Courthouses

On summer nights in the mid-1960s, while black-and-white television crackled elsewhere in his Staten Island home with news of Southern violence and Vietnam, Bobby Lasnik would stretch out in his bedroom to let the righteous soundtrack of the civil rights movement waft into his impressionable teenage soul. Tuned in to WBAI-FM, coming across the water from Manhattan, he heard baleful laments about injustice that he would carry with him for a lifetime. "Suddenly there was someone speaking a certain kind of truth to you. You'd say, 'Wow!

WASHINGTON — In a potential threat to the long-stalled new downtown Los Angeles federal courthouse, the Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday night to prevent the Justice Department from spending money to staff the building. The prohibition, attached to a funding bill, is certain to face resistance in the Senate, where California's Democratic senators have made a new courthouse at 1st and Broadway a priority. Still, the vote signaled Central Valley Republican Rep. Jeff Denham's determination to scuttle a $400-million project he considers unnecessary.

Although the start on construction of the West Valley's first county courthouse was delayed many years, work now underway is several months ahead of schedule, officials said Tuesday. The $65-million Superior Court, the third Superior Court building in the San Fernando Valley, should be completed by April, said Gene Frey, project superintendent with Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Co., the courthouse builder. Completion had originally been scheduled for next summer.

Construction of the Gov. George Deukmejian Courthouse reached a milestone last week when workers placed the last beam of the $490-million structure in downtown Long Beach. The new building, set to open on Magnolia Avenue in fall 2013, will replace the nearby Long Beach Courthouse, completed in 1959 and considered overcrowded and obsolete. The five-story Deukmejian building will house 31 courtrooms, as well as superior court administration quarters, Los Angeles County justice agencies, offices leased to the county Probation Department, a food court and a convenience store.

A dark green curtain now shrouds a modernist mural that towers 19 feet behind the Supreme Court bench, leaving lawyers and art experts arguing the case for abstract art in the courtroom. The 300-square-foot mural "Capitol Reef" was unveiled at the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse when the building opened in 1998. But when court convened this week, the $80,000 mural was hidden behind a mechanized curtain.

The Calabasas Courthouse will close permanently Sept. 29. After the shutdown, residents of the court's Northwest District, which includes all Los Angeles County communities north of Mulholland Drive, will be directed to the courthouse in Van Nuys, court officials said. The closure is part of a general move toward greater efficiency by the Los Angeles County Superior Court system, said Ann Madden, acting trial court administrator.

Los Angeles County staff has completed its environmental review of the proposed Chatsworth courthouse and has determined that all the negative impact can be mitigated. But Harry Godley, chairman of the Chatsworth Homeowners Committee, said Monday that the group will continue to battle the project. "We are terribly disappointed and we think it's wrong," Godley said. "They haven't thoroughly considered the alternate sites at all and they are in total disregard of the community and its feelings."

Police Friday found a bomb in a bathroom of Rome's main courthouse following an anonymous call to a newspaper. Police evacuated the building, where most of the capital's civil and criminal cases are heard and many investigating magistrates have offices.

An early morning fire gutted a small courthouse in the far western part of the state, a county official said. No one was inside the Carlisle County Courthouse in Bardwell when the blaze started. The building was all but destroyed, with only the outer brick walls still standing, said John Roberts, the county's judge-executive. The structure was built in the early 1980s after the previous courthouse was burned by an arsonist.

The Orange County Superior Court branch in Laguna Niguel will close July 3 to begin final design and construction of a new justice center at the existing site. Misdemeanors and felonies handled at the Laguna Niguel facility will be transferred to Harbor Justice Center at 4601 Jamboree Road in Newport Beach. Traffic, civil and small-claims matters will continue to be handled at the Laguna Hills courthouse at 23141 Moulton Parkway. The remodeled Laguna Niguel facility is scheduled to reopen in 2011 with 18 courtrooms.

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.

  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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The pile of unread magazines and novels on her bedside table is Judge Betty Fletcher's only regret in letting retirement elude her. Fletcher, who turns 88 this month and relies on a walker to navigate airports and courthouse corridors, retired a dozen years ago yet still works full time, on what is known as senior status, for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. She travels throughout the court's nine-state region for hearings and spends seven days a week poring over foot-high stacks of written filings.

The new Palmdale Courthouse opened for business Monday, enabling many Antelope Valley residents to have their civil cases heard much closer to home. Civil jury trials originating in the Antelope Valley currently are held in Los Angeles because of the overcrowded conditions at Antelope Superior Court in Lancaster, said Judge Frank Y. Jackson, supervising judge of the North District, which includes the Palmdale and Lancaster courthouses.

The balloons strung around the courthouse may have distracted other kids, but not Hector Arellano. The 11-year-old showed up at the Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court — shoes polished, hair styled and with one of his best tie and sweater vest combos — ready for business. "I'm here to see the judge so I can be adopted," he said smiling, standing just a few feet from his soon-to-be mom and dad, Susan and Clay Nichols, and his new big sister, Jessica. Photos: Adoption Day On Friday the Monterey Park county building that handles case after case of child abuse and neglect transformed into a place of celebration as more than 100 foster children were officially adopted as part of National Adoption Day. The event, held nationwide for 11 years, encourages people to become adoptive parents.

It was a few minutes after 1 p.m. when the moment many had waited hours for finally arrived: The verdict was in, and Conrad Murray was guilty. They cheered, they cried, they embraced strangers like longtime friends. And, then, with perfect timing, a black Volkswagen Beetle cruised by, a Michael Jackson impersonator behind the wheel and "Billie Jean" blaring from the speakers. Candace Juleff was wearing a tank top bedazzled with the silhouette of the pop star, and she pulled her top off when she heard the news, waving it around in front of the TV news cameras, wearing only a sports bra. PHOTOS: The trial of Dr. Conrad Murray "Yes!