The California State Bar has charged a founding partner of Downtown LA Law Group, a law firm at the center of a scandal that has embroiled Los Angeles County’s historic sex abuse settlement, with signing up dozens of clients in states where none of the firm’s lawyers were licensed to practice.
The bar charged Salar Hendizadeh, who left the firm this fall, on March 5 with helping one of Southern California’s largest personal injury law firms sign accident victims across the country, despite lacking attorneys who could litigate the cases in other states. Hendizadeh was charged with eleven counts, including deceptive advertising and charging illegal fees.
State Bar Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement the allegations, if proved, “represent dishonest and illegal conduct.”
Hendizadeh and a spokesperson for Downtown LA Law Group did not provide a comment Monday.
The firm had roughly 40 clients in Texas, where it operated under the name “Lone Star Injury Law Firm” and branded itself “Texas’s #1 Injury Law Firm,” according to the complaint.
The firm had one L.A.-based attorney licensed to practice in Texas, Darren McBratney, but he left the firm in early 2022. The bar claims the firm refused to remove the attorney’s name from its website for years, ignoring a cease and desist letter from McBratney’s new employer.
Typically, attorneys can take cases in states where they’re not licensed, but they need to partner with local counsel or get permission from the court. In many cases, the bar alleged, DTLA made no effort to do so and left their out-of-state clients in the lurch.
The firm told a Maryland car crash victim her case was worth $1 million and encouraged her to see a California spinal surgeon who charged roughly $300,000 for surgery, according to the complaint. She fired the firm after she got a settlement offer of $160,000 — not enough, she believed, to cover her medical fees, the complaint said.
Attorneys signed up a Tennessee client who was injured at a Nashville rental car business, but the one-year statute of limitations ran out before they filed the case, the bar complaint said. The firm offered to pay for all of his medical bills and one year of physical therapy “as a form of restitution,” according to the complaint.
The charges come as DTLA faces another pending investigation from the State Bar in connection with thousands of sexual abuse lawsuits the firm filed against Los Angeles County, along with a probe from the district attorney’s office. Both have said they are looking into allegations surfaced by The Times last fall that DTLA paid clients to file claims, some of which were allegedly fabricated, that became part of a $4-billion settlement, the largest of its kind in U.S. history. The firm has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing.
The firm was founded by three longtime friends: Daniel Azizi and Farid Yaghoubtil, who are cousins, and Hendizadeh, a friend from elementary school. They began working together in August 2013, the month Hendizadeh got his California bar license, according to the complaint.
The bar complaint charges only Hendizadeh, though it also mentions Yaghoubtil, who shared the responsibility for marketing and client intake, according to the complaint.
The bar says Yaghoubtil repeatedly asked for a referral fee from a woman injured in a Michigan drugstore after she dropped the firm for allegedly taking too long to file her lawsuit. The client had to find her own attorney, the bar said, eliminating the need for a referral fee.
“Why would you tell the lawyers to not pay us a referral fee? That makes no sense.” Yaghoubtil texted the woman on Aug. 16, 2022. “But why not let us get the referral fee? Very sad. Have a nice night.”
The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles routinely sues the city — and wins.
In the last two months, the nonprofit has notched victories in three lawsuits over the city’s handling of the homelessness crisis.
Legal Aid also defends tenants at risk of eviction as part of the city and Los Angeles County’s Stay Housed L.A. program.
Last Tuesday, the City Council was set to vote on a $177-million contract for Legal Aid to continue representing tenants for the next three years, with other groups providing related services.
But the night before the vote, City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto sent a confidential memo to council offices recommending that council members “reconsider the award of such a large contract to a frequent litigant against the city,” according to a portion of the memo obtained by The Times.
On the day of the scheduled vote, the council delayed it for a week, until Tuesday.
“[Legal Aid’s] mission includes improving the lives of our client communities through systemic change, which sometimes means filing litigation against government entities engaging in illegal conduct,” Barbara Schultz, director of housing justice for Legal Aid, said in an interview.
Schultz said that Legal Aid’s litigation and eviction work “are entirely separate.”
Through a spokesperson, Feldstein Soto declined to comment. She is running for reelection this year.
The contract, which would last for three years, would award nearly $107 million to Legal Aid for eviction defense and prevention, $42 million to the Southern California Housing Rights Center for short-term emergency rental assistance, nearly $22 million to Liberty Hill Foundation for tenant outreach and close to $7 million to Strategic Actions for a Just Economy to protect tenants from harassment.
The battle over the contract has serious implications for Los Angeles tenants at risk of eviction, Schultz said.
Legal Aid, which has participated in the program since its inception in 2021, will have to stop accepting new clients if the contract does not pass on Tuesday. Each month, about 160 tenants will be without legal representation and about 575 more won’t get advice that could help them avoid eviction proceedings, Schultz said.
Schultz said that Legal Aid subcontracts some of the legal work in the program to groups such as Bet Tzedek and Inner City Law Center.
“We get 600 to 800 eviction filings each month in our district alone. If council doesn’t act, those families will have no help from the city,” City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said in a statement.
The Stay Housed L.A. program has opened about 26,000 cases overall, providing full representation for 6,150 cases and working on nearly 20,000 “limited scope” cases, according to data from Legal Aid. The original contract, which is set to lapse at the end of the month, was for about $90 million.
Measure ULA, the “mansion tax” passed by city voters in 2022, includes funding for the program.
Last June, Feldstein Soto tried to block the City Council from extending the contract without a competitive bidding process, a core tenet she has preached as the city’s elected legal counsel.
At the time, some City Council members grumbled, but still, they opened the contract to bidders.
Months later, the city Housing Department awarded the contract to Legal Aid and the other organizations before sending it to the City Council for approval.
“Our understanding of the city’s contracting process is that it is trying to get the best services it can at the best value and not using the process to influence the political or legal activities of nonprofit advocacy organizations,” Elizabeth Hamilton, deputy director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, which has also filed lawsuits against the city, said in a statement.
Feldstein Soto’s confidential memo cited other potential issues with the contract, calling for an audit of Stay Housed L.A. and asserting that a confidentiality clause in the original contract might violate state public records laws.
Recently, Legal Aid has scored several victories against the city.
In January, a judge ruled that the city violated the state’s open meeting law when council members made a plan behind closed doors to sweep 9,800 homeless encampments. Legal Aid represented the plaintiffs in that case.
In February, with Legal Aid also serving as plaintiffs’ counsel, a judge ruled that the city lacked the legal authority to carry out a state law allowing the dismantling of abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000.
That same month, Legal Aid scored another victory when a federal judge found that the city violated homeless people’s constitutional rights by seizing and destroying their property during encampment cleanups.
The Gulf states have spent years trying to broker peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran through 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The idea that the Gulf states have a responsibility, a moral one, to protect Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran did not return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.
Iran’s position is based on three propositions. First, that Iran acted in lawful self-defence pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter; that host countries relinquished territorial sovereignty by allowing US military bases on their territory; and that the definition of aggression in Resolution 3314 justifies the attack on those bases as lawful military objectives. Each of these propositions is legally flawed, factually skewed, and tactically wrong. Collectively, they add up to a legal argument that, if accepted, would ensure that the Gulf is permanently destabilised, the basic principles of international law are destroyed, and, in a curious twist, the very security threats that Iran is reacting to are reinforced.
The self-defence claim does not meet the required legal threshold
The UN Charter, in Article 51, permits the use of force only in self-defence against an “armed attack”, and this term is not defined by reference to the state invoking it. The International Court of Justice, in cases such as Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) (1986) and Oil Platforms (Iran v. United States) (2003), has interpreted the requirement of an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter restrictively. The Court distinguished between the most grave forms of the use of force, which qualify as armed attacks triggering the right of self-defence, and less grave uses of force that do not. Accordingly, not every use of force, such as minor incidents or limited military activities, amounts to an armed attack. In this light, the mere presence of foreign military bases in Gulf states, maintained for decades under defence agreements with host governments, would not in itself constitute an armed attack against Iran.
Necessity and proportionality are also part of customary international law, requiring that self-defence be necessary and proportional. Iran has not demonstrated either. Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to the policy decisions of the United States is neither necessary, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are still available, nor proportional, since it imposes military consequences on states that are not a party to any conflict with Iran.
Critically, Article 51 also has a mandatory procedural element, in that any state employing self-defence is immediately required to notify the Security Council. Iran has consistently evaded this requirement in each of its escalatory actions. While this may seem to be a minor element, it is in fact the means by which the international community is able to verify and check self-defence claims. A state that evades this requirement is not employing Article 51. It is exploiting the language of Article 51.
Iran’s reading of Resolution 3314 is a fundamental distortion
The provision of Article 3(f) of the Annex to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) (1974) states that an act of aggression includes the “action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State”. Iran could rely on this provision to hold the Gulf states that host United States military bases liable for any act of aggression committed from their territories against Iran. Nevertheless, the mere presence of military bases is not sufficient to hold them to be lawful military objectives; this will depend on their actual contribution to military activities against Iran based on the rules of international humanitarian law.
Thus, such an Iranian reading would be wrong on three distinct legal grounds.
First, Resolution 3314 is definitional in nature. The resolution was adopted to assist the Security Council in determining when aggression has taken place, not to confer upon states the unilateral power to punish states deemed to have committed aggression through the use of force. The resolution itself, in Article 2, asserts the power of the Security Council to make the determination of what constitutes aggression. The self-application of Article 3(f) of the resolution is therefore bypassed altogether.
Second, Article 3(f) speaks of the active launching of an attack, not the passive hosting of a military base. The legal distinction is fundamental. A state, in signing a defence treaty with another and hosting the latter’s troops on its soil, is engaging in a measure of sovereignty. A state, actively launching, coordinating, or enabling military strikes against a third party, is engaged in a different matter altogether. Iran has not credibly shown this latter case. The presence of US troops or bases in the Gulf has been a fact for decades, and this has not constituted armed aggression against Iran under any legal standard.
Third, even if Article 3(f) were applicable, the appropriate course would be to bring the matter to the Security Council, not to launch unilateral military strikes. General Assembly resolutions do not override the Charter. Iran cannot rely upon a non-binding resolution defining terms to override the Chapter VII requirements for the use of force or the clear criteria of Article 51.
Sovereignty cannot be dictated by a neighbour’s strategic preferences
Iran, in invoking the principle of good neighbourliness, asks the Arab Gulf states to deny the United States basing rights. Good neighbourliness is a two-way principle, and it does not allow for interference in the internal affairs of other states, certainly not interference in the decisions of other states simply because they are deemed inconvenient to the interfering state. All UN states possess the inherent right to conclude defence treaties with whomever they choose, and this is so regardless of the opinion of their neighbours.
The asymmetry of Iran’s position is striking and self-disqualifying. Iran itself has active military relationships with Russia and China. Iran arms, finances, trains, and supports the activities of non-state military actors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force operates openly in various states, and this has been extensively documented in United Nations Panels of Experts reports, as well as other international monitoring reports. According to the standards that Iran applies to the Gulf states, any state that hosts the activities of the IRGC, the transfer of Iranian arms, or the coordination of Iranian proxies on its soil would be engaging in aggression against third parties. Iran will not accept this principle when it is applied to itself. A legal principle that is unacceptable to the party to whom it would be applied is not a legal principle at all; it is a political tool.
A doctrine that defeats Iran’s own strategic interests
From the perspective of international relations theory, Iran’s position follows the logic of offensive realism, which seeks to remove the external balancing architecture of regional neighbours by claiming it to be hostile in nature. However, this approach is empirically self-defeating.
Under balance of threat theory, states react to offensive capability, geographic proximity, and aggressive intentions. Iran’s doctrine, in asserting the right to strike any state that hosts forces it perceives as a threat, drives each and every threat variable to maximum levels for each and every state in the region. The obvious consequence, evident in the data, is that the states in the region and external powers are becoming more, rather than less, securely integrated. The Fifth Fleet’s permanent base in Bahrain, the UAE’s negotiations over F-35s, Saudi Arabia’s deployments of THAADs, and Qatar’s expansion of the Al Udeid base are reactions to Iran’s escalation, not causes of it.
From the perspective of constructivism, the legitimacy of a legal argument is also partly based on the normative credibility of the state that presents the argument. The record of Iran’s compliance with IAEA regulations, including the enrichment of uranium to a purity level of 60 percent or more in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the removal of monitoring cameras, and the overall violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state significantly. A state that is itself a violator of the legal regime cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state seeking protection under the norms of the legal regime.
Iran’s legal rationale was always theoretically wrong. What has occurred since February 28, 2026, has made Iran’s actions morally and politically wrong. Iran did not simply target US military assets. The reality of the situation is now documented and undeniable. Ballistic missiles and drones were launched against Gulf states in the opening days of the conflict. This marked the first time one actor had simultaneously attacked all six GCC states. Iran escalated its attacks in deliberate stages. Day 1: Iranian missiles were fired against military bases. Day 2: Iranian missiles were fired against civilian infrastructure and airports. Day 3: Iranian missiles were fired against the energy sector. Days 3 and 4: The US Embassy in Riyadh was attacked by Iran. International airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait were attacked by Iranian missiles, resulting in the suspension of flights throughout the region. Videos from Bahrain documented an Iranian Shahed drone attacking an apartment building. This is not self-defence. This is the collective punishment of sovereign nations that went to extraordinary lengths to avoid the conflict.
The rationale provided by Iran falls flat when one considers the actions Iran itself took. Its doctrine held that only targets involved in the preparation or launch of an attack against Iran were legitimate targets. Civilian airports are not military bases. Hotels in Palm Jumeirah are not military command centres. An apartment complex in Manama is not a weapons storage facility. By Iran’s own stated legal rationale, none of these targets was legitimate, yet they were attacked. This was not a legal doctrine at all; it was a pretext for coercion, and the conduct of war revealed this to be the case.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
WASHINGTON — Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the Department of Homeland Security to return a California woman with DACA who was recently deported a day after her green card interview.
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is the Obama-era program that since 2012 has shielded certain immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allowed them to work legally.
Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez lived in California for 27 years before being detained at her green card interview last month and deported within 24 hours, despite having active DACA protection and no criminal history. Her story was first reported by the Sacramento Bee.
On a call from Mexico on Thursday with reporters, Estrada Juarez, 42, said DACA was supposed to protect people like her who work hard and follow the rules.
“I did everything I could to build a stable life and give my daughter the opportunities that I never had,” she said. “But about two weeks ago, everything changed. I was wrongfully deported. In a single moment, nearly 30 years of my life were taken away from me — my home, my work, my community.”
Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about Estrada’s case.
The detention and deportation of DACA recipients is in stark contrast to previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, and years of bipartisan support for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. For admission into the program, they must pass background checks and meet certain educational or work requirements.
Trump has given mixed signals on DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers.” In his first term, he tried unsuccessfully to shut down the program. In December 2024 on “Meet the Press” he said that “I want to be able to work something out” on their behalf, but offered no specifics and the administration has done nothing to offer them extra protection.
The program’s fate has since remained embroiled in litigation.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said Homeland Security provided conflicting data to members of Congress about how many DACA recipients have been detained and deported since Trump returned to the White House.
In a Jan. 12 letter to Garcia, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 28 of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested 270 DACA recipients. The letter did not say how many of those 270 were deported.
Of those, 130 had criminal convictions, 120 had pending criminal charges and 14 were in violation of immigration law, she wrote. That adds up to 264, not 270.
“Please note DACA is a form of prosecutorial discretion that does not confer lawful status,” wrote Noem, who was fired Thursday.
But in a letter to Durbin and other senators last month, Noem provided smaller numbers, though she addressed a longer time period, Jan. 1 to Nov. 19, 2025. She said the agency had arrested 261 DACA recipients and deported 86.
She said that of those arrested, 241 had criminal histories, though she did not specify if that meant convictions or pending charges.
On Wednesday, Garcia wrote back to Noem, saying, “The discrepancies between your two responses demonstrate gross incompetency or intentional misdirection.”
The conflicting data from Noem came after 95 members of Congress in September demanded answers about the targeting of DACA recipients. They wrote that letter after Tricia McLaughlin, the former Homeland Security public affairs secretary, said DACA recipients “are not automatically protected from deportation.”
The lawmakers cited the case of a deaf and non-verbal DACA recipient with no criminal history who was detained last year amid the immigration raids in Los Angeles. He was later released.
As of June 2025, there were more than 515,000 DACA recipients in the U.S., a decrease since the program’s peak of nearly 800,000. With 144,000, California has the most of any state, according to federal data.
Estrada Juarez did not take questions during the call Thurday with reporters, but Ivonne Rodriguez, press director for immigration reform at the advocacy group FWD.us, explained to The Times what happened.
Around 11 a.m. on Feb. 18, Estrada Juarez arrived with her daughter Damaris Bello, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen, at the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento for an interview as part of the process to obtain legal permanent residency, or a green card.
At the courthouse, immigration agents took Estrada Juarez’s fingerprints and asked her to apply a fingerprint to a form saying she had agreed to be deported, Rodriguez said. She refused.
An officer told Estrada Juarez “If you don’t sign, I will make you sign.” The officer grabbed her hand and forced her to sign using her fingerprint, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said federal agents cited a deportation order from 1998 during Estrada Juarez’s detention last month at the courthouse. But being a DACA recipient should mean that such orders are not acted upon while the protected status is active, so long as the person stays out of criminal trouble.
“She kept stating she had active DACA throughout the entire time and they did not care,” Rodriguez said.
By 8 a.m. the next morning, Estrada Juarez had been dropped off by bus in Tijuana, Rodriguez said.
Estrada Juarez is among many immigrants arrested for deportation at courthouses since last year, a practice that breaks from longstanding former procedure.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on oversight of Homeland Security, Durbin asked Noem about Estrada Juarez and the other deported DACA recipients.
“Madam secretary, why have you deported dozens of DACA holders who had to comply with a criminal background check to be eligible for DACA?” Durbin asked.
“Sir, we follow all laws as applicable to the Department of Homeland Security,” Noem replied before Durbin cut her off.
“Why did you deport them?” he repeated.
Noem said she wasn’t familiar with the details of Estrada Juarez’s case but would look into it.
On the call Thursday with Estrada Juarez, Sen. Padilla (D-Calif.) said he met her daughter this week. He and other Democrats called for Congress to pass legislation that would permanently protect DACA recipients from deportation.
“DACA recipients did everything right and followed all the instructions laid out in the program,” he said. “They took the United States government at its word, and they’ve kept their end of the deal. But now we know that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are breaking the government’s promise.”
Estrada Juarez said justice in her case would mean being allowed to return to the U.S.
“I’m not asking for a special treatment,” she said. “I’m asking for what is right. My deportation was wrong, and my family should not have to be torn apart. I just want to change to go home and hold my daughter again.”
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether the brokers who connect shippers with trucking companies can be held liable for irresponsible drivers.
The case, Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II LLC, stems from a 2017 incident in which Shawn Montgomery, the petitioner, suffered significant injuries after a tractor-trailer hit his parked truck on the side of an Illinois highway.
A key part of the case is the interpretation of part of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994. It prevents state laws “related to a price, route or service” of trucking companies or brokers that connect them to shippers.
However, the statute also provides an exception, stating that it will “not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a state with respect to motor vehicles.”
The outcome could redefine liability standards for freight brokers and impact the broader transportation industry and interstate commerce landscape.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Yosniel Varela-Mojena, had been involved in a crash months earlier, but was still employed by Caribe Transport II, an interstate trucking company. Freight broker C.H. Robinson recruited Caribe II to deliver a cross-country shipment. After the crash, Montgomery sued the broker for negligent hiring under Illinois state laws.
During the arguments, the two sides disagreed about whether the phrase “with respect to motor vehicles” includes brokers.
“We do believe that ‘with respect to motor vehicles’ is the crucial question here,” said Theodore Boutrous Jr., Caribe II’s counsel. He argued Congress did not intend for brokers to be included.
The attorney for the United States agreed that the two different sections of the law being discussed should, in context, be taken altogether to mean that brokers are not included in the realm of “motor vehicles.”
“Paragraph one uses the phrase ‘with respect to the transportation of property,’ [and] paragraph two [says] ‘with respect to motor vehicles,'” said Sopan Joshi, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general. “That seems like a conscious choice that Congress made to parallel the language, but change the noun to a much narrower noun.”
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned Paul Clement, Montgomery’s counsel, on how brokers would address safety concerns if the court were to rule in favor of Montgomery and say that brokers are liable for consequences of negligent hiring.
For instance, Kavanaugh suggested drivers should be proficient in English to ensure safety. In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to enforce English-language requirements for commercial motor vehicle drivers.
“If you’re hiring drivers who can’t read the signs, that seems like a safety issue,” Kavanaugh said.
Clement said brokers could work with larger trucking companies with deeper pockets and check that they have adequate programs in place to test drivers for drug use, check on prior accidents and address other potential concerns.
“One of the reasons, I think, that you do want [brokers] to have some duty of care in these circumstances is this is a margin business,” Clement said. “If they don’t have any sort of incentive to internalize any of the cost of not asking the question, they really have no good reason to ask the question. They want the cheapest carrier.”
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked Joshi to explain why he thought Congress did not think brokers should share responsibility for safety given the language in the 1994 law.
“The problem, I think, with the argument in the way that you’ve set it up is that you are assuming away any responsibility that a broker might have for safety,” Jackson said.
Joshi argued that Congress did not intend for brokers to have responsibility regarding safety and could have worded the law differently if it did.
“Congress has an entire chapter, several chapters, of the U.S. Code in Title 49 that deal with safety addressing carriers, safety of motor vehicles, driver qualifications, and they’re all addressed at carriers,” Joshi said. “Not a single one is addressed at brokers.”
Joshi acknowledged that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is “understaffed,” “overworked” and unable to review all of the federally registered carriers. However, he said Congress has provided ways of bringing consequences against carriers who violate federal requirements and regulations.
In his closing rebuttal, Clement told the court that 94% of registered carriers on the road do not have meaningful federal safety inspections — a number derived from 2021 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data.
He said state tort law could provide a “backstop to the federal system.”
“This case doesn’t have to be that hard. The thing that triggers state tort liability is an 80,000-pound motor vehicle. That’s what devastatingly injured my client,” Clement said.
The court is expected to issue a ruling by summer.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court revived a San Diego judge’s order Monday and said parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.
The decision came in a 6-3 order granting an emergency appeal from lawyers for Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
They said the student privacy policy enforced in California infringes parents’ rights and the free exercise of religion.
“The parents object that these policies prevent schools from telling them about their children’s efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school unless the children consent to parental notification,” the court said. “The parents also take issue with California’s requirement that schools use children’s preferred names and pronouns regardless of their parents’ wishes.”
The judge’s injunction “does not provide relief for all the parents of California public school students, but only for those parents who object to the challenged policies or seek religious exemptions,” the justices added.
The six conservatives were in the majority, while the three liberals dissented.
Religious liberty advocates hailed the decision.
“Parents’ fundamental right to raise their children according to their faith doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse door,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “California tried cutting parents out of their children’s lives while forcing teachers to hide the school’s behavior from parents. We’re glad the Court stepped in to block this anti-family, anti-American policy.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had put on hold a late December ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who held that the student privacy rules enforced by California school officials were unconstitutional.
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” Benitez wrote. “Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence.”
Escondido public schoolteachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who described themselves as “devout Catholics,” sued in 2023, and they were later joined by parents in Pasadena and Clovis.
The Supreme Court’s ruling refers only to the parents.
The parents who brought the case “have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court said.
The court added: “Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours.”
“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back.”
The 9th Circuit had agreed with the state’s attorneys who said the judge had misstated California law.
“The state does not categorically forbid disclosure of information about students’ gender identities to parents without student consent,” they said in a 3-0 decision.
“For example, guidance from the California Attorney General expressly states that schools can ‘allow disclosure where a student does not consent where there is a compelling need to do so to protect the student’s wellbeing,’ and California Education Code allows disclosure to avert a clear danger to the well-being of a child.”
In their parents’ rights appeal to the Supreme Court, attorneys said school employees are secretly encouraging gender transitions.
“California is requiring public schools to hide children’s expressed transgender status at school from their own parents — including religious parents — and to actively facilitate those children’s social transitions over their parents’ express objection,” they told the court.
“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately,” Jonna wrote in his appeal. “Every day these gender secrecy policies stay in effect, children suffer and parents are left in the dark.”
California state attorneys had urged the court to put the case on hold while it is under appeal.
They said the judge’s order “appears to categorically bar schools across the State from ever respecting a student’s desire for privacy about their gender identity or expression — or respecting a student’s request to be addressed by a particular name or pronouns—over a parent’s objection.”
They said the order “would allow no exceptions, even for extreme cases where students or teachers reasonably fear that the student will suffer physical or mental abuse.”
AUSTIN, Tex. — The lobby walls of the Driskill Hotel are hung with the portraits of figures of Texas political lore, men like Sam Houston and William B. Travis of Alamo fame. But on a rainy evening, a rather demure-looking woman in a conservative black suit and tidy tucked hairdo is the center of attention.
First, Texas Democratic Party chairman Bob Slagle comes up to hug and say hello. They chat briefly about how well things are going in the presidential campaign.
Then two young women walk by, one whispering to the other, “Is that Sarah Weddington?” They turn back and stop to introduce themselves. As the two say goodby, one adds: “Of course, it goes without saying how much I admire you.”
Weddington is used to this by now. The 46-year-old lawyer gained fame from her first case, Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1972 Supreme Court decision.
Since then, Weddington has spent almost two decades advocating abortion rights. Today, she has been in her adopted hometown of Austin signing copies of her new book, “A Question of Choice: The Lawyer Who Won Roe v. Wade,” for a parade of admirers. Longtime friends presented many of the almost 500 copies she signs; young women like the two who paused to thank her offered others.
Weddington stood for more than five hours at a podium, first at a university bookstore and later in the hotel ballroom, signing in a consistently elegant hand. Everyone is greeted with a smile, some with hugs. An aura of restraint surrounds her, an almost Victorian quality in a woman some see as a sort of virago, a demon of the left who has led the charge for legalized abortion.
Some friends describe her as “ladylike”; almost all say she is very private.
And yet her book begins with a revelation that she had kept a very personal secret. In 1967, while a young, unmarried law student at the University of Texas, this daughter of a minister and graduate of a small Methodist college, traveled to “a dirty Mexican border town to have an abortion, fleeing the law that made abortion illegal in Texas.”
She was accompanied by her then-boyfriend and later husband, fellow law student Ron Weddington. Divorced amicably in 1974, they kept the secret until the publication of the book. “I am a very private person and would never have talked about this if I hadn’t felt that I wanted to do everything I could to help win it again. That I can’t win it in the courts, nobody can. That’s where we have to win is at the ballot box. And it was like I had to give it everything I had and it was the one thing I had never given. . . .
“My own thoughts about it are that if I had to write a caption it would be ‘giving up privacy in order to save it.’ I feel like I’m giving something very precious up and that is the ability to live my life in privacy. . . . We always had an agreement not to talk about this without talking to the other, and he (her former husband) always observed it.”
Journalist Linda Ellerbee, a friend and fellow Texan, suggested that Weddington humanize her book to make it more accessible to readers. The first draft, Weddington acknowledges, was long and perhaps too legalistic: “First, I wanted to write the perfect book, and I couldn’t write that book. Then someone said, ‘Why don’t you practice writing the book,’ and I could do that because I was freeing myself.”
Weddington admits that a more likely publication date would have been 1993, the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But in the last few years, it became increasingly obvious to her that the landmark decision was in jeopardy: “In the book, I say if anybody had said to me in 1969 or 1973, ‘You will still be talking about this in 1992,’ I would have thought they were crazy.”
As president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, she had witnessed the first skirmishes of what she calls a war of attrition during the early years of the Reagan presidency. But at that point, she says, “We still had the trump card, the Supreme Court.”
Reagan, who she notes signed California’s liberal 1967 abortion law, then began to make conservative appointments to the high court. And at that point, Weddington says, “I began to say I was for mandatory life support systems for older justices.”
The 1989, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision was the real turning point, she says, and now she sees the battle lines on three fronts: the Supreme Court, the Congress, which is considering the Freedom of Choice Bill, and state legislatures.
Her book’s publication, just two months before the fall election, is no accident. President Bush, she says, made “a pact with the radical right” in 1988, and abortion-rights advocates cannot risk more of his court appointments: “The sands of time ran out when Clarence Thomas was confirmed.”
Weddington says Bill Clinton would sign the Freedom of Choice Act. But even a Clinton victory will not persuade her to sit back and say the fight is over. The Arkansas governor has supported some restrictions, as Weddington describes them, particularly regarding abortions for minors. “We are trying to educate him; it’s not a natural,” she says. “I don’t think you can elect Clinton and say, ‘Well, let’s forget about that.’ ”
For this activist lawyer, who drew her strength from the women’s movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the fight is not over on other fronts, either. She sees a need to engage the younger generation and to remind Americans why Roe was so important.
“Intellectually, they believe that choice should be available, but emotionally, they have never known what it was like for it not to be,” Weddington says of younger Americans. “You can’t expect them to have the same emotional memories and commitments, and yet I don’t think you can preach to them.”
The book’s final section is a call to arms, a detailed plan for action that gives Roe defenders a game plan. Weddington expects the fight to continue well into the next century and plans to continue the battle.
“I think this issue is so basic you can’t desert it, and while it’s in trouble, you’ve got to keep plugging,” she says. “I see a new group of people who haven’t been as active, but I think they will be more comfortable with a broader focus.” That focus, she says, should include family issues and support for birth control programs.
*
In one sense, Weddington admits, her career peaked at age 27 when she stood before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued her case for a woman’s right to choose. But the legal fight that began at a garage sale fund-raiser in 1969 and culminated in Roe–and her subsequent service as a special assistant on women’s issues in the Carter White House–was heady stuff for a young woman from Abilene.
She also served as one of the first women in the Texas House of Representatives (1973-1977) and was frequently mentioned as a candidate for statewide office, long before Ann Richards, her former legislative aide, won the governor’s race. Privately, a few friends admit that the stellar political career has passed Weddington by.
Elective office is not likely at this point. “I have a question whether the price is worth it,” she says. “There’s no money, and everybody is in a sour mood. When I ran, I ran to do something, and right now I don’t see that you can do that much. . . .”
For her beliefs, Weddington has paid a high personal price. She is dogged by activists opposed to abortion. At the Austin bookstore signing, several security guards were on hand.
But Roe v. Wade has also given Weddington opportunities to spread her message. For several years, she and Phyllis Schafly toured on a sort of abortion cross-fire show. Apart from not sharing the same views, they never even shared the same car. “We once tried to find something to talk about, and the only thing we agreed on was airplane coffee was usually bad,” Weddington says.
Now, Weddington plans to continue to teach part time at the University of Texas, speak around the country and ready herself for the barrage of publicity next year on the 20th anniversary of Roe. Should Clinton be elected, she would not mind serving as an adviser, but she would not want to have a full-time position in Washington. And she would like to write another book or two.
Not the least of her contributions is the impact Weddington has had on young people, particularly women. Time after time, during her Austin book signing, women in their 20s approach her, say that they had heard her speak before and tell her that she has changed their lives.
And at the last minute, three young women dash in from the rain and ask Weddington to sign their books. All three are recent graduates of the University of Texas law school and all three are Texas Supreme Court clerks. When Weddington asks how many women are in their law class, they say about 150.
Weddington smiles and says there were five when she graduated 24 years ago.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett listen as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union last Tuesday. Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI | License Photo
March 1 (UPI) — The Supreme Court will determine whether people who regularly smoke marijuana will be allowed to own guns.
In United States v. Hemani, which goes before the Supreme Court on Monday, the Trump administration will attempt to uphold their prosecution of Ali Danial Hemani, who lives in Texas.
In 2022, FBI officials found that Hemani, who is a dual citizen in the United States and Pakistan, owned a pistol while in possession of marijuana and cocaine.
When Hemani said that he engaged in marijuana use approximately every other day, he was indicted, facing up to 15 years behind bars, but the charge was dismissed.
The 1968 law he allegedly violated was meant to disarm people who used drugs.
An appeals court stated that there was not enough “tradition of gun regulation” to “support disarming a sober person based solely on past substance usage,” USA Today reported.
“I think what the court is being asked to decide, and I would imagine the reason it took the case, is to give some more guidance about what kinds of people can be disarmed without violating the Second Amendment,” said Joseph Blocher, one of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, CBS News reported.
Fundamentally, that’s what this case is about,” Blocher said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a press conference after the weekly Republican Senate caucus luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
D4vd is the “target” of a Los Angeles County criminal jury investigation into the death of a teenage girl. The singer’s star was on the rise, with a global tour in his future, before the discovery of the girl’s remains in the front trunk of his Tesla.
The singer, whose real name is David Burke, has been the subject of the probe since November, months after the dismembered body of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in the car after it was towed off a street in Hollywood.
According to a grand jury subpoena seeking to have Burke’s father, mother and brother testify in L.A., the musician is described as “Target David Burke,” who may have committed a criminal offense in California, “to wit: One count of Murder.”
The document was part of a legal challenge to the subpoenas filed by the singer’s family in Texas. The newly unsealed documents reveal that, when Los Angeles police opened up the Tesla trunk, they found “a black cadaver bag covered with insects and a strong odor of decay” inside. Investigators had been granted a search warrant to look in the vehicle Sept. 8 after a tow yard worker noticed a rotting smell emanating from the vehicle.
According to the document, detectives partially unzipped the bag and found “a decomposed head and torso.”
Criminalists and medical examiners then processed the body.
“Upon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” the subpoenas noted. “A second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.”
Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman issued the subpoenas on Jan. 15, with Superior Court judge Craig Richman approving them.
The First Court of Appeals in Texas on Feb. 9 denied petitions from the three Burke family members to ignore the subpoenas.
In November, prosecutors began presenting evidence to a grand jury, described at the time as an investigative grand jury, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case with the media.
Since then, numerous witnesses have been called in to testify, among those, one of the musician’s managers. A friend of D4vd, Neo Langston, was arrested in Montana after ignoring a subpoena and was recently forced to return to L.A. to testify.
In a Texas appeals court footnote, the court refers specifically to the singer’s true name. The court states that the “underlying case” is “The People of the State of California v. David Burke,” pending in the 506th District Court of Waller County, Texas, with Judge Gary W. Chaney presiding. There is no public case with that name, but grand jury proceedings are confidential.
The singer’s father, Dawud, mother, Colleen, and brother, Caleb, reside in Texas, according to court records. Lawyers for the trio could not be reached for comment.
Detectives have spent months investigating the circumstances surrounding the girl’s death, as well as her relationship with D4vd.
His Tesla sat abandoned on a street in the Hollywood Hills for several weeks — potentially months — before its removal.
L.A. Police Capt. Scot Williams, who leads the Robbery-Homicide Division, said the girl had been “dead for at least several weeks.” Williams said the body had not been decapitated or frozen, as some news outlets have reported.
Detectives determined that the Tesla had been parked on Bluebird Avenue since late July — around the time D4vd began a national tour. The tour was canceled soon after the death investigation drew worldwide media attention.
The driver of the car involved in a fatal crash in which British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua was injured has appeared in court in Nigeria.
Joshua’s personal trainer, Latif Ayodele, and strength coach, Sina Ghami, died on 29 December after their vehicle collided with a stationary lorry near Lagos, Nigeria.
Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode, who was driving Joshua when their car crashed, has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, reckless and negligent driving, driving without due care, and driving without a valid driver’s licence.
The 46-year-oldappeared at Sagamu Magistrates Court in Ogun state near Lagos on Wednesday, when the case was adjourned until 13 March.
Prosecutors told the court they needed further time to prepare evidence.
Joshua was discharged from hospital two days after the Lexus SUV crashed on the busy Lagos-Ibadan expressway, in south-west Nigeria. Ghami and Ayodele were both pronounced dead at the scene.
WASHINGTON — President Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment of unusual upheaval, confronting a cascade of crises that have left Washington unsettled and his own political standing diminished early in his second term.
When lawmakers gather to hear the president’s agenda for the year ahead, the scene is expected to reflect an undeterred president under increasing political strain.
Adding to the turbulent atmosphere is the economic unease in an election year. The president, who a year ago promised to bring down prices for consumers, insisted Monday that America has “the greatest economy we’ve ever had” even though public polling shows economic pressures are worrying a majority of Americans.
Trump said he plans to talk about the country’s economic successes in his speech, saying “it is going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”
Republicans have recently pushed Trump to focus on the push to lower costs, a message they see as crucial to help them keep control of Congress. What remains to be seen is how much of Trump’s economic message will be colored by a Supreme Court decision last week that struck down his use of tariffs, a key portion of his economic agenda. In recent days, the president has remained defiant on the issue, lashing out at the justices for delivering a legal setback on his tariffs, and looking to impose new global tariffs in a different way.
Trump said Monday he does not need to seek congressional approval to impose new levies, even though the nation’s highest court ruled his tariffs cannot stand without the approval of Congress.
“As president, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago!”
Trump’s rebuke underscores the president’s increasingly combative posture toward both the judiciary and Congress, at a time when he is heavily relying on his executive authority to advance sweeping policies on immigration, trade and national security.
At home, Trump has said he thinks the federal government should assert control over state elections as he continues to push false claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Whether that will happen remains to be seen as Republican leaders, and other conservative lawmakers, voice opposition to some of the president’s legislative pitches.
In recent months, Congress has tried to reassert its authority over the executive branch — in some cases led by small Republican defections by lawmakers who have grown concerned about the president’s involvement in foreign wars and his economic policies.
One of the most notable rebukes to Trump’s authority occurred late last year, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers secured legislation that forced the Trump administration to release investigative files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
While Trump maintains the release of those files cleared him of wrongdoing, the findings have so far ensnared key figures in Trump’s political orbit and reinforced a sense of scandal that continues to loom over his administration. Anger over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has led to bipartisan backlash, even prompting some conservatives to call for U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to resign.
Another sign of the polarized moment Trump will face Tuesday night will be led by Democrats.
About a dozen Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives plan to boycott the president’s speech and participate in what they have dubbed the “People’s State of the Union.”
“I will not be attending the State of the Union,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a social media video over the weekend. “We cannot treat this as normal. This is not business as usual. I will not give him the audience he craves for the lies that he tells.”
In recent years, lawmakers who wished to disavow the president’s address would typically stand and shout in protest, disrupt the remarks or coordinate outfits to signal their opposition.
In 2020, for example, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stood behind Trump at the podium as he delivered his remarks and then shredded a copy of his script. She later called it a “manifesto of mistruths.”
This year, even the president’s allies appear to be on notice.
While it is a long-standing custom for the Supreme Court justices to attend the president’s annual address, Trump told reporters on Friday that the six justices who voted against his tariffs policy were “barely” invited to the event.
“Three of them are invited,” he said.
Trump’s State of the Union remarks will be dissected to see how he intends to advance his agenda and to deal with a divided Congress that remains at a standstill over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The partial government shutdown was triggered by partisan tensions over Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents.
At a White House event Monday, Trump lamented that public polling shows waning support for federal immigration agents.
“It just amazes me that there is not more support out there,” Trump said. “We actually have a silent support, I think it is silent.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide on shielding energy producers from dozens of lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for costs of global climate change.
In the past decade, dozens of cities, counties and states, including California, have joined state-based lawsuits that seek billions of dollars in damages, and they have won preliminary victories in state courts.
But the Trump administration and the energy producers urged the Supreme Court to throw out all of these suits on the grounds they conflict with federal law.
“Boulder Colorado cannot make energy policy for the entire country,” lawyers for Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil said in their appeal. They urged the court to rule that “state law cannot impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world’s energy producers chosen by a single municipality.”
The Biden administration had said the justices should stand aside while the lawsuits move forward in state courts, but the Trump administration filed a brief in September urging the court to intervene now.
They said the case has “vast nationwide significance,” and it should not be left to be decided state by state.
Lawyers for Boulder had urged the court against taking up the issue at an early stage of the litigation. “This is not the right time or the right case for deciding” whether municipalities can sue over the damage they have suffered.
But after weighing the issue for weeks, the court announced it will be hear the claims of the oil and gas industries.
Defendant Lawrence Lau Wai-chung (C) arrives to the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, February 23, 2026. The court rules today on the appeals of 12 activists and politicians convicted under the national security law for participating in a 2020 primary election. Also, Lau will hear about the government of Hong Kong’s appeal of his acquittal. Photo by Leung Man Hei/EPA
Feb. 23 (UPI) — A Hong Kong court has rejected the appeals of 12 pro-democracy lawmakers and activists seeking to overturn their convictions in connection with a 2020 unofficial election primary that Beijing-aligned officials said was intended to undermine the city’s existing political system.
The dozen people are members of the so-called Hong Kong 47, who were sentenced in November 2024 to between 51 and 120 months in what is still the largest case so far brought under the city’s draconian National Security Law.
Eleven of the activists were convicted during the trial, while one pleaded guilty.
Lawrence Lau Wai-chung, a barrister and democracy activist, had been acquitted in the case, but the government had appealed the decision. The court on Monday upheld that decision.
The defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in connection with their unofficial primary.
Held in July 2020 amid the fraying of democratic norms in Hong Kong, the activists used the primary to coordinate candidates and win a pro-democracy majority in the city’s legislature, which prosecutors said they planned to use to veto budget bills to force the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive.
The primary was held following protests that erupted in Hong Kong in 2019 against extradition that grew into a broader pro-democracy movement following allegations of excessive force used by police against the protesters.
In response to the protests, China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong in July 2020, and police arrested dozens of pro-democracy figures on Jan. 6, 2021, with 47 charged with conspiracy to commit subversion in late February of that year.
The government accused them of seeking to use the legislature, under the guise of democracy, to threaten Hong Kong’s political system.
Their convictions were widely condemned by democratic nations, including Britain, Canada and the United States. Washington vowed to impose visa restrictions on officials responsible for their sentencing.
NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it closed the bank accounts of Donald Trump and several of his businesses in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the latest development in a legal saga between the president and the nation’s biggest bank over the issue known as “debanking.”
The acknowledgment came in a court filing submitted this week in Trump’s lawsuit against the bank and its leader, Jamie Dimon. The president sued for $5 billion, alleging that his accounts were closed for political reasons, disrupting his business operations.
“In February 2021, JPMorgan informed Plaintiffs that certain accounts maintained with JPMorgan’s CB and PB would be closed,” JPMorgan’s former chief administrative officer Dan Wilkening wrote in the court filing. The “PB” and “CB” stands for JPMorgan’s private bank and commercial bank.
Until now, JPMorgan has never admitted it closed the president’s accounts in writing after Jan. 6. The bank would only speak hypothetically about when the bank closes accounts and its reasons for closing accounts, citing bank privacy laws.
A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment beyond what the bank said in its legal filings.
Trump originally sued JPMorgan in Florida state court, where the president’s primary residence is now located. The filings this week are part of an effort by JPMorgan Chase to have the case moved from state to federal court and to have the jurisdiction of the case moved to New York, which is where the bank accounts were located and where Trump kept much of his business operations until recently.
Trump originally accused the bank of trade libel and violating state and federal unfair and deceptive trade practices.
In the original lawsuit, Trump said he tried to raise the issue personally with Dimon after the bank sent him notices that JPMorgan would close his accounts, and that Dimon assured Trump he would figure out what was happening. The lawsuit alleges Dimon failed to follow up with Trump.
Further, Trump’s lawyers allege that JPMorgan placed the president and his companies on a reputational “blacklist” that both JPMorgan and other banks use to keep clients from opening accounts with them in the future. The blacklist has yet to be defined by the president’s lawyers.
“If and when Plaintiffs explain what they mean by this ‘blacklist,’ JPMorgan will respond accordingly,” the bank’s lawyers said in a filing.
JPMorgan has previously said that although it regrets that Trump felt the need to sue the bank, the lawsuit has no merit.
The issue of debanking is at the center of the case. Debanking occurs when a bank closes the accounts of a customer or refuses to do business with a customer in the form of loans or other services. Once a relatively obscure issue in finance, debanking has become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them and their affiliated interests.
“In a devastating concession that proves President Trump’s entire claim, JPMorgan Chase admitted to unlawfully and intentionally de-banking President Trump, his family, and his businesses, causing overwhelming financial harm,” the president’s lawyers said in a statement. “President Trump is standing up for all those wrongly debanked by JPMorgan Chase and its cohorts, and will see this case to a just and proper conclusion.”
Debanking first became a national issue when conservatives accused the Obama administration of pressuring banks to stop extending services to gun stores and payday lenders under “Operation Choke Point.”
Trump and other conservative figures have alleged that banks cut them off from their accounts under the umbrella term of “reputational risk” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting insurrection on Jan. 6, though not convicted in the Senate; and he was criminally indicted for his role in the riot and his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but that case was dismissed after he won the 2024 election.
Since Trump came back into office, the president’s banking regulators have moved to stop any banks from using “reputational risk” as a reason for denying service to customers.
This is not the first lawsuit Trump has filed against a big bank alleging that he was debanked. The Trump Organization sued credit card giant Capital One in March 2025 for similar reasons and allegations. The case is ongoing.
NEW ORLEANS — A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms to take effect.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12 to 6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024. In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law.
That’s partly because it’s not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, whether teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes or if other texts like the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.
Without those sorts of details, the panel decided that it did not have enough information to weigh any 1st Amendment issues that might arise from the law. In other words, there aren’t enough facts available to “permit judicial judgment rather than speculation,” the majority wrote in the opinion.
In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho, an appointee of President Trump, wrote that the law “is not just constitutional — it affirms our nation’s highest and most noble traditions.”
The six judges who voted against the decision wrote a series of dissents, with some arguing that the law exposes children to government-endorsed religion in a place they are required to be, presenting a clear constitutional burden.
Circuit Judge James L. Dennis, an appointee of President Clinton, wrote that the law “is precisely the kind of establishment the Framers anticipated and sought to prevent.”
The ruling is the result of the court’s choice to rehear the case with all judges present after three of them ruled in June that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional. The reversal comes from one of the nation’s most conservative appeals courts, and one that’s known for propelling Republican policies to a similarly conservative U.S. Supreme Court.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry celebrated the ruling Friday, declaring, “Common sense is making a comeback!”
The ACLU of Louisiana, one of several groups representing plaintiffs, pledged to explore all legal pathways to continue fighting the law.
Arkansas has a similar law that has been challenged in federal court. And a Texas law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the widest reaching attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Some Texas school districts were barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in two cases challenging the law, but they have already gone up in many classrooms across the state as districts paid to have the posters printed themselves or accepted donations.
The laws are among pushes by Republicans, including Trump, to incorporate religion into public school classrooms. Critics say doing so violates the separation of church and state, while backers say the Ten Commandments are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
Joseph Davis, an attorney representing Louisiana in the case, applauded the court for upholding the nation’s “time-honored tradition of recognizing faith in the public square.”
Families from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, have challenged the laws, as have clergy members and nonreligious families.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, another group involved in the challenge, called the ruling “extremely disappointing” and said the law will force families “into a game of constitutional whack-a-mole” where they will have to separately challenge each school district’s displays.
Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill said after the ruling that she had sent schools several correct examples of the required poster.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The court found that the law had no secular purpose but served a plainly religious purpose.
And in 2005, the Supreme Court held that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the Constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol in Austin.
Schoenbaum and Boone write for the Associated Press.
At a luncheon this week for L.A. County politicos, Supervisor Kathryn Barger pitched what she framed as a commonsense reform.
Legislators in Sacramento, she argued, need to change a 2019 law that extended the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits, opening the floodgates for decades-old claims that have cost the county nearly $5 billion and counting in payouts.
“I want them in Sacramento to fix it,” she said. “I have to believe that we are the tip of the iceberg.”
The controversial law, Assembly Bill 218, has led to thousands of claims over abuse that took place in schools, juvenile halls and foster homes. Supporters say it continues to give survivors a chance at justice, while Barger and other officials warn the cost of the litigation is driving local governments to the brink of bankruptcy.
Rolling back AB 218, critics argue, is the single most obvious thing state lawmakers can do this legislative session.
The push has gained momentum amid concerns of fraud in the first of two payouts approved last year by L.A. County officials. At $4 billion, it was the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history, with the money set aside for more than 11,000 victims.
The Times reported last fall on allegations of fabricated claims filed by plaintiffs within the settlement, which prompted L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman to open an investigation. Hochman told the supervisors this week that his office is reviewing “thousands of claims” for fraudulent submissions and predicted savings in the “hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.”
Speaking at the event Wednesday, Barger suggested capping attorneys fees — acknowledging that some high-powered attorneys in the room were involved in the county’s litigation.
Out of the $4-billion payout, she said, “about $1.5 billion will go to attorney fees — present company included.”
Barger referenced a former state Assembly speaker known for bare-knuckle tactics, which she said were needed now in the Capitol.
“If Willie Brown were up there, I’m sure he’d lock everyone in a room and slap some sense into them at this point,” she said.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has asked California legislators to consider changes to AB 218. Critics say sexual abuse lawsuits are driving local governments to the brink of bankruptcy, while supporters say it is one of the few ways for victims of abuse to get justice. Rivas spoke in Ventura County on Nov. 18, 2025.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
This session, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has assigned a group of legislators to look at what changes might be made to the law.
A spokesman for Rivas, Nick Miller, said the goal is to provide “meaningful access to justice for all survivors” without forcing service cuts in schools and governments.
“There is a group of members discussing possible solutions that strike the right balance on this critical issue,” Miller said.
It’s a tightrope walk that no legislator has mastered.
Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who tried last year to increase the burden of proof for these cases, was branded a protector of predators.
Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) got further with a pared-down bill only to watch it blow up last session over concerns he was trampling on victims’ rights.
“I worked hard to strike the middle ground,” Laird said. “It just was too hard.”
Organized labor, a powerful voice in Sacramento, could sway the equation. County unions said they were told repeatedly at the bargaining table last year that they couldn’t get raises because of the massive sex abuse settlements, potentially setting them on a collision course with victim advocates.
Lorena Gonzalez, who wrote AB 218 in 2019 before leaving the Legislature to head up the California Federation of Labor Unions, said lobbying firms had been urging unions recently to take the lead on convincing the Assembly to change the law. The union leaders have yet to take a stance, she said.
“Although there’s some desire to especially fix what happened in L.A., there wasn’t an overwhelming desire to roll it back,” she said.
While serving in the state Legislature, Lorena Gonzalez authored AB 218, a state law that extended the statute of limitations for lawsuits over sexual abuse in government facilities. Gonzalez, now with the California Labor Federation, spoke at Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, Calif., on April 26, 2024.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
A Times investigation last fall found nine clients of Downtown L.A. Law Group, a law firm that represents thousands of plaintiffs in the county’s largest settlement, who claimed that recruiters had paid them to sue. Some clients said they were told to make up stories of abuse that became the crux of their lawsuit.
The firm, also known as DTLA, has denied paying any client to sue. Andrew Morrow, the main attorney on the cases for DTLA, argued in a Feb. 13 court filing that the recent subpoena by the State Bar seeking their court records as part of an investigation into the firm amounted to an “ill-advised fishing expedition.” The firm argued that allowing the State Bar to review its filings violates clients’ privacy.
“No one disputes that these allegations are troubling and, if true, serious,” Morrow wrote. “However, untested allegations printed in a local newspaper — no matter how compelling — do not override the privacy rights” of victims.
Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), a longtime advocate for sex abuse survivors who vehemently opposed the last attempt at changing AB 218, said that “there’s all kinds of discussions about potential solutions” for fraud underway in the Legislature.
But limiting victims’ ability to sue, as some have called on lawmakers to do, is a clear no-go, she said.
“Silencing victims is not the way to get out fraud,” she said.
Like many legislators, she pinned some of the blame for the alleged fraud on poor vetting by lawyers for L.A. County. The county has said the cost of taking depositions for more than 11,000 cases would be “astronomical,” and that no records exist for many of the older cases, leaving them defenseless.
In a statement to The Times, a spokesperson for the L.A. County counsel’s office said the Legislature created AB 218 “without a single safeguard against fraud.”
“That is their failure to own,” the statement said. “This is the system the Legislature built, and they need to fix it.”
The county maintains it is not trying to squash victims’ rights, but rather keep vital services — pools, parks, health clinics — open.
“I am tired of whenever a government official stands up and says, ‘Hey, there needs to be some reform here,’ that we’re accused of victim blaming, pedophile protecting,” says Joseph Nicchitta, the county’s acting chief executive.
After agreeing to the $4-billion payout in April, county officials opted into a second $828-million settlement in October covering an additional 400 cases. Since then, more than 5,000 cases have been filed that are not part of either settlement and still need to be resolved.
“Let me tell you what will not work for L.A. County,” Nicchitta said. “The nibbles around the edges — ‘Make the procedure a little tighter, we’ll require a couple more documents.’”
He said he believes the Legislature needs to weigh the need to pay survivors against the obligation to keep the social safety net intact. One solution, Nicchitta said, could involve a victims compensation fund that would eliminate the need for someone to hire an attorney in order to submit a claim and receive money.
“Acknowledge the harm, provide real competition, [and] do it fast,” he said. “You don’t need a lawyer.”
John Manly, a lawyer who has represented sex abuse survivors for more than 20 years, sits at his law office in Irvine on Dec. 29, 2023.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
After getting flooded with sex abuse claims related to juvenile facilities following a similar change in the statute of limitations, Maryland capped sex abuse cases against government entities last year at $400,000 and limited attorneys’ fees to 25% for cases resolved in court.
For many California trial attorneys, ideas such as these are nonstarters.
“The reason they’re proposing a victims’ fund is they continue to know that those people don’t have any political power,” said John Manly, a veteran sex abuse attorney who is part of the second L.A. County settlement. “The only power they have is to hire a lawyer and get justice.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi declared a triumph against California on Friday, touting an appellate court ruling that she said blocked a state ban on immigration agents and other law enforcement officers wearing masks.
“The 9th Circuit has now issued a FULL stay blocking California’s ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents,” Bondi posted on the social media site X, calling the Feb. 19 decision a “key victory.”
Bondi, however, appeared confused about which case the court was ruling on this week.
A federal judge in Los Angeles blocked California’s first-in-the-nation mask ban 10 days earlier, on Feb. 9.
At the time, U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder said she was “constrained” to block the law because it included only local and federal officers, while exempting state law enforcement.
The state did not appeal that decision.
Instead, on Wednesday, the law’s author Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced a new mask bill without the problematic carve-out for state officers.
With the initial legal challenge already decided and the new bill still pending in the legislature, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has no reason to revisit the mask ban.
The ruling that Bondi appeared to reference involves a separate California law requiring law enforcement officers to display identification while on duty.
Snyder had previously ruled the “No Vigilantes Act” could take effect because it did not exempt state police, a decision the Justice Department appealed to the 9th Circuit.
The appellate court is set to review the matter early next month. Until then, the court issued an injunction that pauses the state law from taking effect.
Issuing a temporary administrative injunction is a common procedural move, allowing judges to freeze things in the status quo until the court has a chance to weigh the law and come to a decision.
Thursday’s order set a hearing in the Richard H. Chambers U.S. Court of Appeals in Pasadena for March 3, indicating the case is far from over.
Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, also celebrated with a post on X, calling Thursday’s order “another key win for the Justice Department.” He too suggested the injunction somehow involved the mask case.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The law requiring officers to show ID is less controversial than the mask ban. But it may still face an uphill battle in the appellate court. A three-judge panel is set to hear the case, comprising two judges nominated to the bench by President Trump and one by President Obama. One of the Trump appointees, Judge Mark Bennett of Hawaii, has previously signaled skepticism over the administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
At issue in the ID case is whether California’s law interferes with or controls the operations of the federal government, actions prohibited by the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution. Snyder ruled that the identification law was more akin to speed limits on the highway, which apply equally to everyone, a decision the appellate court could reject.
A ruling is not expected before mid-March, and would not directly affect the push by state lawmakers to pass a revised mask ban.
Recent polls show more than 60% of Americans want U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other federal agents unmasked. More than a dozen states are pursuing laws similar to California’s.
Warner Bros. Discovery is cracking open the door to allow spurned bidder, Paramount Skydance, to make its case — but Warner’s board still maintains its preference for Netflix’s competing proposal.
Warner’s move to reopen talks comes after weeks of pressure from Paramount, which submitted an enhanced offer to buy Warner last week. Paramount’s willingness to increase its offer late in the auction attracted the attention of some Warner investors.
On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery responded with a letter to Paramount Chairman David Ellison and others on Paramount’s board, giving the group seven days to “clarify your proposal.”
“We seek your best and final proposal,” Warner board members wrote. Warner set a Feb. 23 deadline for Paramount to comply.
The closely watched sale of the century-old Warner Bros., known for “Batman,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Casablanca,” and HBO, the home of “Game of Thrones” and “Succession,” is expected to reshape Hollywood.
The flurry of activity comes as Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix are seeking to enter the home stretch of the auction. Warner separately issued its proxy and set a special March 20 meeting of its shareholders to decide the company’s fate.
Warner Bros. Discovery is recommending that its stockholders approve the $82.7-billion Netflix deal.
“We continue to believe the Netflix merger is in the best interests of WBD shareholders due to the tremendous value it provides, our clear path to achieve regulatory approval and the transaction’s protections for shareholders against downside risk,” Warner Chairman Samuel A. Di Piazza, Jr., said in a Tuesday statement.
Still, the maneuver essentially reopens the talks.
Warner Bros. is creating an opportunity for Paramount to sway Warner board members, which could perhaps prompt Netflix to raise its $27.75 a share offer for Warner’s Burbank-based studios, vast library of programming, HBO and streaming service HBO Max.
Netflix is not interested in buying Warner Bros. Discovery’s basic cable channels, including CNN, TBS, HGTV and Animal Planet, which are set to be spun off to a stand-alone company later this year.
In contrast, Paramount wants to buy the entire company and has offered more than $30 a share.
Last week, Paramount sweetened its bid for Warner, adding a $2.8-billion “break fee” that Warner would have to pay Netflix if the company pulled the plug on that deal. Paramount also said it would pay Warner investors a “ticking fee” of 25 cents a share for every quarter after Jan. 1 that the deal does not close.
“While we have tried to be as constructive as possible in formulating these solutions, several of these items would benefit from collaborative discussion to finalize,” Paramount said last week as it angled for a chance to make its case. “We will work with you to refine these solutions to ensure they address any and all of your concerns.”
Netflix agreed to give Warner Bros. Discovery a temporary waiver from its merger agreement to allow Warner Bros. Discovery to reengage with Paramount, which lost the bidding war on Dec. 4.
“We granted WBD a narrow seven-day waiver of certain obligations under our merger agreement to allow them to engage with PSKY to fully and finally resolve this matter,” Netflix said Tuesday in a statement. “This does not change the fact that we have the only signed, board-recommended agreement with WBD, and ours is the only certain path to delivering value to WBD’s stockholders.”
Netflix has matching rights for any improved Paramount offer. The company renewed its confidence in its deal and its prospect to win regulatory approval.
“PSKY has repeatedly mischaracterized the regulatory review process by suggesting its proposal will sail through, misleading WBD stockholders about the real risk of their regulatory challenges around the world,” Netflix said in its statement. “WBD stockholders should not be misled into thinking that PSKY has an easier or faster path to regulatory approval – it does not.”
Warner Bros. Discovery acknowledged that Paramount’s recent modification “addresses some of the concerns that WBD had identified several months ago,” according to the letter to Paramount.
But Warner Bros. Discovery added Paramount’s offer “still contains many of the unfavorable terms and conditions that were in the draft agreements … and twice unanimously rejected by our Board,” Warner Bros. Discovery said.
Warner’s board told Paramount it will “welcome the opportunity to engage” during the seven-day negotiation period.
Paramount has been pursuing the prized assets since last September.
“Every step of the way, we have provided PSKY with clear direction on the deficiencies in their offers and opportunities to address them,” Warner Chief Executive David Zaslav said in a statement. “We are engaging with PSKY now to determine whether they can deliver an actionable, binding proposal that provides superior value and certainty for WBD shareholders.”
OAKLAND — A federal judge Thursday said she is likely to allow a lawsuit alleging that solitary confinement conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison amount to psychological torture, to be expanded from the cases of 10 prisoners to include about 1,100 inmates now held in indefinite isolation.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken expressed concern at a hearing, however, that changes the state has made in how it identifies inmates for isolation means those prisoners won’t be included in the pending class-action lawsuit.
What’s more, lawyers for the state say they are in the process of moving some existing prisoners out of confinement in Pelican Bay’s super-maximum security isolation cells.
“I’m wondering how I would manage a class that has people moving in and out,” Wilken said. Nevertheless, she used Thursday’s hearing in Oakland to set Nov. 3, 2014, for the trial. Her ruling over whether that trial will be a class action, or remain confined to the few inmates who filed the case, is yet to be decided.
Inmates in Pelican Bay’s segregation units spend 22.5 hours a day confined to their cells and, though some have cellmates, are otherwise allowed limited human contact and few activities to occupy their time. They are allowed fewer possessions than other inmates, cannot earn good-time credits toward early release like other inmates and are generally refused parole.
The lawsuit alleges that the sensory deprivation of that confinement, especially for 500 men held in isolation more than a decade, causes irreparable psychological harm. The claims were also at the heart of three statewide prison hunger strikes, including a 60-day protest that ended last month when lawmakers pledged public hearings on the practice.
Only one hearing at the moment is planned, Oct. 9, in Sacramento, said staff for Assembly Public Safety Chairman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco).
Meanwhile, hunger strike leaders who had been moved during the protest have been returned to their old cells at Pelican Bay, said Anne Weills, one of the lawyers representing those prisoners. She met with them two weeks ago, and said several reported health problems related to their fasting, including cardiac trouble.
Former Philippine justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II also among eight current, past officials named in complaint.
Two sitting Philippine senators have been identified as “co-perpetrators” in former president Rodrigo Duterte‘s crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), documents released by prosecutors show.
Senators Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa and Christopher “Bong” Go are among eight current and former officials named in a document dated February 13 and posted to the court’s website late on Friday.
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Duterte was arrested in the Philippines’ capital, Manila, in March 2025, and was swiftly flown to the Netherlands, where he has been held in ICC custody at The Hague. The 80-year-old insists his arrest was unlawful.
ICC prosecutors have charged him with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his “war on drugs”.
“Duterte and his co-perpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralise’ alleged criminals in the Philippines [including those perceived or alleged to be associated with drug use, sale or production] through violent crimes including murder,” the prosecution document reads.
Dela Rosa, the former national police chief and enforcer of Duterte’s drug war, has previously said he believed he faced potential arrest and has been in hiding for months.
Go, re-elected in May in a landslide victory, was a key lieutenant of Duterte during both the latter’s terms as mayor of southern Davao City and as president from 2016 to 2022.
A representative of Dela Rosa said they had not yet seen the document. Go has yet to comment on the latest development.
It was not immediately clear if any of the men named in the prosecution document would face charges in court.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Kristina Conti, lawyer of several of the deceased victims’ families, noted that it’s the first time “significant details” were disclosed by the ICC to the public.
She said the inclusion of several high-ranking officials under Duterte showed that the deadly drug war under his presidency “was crafted not only to ensure implementation, but to ensure impunity”.
“The involvement of those in the investigating units, which should have acted as the killings happen, is material to the plan. This also emphasizes that the ‘war on drugs’ began in Davao,” Conti said.
Duterte is facing a four-day “confirmation of charges” hearing from February 23, in which judges will decide whether the prosecution’s allegations are strong enough to proceed to trial.
Judges have rejected arguments that the 80-year-old, who was arrested in March last year and transferred to the Netherlands the same day, was unfit to stand trial.
Go and Dela Rosa have been named as co-perpetrators in acts that took place during Duterte’s tenures as Davao mayor and president.
Former Philippine justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, who served as a lawyer for Duterte in cases involving the so-called “Davao Death Squad”, is also among the eight men named.
Ross Tugade, an ICC-accredited lawyer from the Philippines, said in a post on Facebook that the inclusion of the names of former Duterte officials indicates “that the ICC has evidence” to show a “criminal structure” in the commission of the alleged crimes.
The first of three counts against Duterte concerns his alleged involvement as a co-perpetrator in 19 murders carried out between 2013 and 2016 while he was mayor of Davao City.
The second relates to 14 murders of so-called “High Value Targets” in 2016 and 2017 when Duterte was president.
The third charge covers 43 murders committed during “clearance” operations of lower-level alleged drug users or pushers.
These took place across the Philippines between 2016 and 2018, the prosecution alleged.
The ICC also on Friday allowed the addition of 500 more complainants against Duterte in the trial.
Philippine Senator Christopher Go (left) served as the closest aide to Duterte since he was mayor of the southern city of Davao until his time as president of the Philippines [File: Handout Photo/PPD via AFP]
Seven California Highway Patrol officers who piled atop a man screaming “I can’t breathe” as he died following a drunk driving stop.
All three cases had similar outcomes: charges dropped or reduced to no time behind bars after a plea deal.
After a year in office, a pattern has emerged for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who found himself saddled with a number of misconduct and abuse cases against police officers filed by his predecessor, George Gascón.
During his 2024 campaign, Hochman often chastised Gascón for filing cases he claimed wouldn’t hold up before a jury — while also promising to continue bringing prosecutions against police when warranted.
In recent months, Hochman has downgraded or outright dismissed charges in many high-profile cases that Gascón filed. In the two misconduct cases Hochman’s prosecutors have brought to trial, the district attorney’s office failed to win a conviction.
Those outcomes have infuriated the loved ones of victims of police violence, local activists and even former prosecutors, who say Hochman’s backslide on the issue was predictable after he received millions in campaign contributions from police unions.
Greg Apt, a former public defender who served under Gascón as second-in-command of the unit that prosecutes police cases, said he quit last year out of frustration with the new leadership.
“I had concerns that the cases were not going to be treated the same way under Hochman that they were under Gascón, that alleged police wrongdoing would not be given the same level of oversight,” he said.
Hochman has scoffed at the idea that he’s too cozy with cops to hold their feet to the fire, saying his campaign’s war chest reflected bipartisan support that included Democrats who have been critical of police.
The district attorney said he’s made decisions based on what he can actually prove in court, and argued case reviews within the Justice Systems Integrity Division have become even more rigorous under his leadership.
“I’m going to look at the facts and the law of any case. I don’t believe in the spaghetti against the wall approach where you throw the spaghetti against the wall, and see if anything sticks, and let the jury figure it out,” he said. “That would be me abdicating my responsibility.”
Hochman’s supporters argue he has restored balance to an office that was often filing cases against police that were either legally dubious or flat out unwinnable.
Tom Yu, a defense attorney who often represents cops accused of wrongdoing, said Hochman is handling things in a more fair and objective manner.
Former Torrance Police Officers Cody Weldin, center, and Christopher Tomsic, right, pleaded guilty last year in a conspiracy and vandalism case in which they allegedly spray painted a swastika on a car. Attorney Tom Yu, defense for Weldin, is seen listening to the proceedings.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“By and large, he’s not going after the cops. But he didn’t dismiss all the cases either. I’m OK with that,” Yu said. “On a personal level, I think he’s doing a very difficult job in the police cases, because someone is always going to be unhappy with the decisions he made.”
It is difficult to win a guilty verdict for an on-duty shooting, with no such convictions in Los Angeles County since 2000. Laws governing use-of-force give officers great latitude, often protecting them even when they shoot someone who is later found to be unarmed or in situations where video evidence shows no apparent threat.
Hochman questioned why he is being criticized when the California attorney general’s office has reviewed dozens of fatal shootings of unarmed persons throughout the state since 2020 and filed no criminal cases.
“If you bring weak cases and you lose, it undercuts your credibility of being any good at your job,” Hochman said. “It undercuts your credibility in saying that we believe in the facts and the law and bringing righteous cases.”
Hochman brought 15 cases against police officers in 2025, according to documents provided to The Times in response to a public records request, compared with 17 filed by Gascón in his final year in office.
But while Gascón had a strong focus on the kinds of excessive force cases the public was clamoring to see charged when he was elected in 2020, Hochman has more often filed charges for offenses such as fraud and evidence tampering.
Hochman’s recent dismissal of charges against most of the officers involved in the death of Edward Bronstein has drawn outcry from his family and at least one former prosecutor.
Bronstein died after screaming in agony as six California Highway Patrol officers piled on top of him in Altadena in 2020. The officers were trying to get a court-ordered blood draw after Bronstein was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving.
Video from the scene shows Bronstein arguing with the officers while handcuffed and on his knees.
The officers warn Bronstein they’re going to force him down to get a sample. Right before they do, Bronstein mumbles that he’ll “do it willingly,” but they shove him face down while a seventh officer, Sgt. Michael Little, films the encounter. A minute passes. Then Bronstein’s body goes limp.
Officers can be seen trying to revive Bronstein, calling his name and slapping the side of his head, according to the video. But several minutes elapse before officers attempt to deliver oxygen or CPR. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announces he will ask a judge to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for the killing of their parents in 1989, a decision that could free the brothers.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In 2023, Gascón filed manslaughter charges against the seven officers, as well as the nurse who carried out the blood draw. But late last year, Hochman dismissed charges against all except Little, whose case was reduced to a misdemeanor, for which he received 12 months of probation. Little is no longer a CHP officer, according to an agency spokesman.
Prosecutors are still pursuing manslaughter charges against the nurse at the scene, Arbi Baghalian. His defense attorney, Joe Weimortz, said Baghalian had no control over the officers’ actions or the decision to pursue the blood draw. Weimortz also said he believed the officers were innocent.
Bronstein’s daughter, Brianna Ortega, 26, said in a recent interview that Hochman’s decision to drop the charges felt like a betrayal.
“It just seems like because they’re cops … they must get away with it,” Ortega said. “How are you going to put the blame on one person when all of you are grown men who know better? You have common sense. You have human decency. He is literally telling you he can’t breathe.”
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office could not conclusively determine Bronstein’s cause of death but attributed it to “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.” Bronstein’s family was paid $24 million to settle a wrongful death suit in the case.
Hochman said his office reviewed depositions from the civil case — which he said Gascón did not do before filing a case — and did not believe he could win a manslaughter case because it was impossible to say any officer specifically caused Bronstein’s death. Hochman said the officers had no intent to harm the man and were following orders of a superior officer.
“We looked at each officer, what they knew, what their state of mind was at the time. Understanding that there was both a sergeant there and a nurse, who was in charge of not only taking the blood draw but obviously doing it in a safe manner, and then deciding whether or not we could meet the legal standard of involuntary manslaughter for each officer,” he said.
Edward Tapia, the father of Edward Bronstein, speaks at a news conference about his son, a 38-year-old Burbank man who died while being restrained by California Highway Patrol officers in 2020 after refusing to have his blood drawn after a traffic stop. The family received a $24-million civil rights settlement in 2023 after filing a lawsuit against the state.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Bronstein’s killing was one of three cases in which Hochman assigned new prosecutors in the months before a trial started or a plea deal was reached. Aside from the Bronstein case, the others ended in an acquittal or a hung jury. All three prosecutors who were removed from the unit that handles police misconduct cases had either been appointed by Gascón or had a political connection to the former district attorney.
“When somebody’s lived that case for years, and then you take them off, it suggests that you’re less than serious about winning that case,” said Apt, the former prosecutor on the Bronstein case.
Hochman said he was simply bringing in staff with more trial experience on each case, insisting politics had nothing to do with the transfers. One of the cases, which involved allegations of perjury against L.A. County sheriff’s deputies Jonathan Miramontes and Woodrow Kim, ended with a lightning fast acquittal. Records show jurors deliberated less than an hour before coming back with a not guilty verdict.
In the other case, Hochman’s staff came closer to convicting a cop for an on-duty shooting than anyone else has in L.A. County in a quarter-century.
Former Whittier police officers Salvador Murillo, left, and Cynthia Lopez during their arraignment at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. Murillo was charged in a 2020 shooting that left an unarmed man paralyzed. Murillo’s trial ended with a deadlocked jury in November 2025.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Former Whittier Det. Salvador Murillo stood trial in November for shooting an unarmed man in the back as he fled down an alley in 2023. Nicholas Carrillo ran away on foot from a vehicle stop and was leaping over a fence — unarmed — when Murillo squeezed off four rounds. Two severed Carillo’s spine, paralyzing him.
The jury came back deadlocked, although a majority of the panel was leaning toward a conviction. Hochman said it is likely he will ask prosecutors to take Murillo to trial a second time, though a final decision has not been made.
This year, Hochman will have to weigh in on a pair of politically charged police killings.
The Department of Homeland Security said the off-duty ICE agent was responding to an “active shooter.” Porter’s family has said he was firing a rifle into the air as a celebration to ring in the new year.
Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter L.A., was part of a group that met with Hochman about Porter’s killing and other cases last month in South L.A.
She described the encounter as confrontational — and a disaster.
“I don’t know how we can expect any safety and accountability with this man in office,” Abdullah said.
Hochman must also decide how to proceed with the case of Clifford Proctor, a former LAPD officer charged for shooting an unarmed homeless man in the back in 2015.
Proctor left the LAPD in 2017 and was not indicted on murder charges until 2024. Gascón reopened the case in 2021, after prosecutors previously declined to file charges.
Hochman has not said if he intends to take Proctor to trial.
Hochman said that while he knows cases of police violence drive emotional reactions, he has to constrain himself to a cold analysis of the facts in front of him.
Reflecting on his confrontational meeting with Black Lives Matter activists, which centered on his recent move to dismiss charges in the 2018 killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell by Torrance police officers, Hochman said he can’t pursue cases just because people are upset.
“They couldn’t point out anything in that analysis that they disagreed with,” he said. “Other than the result.”
South Korean Deputy Defense Minister for national defense policy, Kim Hong-cheol, speaks during a briefing over North Korea’s claims of South Korean drone incursions into the North in September last year and earlier this week, at the defense ministry’s headquarters in central Seoul, South Korea, 10 January 2026. South Korea on 10 January denied North Korea’s claims that its drones infiltrated into the North in September 2025 and on 04 January 2026. File. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
Feb. 10 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s military-police joint investigation task force has conducted search-and-seizure operations at the National Intelligence Service and the Army Intelligence Command as part of a widening probe into allegations that drones were sent into North Korea with possible involvement by intelligence officials.
The task force said it executed warrants at 18 locations, including intelligence agencies, as well as the homes and offices of civilian suspects. Investigators are examining whether intelligence personnel contacted the alleged main perpetrator and provided cash payments related to the drone activities.
The NIS has denied any institutional involvement, saying there was no government-level direction. However, critics argue that the scale and nature of the alleged operation make it difficult to believe it occurred without awareness within the intelligence community.
According to the task force, three active-duty officers – a major and a captain from the Army Intelligence Command and a captain from a separate military unit – have been booked on suspicion of violating the Aviation Safety Act and other charges. Three civilians accused of launching drones toward North Korea from border areas have also been additionally charged under the Criminal Act with general offenses against the state.
Earlier, investigators booked three civilians, including the head of a drone manufacturing company, a company executive responsible for North Korea-related operations and a graduate student who claimed to have flown drones into the North. During the investigation, authorities identified evidence suggesting that one NIS employee and three active-duty military personnel contacted the graduate student and provided several million won in cash described as activity expenses.
The Army Intelligence Command said the civilian was recruited as a collaborator to assist intelligence-gathering activities, not to carry out drone operations. The NIS said the employee involved had never held a position allowing access to agency funds and had not used intelligence budgets.
Investigators and analysts, however, question whether a civilian could independently carry out drone infiltration activities targeting North Korea. Given the suspect’s repeated contact with intelligence officers, some observers say it is likely the incident was at least known within intelligence circles.
A source familiar with intelligence operations said it was premature to draw firm conclusions but noted that, given the nature of the alleged activity, it is difficult to rule out prior awareness or information sharing within the intelligence system. The NIS holds authority over budget oversight and operational audits of domestic intelligence bodies, raising further questions about internal controls.
The case has also reignited criticism of South Korea’s intelligence agencies as highly closed organizations, with tightly compartmentalized budgets and operations. Some analysts argue that such structures could allow activities inconsistent with the government’s stated North Korea policy to be carried out without effective civilian oversight.
“Operations of this scale are structurally difficult for a single agency to carry out alone,” another source said. “Given the command and budgetary framework, it is hard to understand how this could have proceeded without passing through the NIS.”
