Category: News

PJDC & The First Appellate District Project will host a Brown Bag Lunch on Juvenile Delinquency Appeals on June 5, 2014 at the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office. Please see flyer for details.

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On May 5, 2014, the California Supreme Court announced that for 20 years, courts had been erroneously construing the state’s juvenile life-in-prison-without-parole (LWOP) statute, incorrectly employing a presumption in favor of a sentence of life without parole for 16- and 17-year-olds convicted of homicide under particular circumstances. In the consolidated cases of People v. Gutierrez…

On May 3 (Los Angeles) and May 17 (San Francisco), there will be training seminars for attorneys who are interested in representing prisoners who committed their crimes as juveniles at youthful offender parole board hearings.  These special hearings are occurring as a result of SB 260, which requires the Board of Parole Hearings to consider …

On April 11, 2014, Marin County defenders attended a PJDC/First District Appellate Project training in San Rafael, “Juvenile Delinquency Appeals: FAQs for Juvenile Court Defenders.”  “Absolutely one of the best CLE’s I have been to in a long time,” wrote one Marin County lawyer in an evaluation.

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A unique San Francisco Public Defender program that keeps young people in the classroom rather than the courtroom has been selected as a 2014 Public Managerial Excellence Award winner by the civic planning organization SPUR.

The Legal Educational Advocacy Team (LEAP) will be honored Tuesday, March 11 by Mayor Ed Lee, past San Francisco mayors …

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights held a hearing on February 25, 2014 regarding the human rights, fiscal, and public safety consequences of the use of isolation in prisons, jails, and juvenile halls.  PJDC submitted testimony to the Subcommittee calling for the abolition of the use of isolation …

The Fair Sentencing for Youth Coalition and Human Rights Watch released a new guide for prisoners and their families about youthful offender parole hearings for prisoners convicted as adults for juvenile offenses. …

Disability Rights Legal Center and pro bono co-counsel at Milbank, Hadley, Tweed, & McCloy have won a landmark case in the California Supreme Court.  The court ruled in Los Angeles Unified School District v. Garcia on December 13, 2013, that California Education Code section 56041, (which requires the school district in which a pupil’s parent …

In a decision on September 27, 2013, the First District Court of Appeal held that a juvenile court must comply with the contempt provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure before ordering the secure confinement of a contemptuous habitual truant. These contempt procedures, applicable to adults, must now be applied to children in truancy cases,  …

On September 16, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 260 (Hancock), a new law that will give hope and a meaningful opportunity of parole for approximately 5,000 youth offenders serving extreme sentences in state prison in California.  The law will permit people whose crimes were committed as minors to appear before the Board of …