NATIONAL
March 14, 2012 | By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Authorities brought a sudden crisis under control at a courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, on Wednesday after a shooting left at least one person dead and several others injured. Beaumont police told The Times that the situation had been resolved Wednesday afternoon with a suspect in custody. Police said they could not release the name of the suspect or details of the shooting, including how many people had been killed or injured. The shooting occurred outside the courthouse, near the entrance, according to ABC News.
NATIONAL
March 1, 2012 | By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
The Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opened a misconduct review of Montana's chief federal District Court judge for forwarding a racially charged email about President Obama from his courthouse computer. Judge Richard F. Cebull asked for the review as calls mounted Thursday for his immediate resignation. Legal ethics experts predicted the incident would result in a public admonishment. The judge, appointed byPresident George W. Bush12 years ago, maintained after the email became public that it was meant to be seen as anti-Obama and not racist, but added, "I can obviously understand why people would be offended.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 2, 2012 | By Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times
Thieves broke a glass case, taking nuggets that had been collected over decades. Police, Siskiyou County sheriff's deputies and the California Department of Justice are investigating. Thieves in Yreka, Calif., made off with $3 million in gold nuggets Wednesday after breaking into the Siskiyou County Courthouse and smashing a glass case that contained a display on the area's mining history, officials said. The collection in the town near the Oregon border was about the only remnant of the Northern California county's little-known Gold Rush days.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 20, 2012 | By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington -- The long-stalled new federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles will finally move forward, Washington officials announced Thursday, despite scrutiny from congressional Republicans looking for ways to cut the federal budget deficit. The roughly $400-million project at 1st Street and Broadway, planned for more than a decade, would replace the Depression-era federal courthouse on Spring Street, which officials say has security and asbestos problems. It would also fill an immense hole: The Junipero Serra State Office Building, considered seismically weak after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, was demolished in 2007, leaving a gaping cavity and a rainy-season pond occasionally inhabited by ducks.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 12, 2012 | By Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times
Henry Marin was assigned to provide courthouse security, but in 2010 prosecutors say the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy strayed. He poked his head out of his courtroom doors, according to an indictment, and spotted a woman who was there to sneak him a package. Marin waved her over. The woman told him she had been instructed to hide the special delivery inside a burrito. "OK ... no problem," the deputy said as he allegedly accepted the hand-off. Inside that bean-and-cheese burrito was heroin that prosecutors say the deputy intended to smuggle into the courthouse jail.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 3, 2011 | By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times
Several times a week, a group of investors gathers in Norwalk to bid on homes that have been foreclosed. The midmorning auction outside the Los Angeles County Superior Court building is a high-stakes, but usually low-key affair. On Friday, bidders sat in the sun in lawn chairs, and the auctioneer looked relaxed in a pair of baggy sweat pants. But just as the auction was getting started, a commotion erupted from across the lawn. It was a group of protesters, marching with posters and howling an angry chant.