RIVERSIDE — A judge has ruled California’s law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives was passed legitimately during a special session of the Legislature, dampening a long-running criticism by opponents who sued over the measure. A Riverside Superior Court judge also found this week that the doctors who...
LA Repeals Requirements for Contractors to Reveal NRA Ties
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council is repealing a law requiring companies that want city contracts to disclose whether they have ties to the National Rifle Association, weeks after a federal judge blocked the city from enforcing the ordinance. Council members voted 12-0 without discussion Tuesday to roll...
California Justices Reject Law Requiring Trump Tax Returns
LOS ANGELES — President Donald Trump does not have to disclose his tax returns to appear as a candidate on California’s primary ballot next spring, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The court said the law, the first of its kind in the nation and aimed squarely at Trump,...
Fresno Judge Is Latest to Rule New Murder Law Unconstitutional
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Brian Alvarez has ruled that a change made by the Legislature to the state's felony murder law is unconstitutional. His ruling adds to the growing divide about whether SB 1437, which was signed into law last year by Gov. Jerry Brown, violates the state constitution....
Judge Blocks California’s High-Capacity Ammunition Ban
SACRAMENTO — High-capacity gun magazines will remain legal in California under a ruling Friday by a federal judge who cited home invasions where a woman used the extra bullets in her weapon to kill an attacker while in two other cases women without additional ammunition ran out of bullets. “Individual...
Universal Service Will Put the ‘Us’ Back in USA
“The President of The United States, Greeting: YOUR NAME HERE You are hereby ordered to report for induction into the ARMED FORCES of the UNITED STATES. …” — Draft notice salutation, circa 1968 U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller in Houston recently ruled the Selective Service System's men-only registration unconstitutional....
Firm Sues California Over Ban on Private Prisons
SAN DIEGO — A private prison firm that just won multibillion-dollar contracts to run federal immigration detention centers in California sued the state on Monday, claiming that a new ban on for-profit lockups in California is unconstitutional. The GEO Group, Inc., argued in the federal suit that Assembly Bill 32,...
California Court Reverses Ruling Against Assisted Suicide
LOS ANGELES — A California appeals court overturned a lower court order that had imperiled the state's assisted suicide law, but a longer legal fight may loom because the ruling skirted the larger issue of whether the legislation was unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeals...
Court Strikes Down Trump Push To Cut 'Sanctuary City' Funds
SAN FRANCISCO — A divided U.S. appeals court on Wednesday struck down a key part of President Donald Trump's contentious effort to crack down on cities and states that limit cooperation with immigration officials, saying an executive order threatening to cut funding for "sanctuary cities" was unconstitutional. In a 2-1...