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Anyone who is serving a long prison sentence may eventually petition the parole board for early release. There are things that can be done in advance of this important hearing starting right at sentencing so that as the parole hearing date nears, one will have more confidence in the possibilities. Prisoners will be allowed to make a statement, as will victims. While there is no real way to impact what victims may say, a petitioner can surely take steps to make a good showing. 

Showing Remorse

An important issue the parole board will be looking at is whether a prisoner’s remorse is sincere. They will expect a detailed explanation of the events leading to incarceration and will scrutinize prison conduct, including the programs and educational opportunities taken advantage of, as well as any negative incidents that occurred. This will all be indicators of personal growth, reform, and regret, or the lack thereof.

Having a Post-Release Plan

The board will also be interested to hear about intentions post-release. They will want to know whether the root causes of the criminal behavior have been examined and addressed. Their concerns will include future employment and housing plans, support networks, and the ability to avoid people and circumstances deemed dangerous to one’s ability and willingness to contribute to society while avoiding illegal entanglements. 

Victim Impact

Victims will be allowed to make statements and send letters to try to influence the board’s decision, and the impact of your crimes on victims will be weighed, in addition to any details and special circumstances relating to the crime. 

The Risk Assessment

A statistical calculation that looks at criminal history and other risk factors, such as substance abuse, education level, and job options, will be created based on all of this information. This risk assessment will use all available data to estimate the likelihood of recidivism—or reoffending. It is all thrown together to come up with a risk score to assist the parole board in balancing the value of granting early release against public safety considerations.

Following the Hearing

The parole board will consider the case in its entirety after the hearing to determine whether to grant a petition for early release. If granted, a release with severe supervision and clear expectations will follow, with total compliance expected in lieu of being returned to prison. If release is denied, reasons will be given, and reapplication may occur at a later date if certain conditions are met. Continue reading

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Following the horrific Brown University shooting spree, police quickly released photos of an individual they called a person of interest. Tips from the public led to a quick apprehension, and that man was held and released in a matter of hours. Just four days later, another video was released, with the expectation that the public could again assist law enforcement in getting in touch with this new individual, identified as a person of interest. It all resulted in lots of public dialogue about the mysterious person in the video and about what it means to be a person of interest.

Legal Terminology Worth Understanding: In terms of criminal law, most Americans are pretty well acquainted with much of the lingo thanks to the many TV shows and movies on the subject. But being aware of the language and truly understanding it can often be two very different things. Let’s take a look at some common terms used in the world of law enforcement:

  • A Person of Interest: Although it’s not a legal term, a person of interest is a casual reference to a person that law enforcement would like to talk to about the facts of a particular case. It’s a term that helps police and other law enforcement agencies to gather intelligence without the need to formally accuse that person. Additionally, police do not need probable cause, which is required to make an arrest. Eventually, that person may have information relevant to the case and might later become a witness, an accomplice, or a suspect.
  • An Accomplice: An accomplice to a crime is a person who intentionally aids and abets someone else in committing a crime. Generally speaking, the accomplice can be held liable for the crime even if they were not directly involved, which means they could wind up with the same punishments as the principal in the crime.
  • The Principals: The principal in the first degree is the person who actually committed the crime, while any accomplices who assisted or who were present are called principals in the second degree.
  • The Suspect: A suspect, unlike a person of interest, is someone who is believed to be guilty of a crime based on evidence collected by law enforcement. Typically, police have reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect is the person responsible for the crime, even if they do not yet have enough to formally charge that person.
  • Unsub: Unsub is another informal term that is shorthand for “unidentified subject.” It denotes a perpetrator of a crime whose identity remains unknown.
  • Perp: A perp is the person who actually committed the crime—short for perpetrator.

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2024 is a big election year, so it is surprising to some that there are still so many questions about the voting laws here in the Golden State. The qualifications to vote are clearly outlined by the ACLU: 

  • You must be a citizen of the United States.
  • You have to be at least 18 to vote, although you can pre-register to vote at age 16 or 17.
  • You cannot be currently deemed mentally incompetent by a court.
  • You cannot currently be in either a federal or state prison on a felony conviction.

Students and Those Living Abroad 

Students or any Californians living away from their traditional homes can register to vote either at their usual home address in California or at the address considered to be their current primary residence.

When in Jail 

If you are incarcerated in a California jail on a misdemeanor or are in jail unable to make bail, you are allowed to vote. Make sure you are registered and request an absentee ballot from the county elections office near you.

Convicted Felons

Once you are out of prison, you are automatically entitled to vote, with no action required to regain your voting rights. This is true even for individuals who are serving post-release supervision or probation.

What About Unsheltered Individuals?

For those experiencing homelessness, registration may occur using the location where the person usually resides. It could be a park, street corner, or shelter. The address of a shelter or outreach center is a good one to use because such locations will generally be able to accept election materials on behalf of the unhoused.

Can I Vote by Mail?

Yes, and you can send it through the normal mail service or put it in an election drop box. Someone else is allowed to drop off your ballot on your behalf as long as they are not being paid for the service. Just make sure you fill out the section on your ballot envelope authorizing someone else to drop it off.

Early Ballots

If you are registered, you can vote by mail or vote in person at an early voting location in some counties.

Voting on Election Day

Election day is the second Tuesday in November, and polls are open for 13 hours, from 7:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the evening. If you are in line by 7:00, you will be allowed to vote, even if you do not get to the ballot box until after 8:00. You must go to the voting location to which you are assigned, which your county elections office can help you determine.

What if My English is Limited?

Some counties provide facsimile or translated ballots in other languages on request. Contact the county clerk in your area prior to election day to see what’s available.  You are also allowed to bring an interpreter with you unless the person is your employer or their agent or an agent or officer from your labor union. Continue reading

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$1.7 billion: That is how much money seniors aged 60+ lost in scams last year. What is behind the surge in fraudulent cons targeting senior citizens, and how can they protect themselves better? On the other side of the question, what should someone charged with elder fraud do? 

The What and the Why

What, exactly, is elder fraud? It is any kind of scam that exploits older people in an attempt to get a hold of their money. It can involve promises of goods and services, cons to get them to help someone in need, identity theft, and more. The elderly are especially delicious targets for unscrupulous scammers for a number of reasons:

  • They are more trusting in general, especially in the wake of promises from those who assert they are working in the senior’s best interests;
  • They frequently have large savings accounts or own items of value;
  • Some have cognitive issues that interfere with their judgment;
  • Many are afraid to report crimes after the fact, worried they’ll be viewed as foolish or incompetent.
  • They are less proficient with technology, generally speaking.

Common Scams

There are a number of popular scams out there; here are just a few to watch out for:

  • Grandparent Scam: A caller claims to be a grandchild in trouble and asks for money to help them out of a pickle.
  • Government Worker Imposter Scams: Callers claim to be working for the IRS or some other government agency and are verifying (stealing) personal information.
  • Fake Investments: Callers claim to have a fabulous investment opportunity, only to disappear with the money. It could be a false charity, a Ponzi scheme, or any number of scams promising returns that seem too good to be true (and are)!
  • Tech Support Scams: Computer screens scream virus attacks, only to get personal information and/or remote access to one’s computer.
  • Sweepstakes and Lottery Scams: After claiming the elder has won a huge prize, scammers get their hands on banking information in order to transfer winnings.  Surprise—fraudsters clear out accounts this way.
  • Love Scams: Pretending to be a great catch who is totally devoted, this scammer gains the affection and confidence of prey and ultimately “borrows” money.
  • Funeral Scams: Fraudsters find out where funerals are being held and show up, claiming the deceased owes them money, which the family is now responsible for.

Protecting Seniors from Scams

There is no sure-fire way to protect oneself from scammers, but there are ways to minimize the risk:

  • Be suspicious of anyone who wants money or personal information.
  • Purchase antivirus software.
  • Never give money to someone you do not know.
  • Refrain from making impulsive decisions when you are not 100% sure who you are dealing with.
  • If you are suspicious, check the facts by looking up the number and making a call to the real phone number of the agency.
  • Have accounts monitored.
  • Keep lines of communication open with trusted family and friends.

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Carjacking is a crime in the state of California. It is defined, essentially, as one party using force or threats to take another’s automobile. The penalties for a carjacking conviction can be quite serious. As a felony offense, carjacking can come with many years behind bars. One’s sentence could be as high as nine years. This is why it is critical that when you are arrested for carjacking, you have an experienced and tactical attorney on your side protecting your rights and interests.

David M. Boertje is a San Diego theft crime defense lawyer who has extensive experience providing effective criminal legal defense services to individuals charged with various crimes, including carjacking. The outcome of your case will be heavily impacted by the quality of your legal representation. At the Law Offices of David M. Boertje, building persuasive and compelling legal defenses and providing the highest quality legal counsel for individuals who find themselves facing criminal charges is our focus and objective.

Implications of Carjacking in California

When one party uses force or fear to take a motor vehicle that does not belong to them from another party, against the will of that other party, this is considered the criminal act of carjacking. The party attempting to forcefully steal a car from another party does not even have to be successful to face criminal charges. Even an attempt to engage in such conduct can result in an arrest.

Let’s say you open a car door with someone inside. You try to get them out of the car but they are quick enough to put their foot on the gas and evade you. Should an officer see this scenario, you will be arrested for attempted carjacking. Attempted carjacking has its own penalties with respect to the amount of jail time you could face.

Should you be successful with your carjacking attempt and you take off in another party’s car but there is a passenger in that car, you may also be looking at kidnapping charges. The penalties here are even more severe. Under California’s kidnapping laws individuals who are convicted of this crime are looking at a life sentence in state prison with the possibility of parole.

Ultimately, the extent of the punishment will come down to the details of the crime and the judge’s discretion. The best approach in these situations is to work with an attorney who knows the law, how to protect your rights, and the best way to put together a believable defense that can convince a jury to have doubt about your guilt. If your attorney can accomplish this, that is, put uncertainty into the minds of the jury hearing your case, then you may be able to avoid a conviction. Continue reading

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Being arrested for a crime is a distressing situation for anyone. This is particularly true if the crime you have been arrested for is one you did not commit and you were the victim of mistaken identity. There are several examples of innocent people who have been arrested and convicted of crimes that they did not carry out. According to the Innocence Project, of all the wrongful convictions that happen across the country, mistaken identity is the leading cause of these injustices taking place.

After an arrest, it is recommended to get in touch with an experienced and seasoned attorney to have your rights protected. In San Diego, David M. Boertje is a San Diego criminal defense attorney who has your best interests in mind and can provide effective legal representation to help you secure the most favorable outcome for your case.

How Can You Fight Mistaken Identity?

Mistaken identity is responsible for approximately 70% of wrongful convictions. There are several ways that mistaken identity situations can arise.

Errors Made by Police

If the police suspect you are responsible for committing a crime they are going to question you. In doing so, they may employ various tactics to get you to say things that are self-incriminating. Or, the police may use similar methods when they speak to witnesses that motivate those individuals to make false testimony against you.

Errors Made by Eyewitnesses

In the absence of provocation by law enforcement, a person who was a witness to a crime can still make mistakes. This could happen from personal bias or from other issues with memory related to the event.

If you have been wrongly identified as the individual that committed a crime, it is important to get to work on building your defense and finding evidence that shows you were uninvolved with the incident in question. The good news is that there are a couple of things that your San Diego criminal defense attorney can look into to help you overcome your charges.

Once the 1990s began the technology available to forensic investigators made identification much more accurate. DNA testing can be a powerful tool to help those who are wrongly accused prove their innocence. This is one approach to fighting against mistaken identity. 

Another useful defense is if you have a solid alibi, meaning that if you can prove you were somewhere other than the location of the crime scene when the incident took place, this can show that you were not the perpetrator of the crime. Continue reading

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Scott Peterson became a well-known name when he was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci in 2002. He was facing the death penalty for the murder. Recently, the California Supreme Court overturned his death penalty sentence. According to Justice Leondra Kruger, the trial judge dismissed jurors who were opposed to capital punishment. Discharging prospective jurors was not the right course of action. What should have happened is that these individuals should have been questioned further on their views.

 

The highest court in the state still maintained the guilty verdict of Peterson’s trial and indicated that prosecutors retained the ability to retry him for the death penalty. Not only did Peterson bring up the unfair removal of some jurors, but he also said that the immense amount of publicity that was put on his case before he went to trial precluded fairness. His trial was actually moved to San Mateo County because a judge said that there was no way he could see a fair trial if it took place in Modesto. Peterson’s lawyer said that there still was no fairness in San Mateo County, where a substantial number of jurors interviewed said that they believed he was guilty. For this reason, his trial should have been moved again to an area where there was not such rampant bias.

 

Despite the arguments surrounding the trial’s publicity, the court said that it would be difficult to find an area that had not already heard about the case so continually moving it would not have made a difference. The amount of attention that Peterson’s trial received was on the level of O.J. Simpson and the Manson family. 

 

Prosecutors are determining what course of action to take. They have not come to a decision on whether they will try him again for the death penalty or just allow him to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. One of the considerations that is going to factor into their decision will be the opinions of Laci’s family.

 

The Disappearance of Laci Peterson

 

Laci Peterson was 27 and only a month away from her due date when she went missing on Christmas Eve. According to Scott Peterson, he was fishing in Berkeley at the time of her disappearance. A search for her went on for four months, until a portion of her body and that of her unborn son was spotted by a passerby who was out on a walk. They were found on the rocky shore only a few miles from the location Scott Peterson said he was fishing. Laci’s family was supportive of Scott initially, not suspecting him. But when his mistress, Amber Frey came forward and admitted that she was dating him, that changed. Scott appeared to try to flee but authorities found him in San Diego county with bleached hair and $15,000, where they arrested him.

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This post is a continuing series on what to expect following a felony arrest in California. The first two posts reviewed the pre-investigation and arrest phases. The next step is the arraignment and bail phase or custody determination.

Step 3: Arraignment and Bail

After arrest and booking, an accused person is brought before a Superior Court Judge for an arraignment. An arraignment is the accused person’s initial appearance in court and must occur within 24 hours of the person’s arrest. During the arraignment, the accused person learns of the charges filed against him or her by the prosecution. The accused person is read his or her rights and enters a plea or answer to the charges levied a by stating the words, “not guilty” or “guilty” when asked to answer.

Once the charges are levied and a plea entered, a custody determination is made. Usually, people are asked to pay bail or post a bond. In California bail amounts are determined annually by a schedule and set by each county. Click here for the 2018 San Diego County Bail Schedule. The purpose of a custody determination hearing is to assess whether the accused person is a flight risk. Bail is insurance to make sure the accused person returns to court on future dates. The amount of bail is determined by the seriousness of the crime, ties to the community, and prior criminal record, among other factors. The accused person will be asked to pay a certain amount of money or be released on his or her own recognizance for no money.

Bond Explained

If the accused person cannot pay the entire bail amount, he or she may seek the services of a bail bondsperson. Bail bondspersons post or pay the entire bail amount for the accused person and typically charge 10% of the bail amount as a fee for providing bond services to the accused person. The charge is also their fee and is generally not refunded, even if the underlying criminal case results in a dismissal. If you fail to appear as directed by the court at any future court date, all of the bail amount may be forfeited and you may be remanded into custody during the pendency of the criminal action.

Bounding Over

Arraignments are handled by any judge in any criminal court. If the accused person is before a lower court judge at time of arraignment and is being charged with a felony or the misdemeanor charge is upgraded to a felony charge, the case will be “bound over” to the Superior Court for a felony arraignment. A plea is entered again and there is an opportunity to review the initial custody determination. The bail amount may be increased or decreased depending on the circumstances of the case or any new developments that come to light after the first arraignment.

If you have not hired a lawyer before your arraignment, the court will provide you with an opportunity to obtain counsel before your next court date. Continue reading

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An investigation into voter fraud by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office has caught the attention of the California State Attorney General’s Office for possible voter intimidation.  According to the ABC affiliate KDRV, about a week before the primary, deputies went door-to-door with loaded rifles to the homes of Asian Americans of Hmong descent threatening them with arrest for voter fraud. The county sheriff claimed that 200 voter applications looked questionable, so deputies and state investigators went to the listed addresses on the applications.  Specifically, due to poverty, many Hmong families live in the same dwelling as other families to be able to make ends meet. That makes it look like there may be a conflict in voter registration addresses.

Hmong communities have historically been the most marginalized and impoverished Asian American community in the nation. The Hmong were key allies with the CIA against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong during the Vietnam war. After the fall of Saigon, many of them were evacuated to the states, mainly central California.

Because of the door-to-door threat of arrest, many stayed home and did not vote. Immigrants who were intimidated fear deportation back to a country that wants them dead.

What is Voter Intimidation?

In what could only be described as the most divisive election in American history, voter intimidation of low-income and minority voters has been on the rise. Voter intimidation can generally be described as trying to coerce or scare someone to abstain from voting, or to vote a certain way. For example, in Virginia, it has been reported that armed militia men standing outside voting booths harassing Democratic voters may be voter intimidation. Other more institutional forms of voter intimidation include police threats of arresting people who have unpaid parking tickets, or misleading robocalls in African-American communities telling them they did not need to vote.

Yes, Voter Intimidation is a Felony

Voter intimidation in any state is a felony. Numerous federal laws prohibit voter intimidation by government officials and by private actors and in most states, those laws are reinforced by state laws prohibiting voter intimidation. Federal law prohibits government actors from discriminating against voters based on race, ethnicity, or religion. However, there is no bright line to distinguish between legitimate poll watching activities and outright voter intimidation at the polls.

Other Relevant Laws for the Election

While every person should be able to exercise his or her civic duty to vote, Californians cannot take a ballot selfie on November 8. While Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law last month making it legal, it will not be legal in time for this election. Continue reading

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In Orange County, California, it is reported that the traffic light at Katella Avenue and Bloomfield Street in Los Alamitos switched from yellow to red faster than state law allows, likely causing hundreds of camera-generated tickets to be issued incorrectly, at about $500 apiece. This occurred over a 10-month period. It is an issue because the camera at the intersection photographs drivers that do not make the red light. Los Alamitos’ city manager says that about 1,000 tickets were issued at the intersection in question. At least 19 of those tickets have been tossed out of court.

It was reported last year, that the number of red light cameras being used are surprisingly declining across Southern California and most of the country.  In California, 60 cities and counties have ended red-light camera programs. In Orange County, only two cities left are using them – Los Alamitos and Garden Grove. It is cited that declining revenues, a non-supportive court system, and the increasing number of accidents are the main reason many cities have ended their red light camera programs in recent years. Interviewed city traffic engineers claim that photo enforcement is actually causing more rear-end accidents because people are scared when they see a yellow light at an intersection with cameras.

El Cajon and San Diego suspended their red light camera programs back in 2014, and the LAPD in Los Angeles discontinued their program effective July 11, 2011. California hands out harsher penalties than most states for red-light violations – from $490 to $554 when traffic school fees are included – and considers the ticket to be a moving violation.

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