arrest. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the officers' comments were not coercive threats intended to elicit a confession but rather factual observations about the children's welfare, and that a defendant's desire to exonerate others does not render a confession involuntary as a matter of law when there is no evidence of improper police conduct. The trial court's finding that the confession was voluntary was upheld based on the officers' testimony that no threats were made conditioning arrest on someone claiming the drugs.

criminal lawprocedure

This case was an appeal by the plaintiffs from a defense judgment in a strict products liability action against Ford Motor Company and a dealer, arising from a car accident allegedly caused by a defective braking system in a 1958 Ford. After a prior reversal by the state Supreme Court, the retrial was limited to strict liability claims, and the trial court refused two jury instructions requested by the plaintiffs—one modeled on res ipsa loquitur to infer a defect from the accident, and another stating that the vehicle was used as intended. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, holding that res ipsa loquitur principles do not apply to strict liability cases because they would improperly shift the burden of proof to defendants and that whether the car was used as intended is a factual question for the jury, not a matter of law.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved United Bonding Insurance Company's appeal from the denial of its motion to set aside the forfeiture of an $11,000 bail bond it had posted for defendant Carlos Cuevas in a criminal case under Health and Safety Code section 11500.5. After Cuevas failed to appear for a scheduled hearing on August 21, 1967, the trial court ordered the bail forfeited and issued a bench warrant, though it later recalled the warrant and permitted Cuevas to remain free on the existing bond following representations by counsel and without imposing new bail. Cuevas again failed to appear on September 22, 1967, leading to another bench warrant, and United's subsequent motion to vacate the forfeiture was denied. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the initial forfeiture order was valid under Penal Code section 1305 because Cuevas had no sufficient excuse for nonappearance, that the court's actions did not substantially interfere with the surety's contractual rights or increase its assumed risk, and that United remained liable for the defendant's appearance.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a defendant charged with driving under the influence who sought to suppress evidence from field sobriety tests administered at the scene, arguing violations of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The municipal court denied the motion to suppress, the superior court denied a writ of prohibition, and the appellate court affirmed that order. The court reasoned that the field sobriety tests produced physical evidence rather than testimonial communications, thus falling outside Fifth Amendment protections as established in cases like Schmerber v. California. It further held that the right to counsel does not extend to such pre-arrest physical tests, analogous to the lack of counsel requirement for implied consent chemical tests under Vehicle Code section 13353.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a defendant charged with selling marijuana to a minor and related drug possession offenses under Health and Safety Code sections. After waiving a jury trial and submitting the matter on the preliminary hearing transcript, the defendant was convicted of transporting or selling marijuana as a lesser included offense, probation was denied following a diagnostic study, and he was sentenced to state prison while other counts were dismissed. The defendant appealed, contending that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing probation. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, reasoning that probation is an act of grace within the court's discretion, which may consider the defendant's record, case facts, probation report, and Department of Corrections diagnostic recommendation, with no clear abuse shown here.

criminal law

The case was an inverse condemnation action by property owners against a railroad company and the City of Los Angeles arising from the 1959 closure of a railroad grade crossing at Vaughn Street that had provided access from their industrial property to San Fernando Road. The trial court ruled for the defendants on the legal issues after a bifurcated proceeding, finding no compensable taking, and the appellate court affirmed the judgment without reaching damages. The core reasoning was that the crossing had never been fully authorized or improved as a public street, the plaintiffs retained reasonable alternative access via a new crossing opened about 1,444 feet away at Paxton Street, and the facts did not establish a substantial impairment of access under California inverse condemnation precedents. Evidentiary rulings excluding certain expert testimony and internal railroad documents were also upheld as proper.

propertyprocedure