Legal News
Myriad new state laws focus on child protection
There is a definite focus on vulnerability in several new California laws that were passed last year and took legal effect on January 1. We are confident that our readers across Southern California will routinely applaud that focus and attendant effort of state legislators to protect individuals who are at the greatest risk of being…
Read MoreSex offenders targeting children: a documentary look at Hollywood
Filmmakers in Los Angeles have examined virtually every conceivable subject under the sun over the years, with no topic seemingly being taboo. And now the focus has in a very literal sense turned in on Hollywood and the movie industry itself, and in a manner that is anything but salutary or self-congratulatory. The subject matter…
Read MoreSoon to be visited: California’s time bar on certain sex crimes
It’s likely hard — in fact, insuperably difficult — for readers of our blog to contemplate what goes through the mind of a victim of sexual assault, unless, of course, they have been victimized themselves. For purposes of today’s post, we focus on the aftermath of such heinous behavior, specifically, the inability of a victim…
Read MoreCalifornia policy change on sex-offender housing, Part 2
Whither Jessica’s Law? In our earlier post from this week, we noted the evisceration of that California statutory enactment by state corrections officials acting in the wake of a state court decision rendered earlier this year. The result: An estimated 4,200 — if not more — sex offenders convicted of crimes against children previously who…
Read MoreJessica’s Law weakened regarding sex-offender housing restrictions
“Kids in kindergarten living across the street from a sex offender is not what the people voted for in Jessica’s Law.” So says a state legislator who is clearly dismayed by an abrupt turn in established state policy that has removed living restrictions on thousands of paroled sex offenders across California. As noted in a…
Read MoreCatholic Church authorities in LA backtrack in sexual abuse case
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has duly reflected. And with the “further reflection” recently noted by an attorney representing the archdiocese, that church body has withdrawn the earlier support it had extended to the Los Angeles Unified School District in a sexual abuse case involving a former teacher and a 14-year-old female student.…
Read MoreIt’s not just trucks that are dangerous: some drivers are, too
Actually, the above headline might reasonably benefit from a slight word adjustment, namely, the substitution of “many” for “some,” given relevant statistics that help flesh out the real-world dimensions of driver-related risks in the nation’s commercial trucking industry. In the aggregate, commercial truckers would seem by all indications to warrant close scrutiny from safety regulators…
Read MoreTopical look: options for reporting campus sexual assault
How uncomfortable are college students who have been sexually abused on campus — most often by another student — with reporting details of that violence to campus or law enforcement officials, much less mentioning its occurrence at all? Put another way: How comfortable — that is, how confident — might some sexual abusers in a…
Read MoreNursing home realities: demographics and other concerns
At some level, a good many of our readers across Los Angeles County and elsewhere in California likely worry a bit about nursing homes, when they think about them. Perhaps some of them have a loved one in a nursing facility and wonder about staff sufficiency, care delivery, food quality, medication dispensing and related factors.…
Read MoreCalifornia universities’ sexual assault policies: clear or murky?
California is a vanguard state for taking the lead on many matters of national importance. Today (and in our immediately following blog post of this week), we take a look at one such matter that is unquestionably significant across the country and most assuredly in need of a broadly purposeful response from authoritative figures and…
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