Courtroom

The Hollywood studio "courtroom" of "Judge Judy" Sheindlin may seem inviting enough, but Hugo Escobedo Jr. looked like someone discovering a moment too late that he was in the lion's den and the head lion was about to bite his head off. During a taping, Escobedo, 18, was trying to persuade Sheindlin that he was not responsible for an accident in Houston that caused considerable damage to a car driven by 19-year-old Angelique Trump, who had filed...

The gig: As a kid Jamon Hicks spent many afternoons in courtrooms where his mother was a clerk. He still spends a lot of his time in courtrooms, but now Hicks, 32, is a trial attorney with the Cochran Firm in Los Angeles. Also, last month Hicks became president of the California Assn. of Black Lawyers, an organization founded in 1977 that now has more than 6,000 members, including lawyers, judges, law professors and students. Growing up in court: Hicks was raised in Inglewood and Baldwin Hills, and after day care or school he was often whisked to courtrooms where his mother was finishing her workday.

Rival Costa Mesa gangs got into a brawl in the middle of a Newport Beach courtroom, authorities said. Police said the two groups were in a courtroom where cases are introduced and assigned elsewhere Wednesday when they recognized each other. Police Sgt. Bryan Wadkins said a member of one group overheard the other talking about a previous fight. One of the groups suggested going outside, but the other wanted to go at it in the courtroom. Wadkins said none of the brawlers had more than minor facial injuries.

The sprawling Los Angeles County court system, which already lopped $70 million from its budget this fiscal year, will slash an additional $30 million in the coming months by laying off workers, closing courtrooms and axing a Juvenile Court program, court officials said Tuesday. The cuts comes as California's judicial budget, which has been pared back in recent years as the state struggled economically, faces the potential loss of tens of millions of dollars in 2013 if a tax measure on the November ballot fails.

A state task force recommendation to impose a total and permanent TV blackout on what's happening in California's courts during pretrial proceedings is a step in precisely the wrong direction ("Banning Cameras in Court Won't Cure What's Wrong," editorial, Feb. 26). Claims that cameras undermine the dignity of the courts or distort the judicial process simply don't wash. Whether cameras are in the court is not the issue, because it's the judge--not the camera--who controls the proceedings.

In the late 1980s, Kent Bridwell was a commissioner of the Superior Court, during which time he collected the following colorful typos and offbeat declarations: * "As to those statements which express an onion. . . ." * "When a recess was called in Courtroom 81, I immediately left the courtroom and checked the rooster. . . ." * "Notice of motion and order . . . requiring defendant . . .

A ruling this week by an appeals court in Washington has blurred the protections of free speech and press in the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution that its framers intended should be razor sharp. It filled the air with so much specious drivel about journalism that the First Amendment all but disappeared in a mist of misinformation. The decision by two members of the U.S.

Several hundred well-wishers gathered at Pepperdine University Friday for a ceremony dedicating a courtroom in honor of retired Judge John J. Merrick, who presided in Malibu Municipal Court for 22 years. A plaque and a portrait of Merrick were unveiled at the ceremony, said Jeff Bliss, director of public information for Pepperdine, where Merrick was a guest lecturer for 20 years. Merrick, 77, has lived in Malibu since 1947, and raised eight children there with his late wife, Marge.

A Ventura County Municipal Court judge who ordered spectators in his courtroom to be searched for weapons and their names checked for outstanding arrest warrants was operating outside the court's security policy and this type of search should not occur again without reasonable cause, county officials said Tuesday. At a meeting earlier this week, County Counsel James McBride and Sheriff's Cmdr.

Accused Night Stalker Richard Ramirez was wrestled to the floor and dragged from the courtroom by bailiffs Wednesday afternoon after they apparently became upset when he turned his head in the direction of a witness who was being escorted past him. Three bailiffs repeatedly struck the lanky defendant with their fists as they jumped on him and quickly pulled him out a doorway and back to his holding cell. Ramirez, who as usual was manacled in leg chains, did not cry out during the brief struggle.

The Hollywood studio "courtroom" of "Judge Judy" Sheindlin may seem inviting enough, but Hugo Escobedo Jr. looked like someone discovering a moment too late that he was in the lion's den and the head lion was about to bite his head off. During a taping, Escobedo, 18, was trying to persuade Sheindlin that he was not responsible for an accident in Houston that caused considerable damage to a car driven by 19-year-old Angelique Trump, who had filed...

When Lindsay Lohan showed up for court on Thursday, the crowd was not as large as it has been for the actress - anticipating perhaps a resolution, rather than the sort of dramatic turn that's made her five-year legal saga as compelling as any TV reality show. The 25-year-old Lohan has been in and out of jail and rehab so many times, her story line seemed to arc toward failure. She blew off therapy and community service, ticked off counselors and judges. You never knew what to expect from her in the courtroom - a tearful plea, a pout, a fingernail painted with a vulgar taunt.

A "Desperate Housewives" producer drew gasps from a packed courtroom Thursday when he revealed that a major character dies in an episode airing this weekend. George Perkins, an executive producer, disclosed the plot twist under questioning by a lawyer for actress Nicollette Sheridan, who is suing the show's creator and studio for wrongful termination stemming from the elimination of her character, Edie Britt. Asked if any other character of Edie's prominence had been killed off, Perkins shifted uncomfortably in his seat before answering.

Jose Perez had dug into hundreds of backyards for his father's swimming pool business, many of them in ritzy San Marino, with its tough soil of clay and rock. One day in May 1994, he felt the shovel of his Bobcat bulldozer hit something unfamiliar. Thinking that it was perhaps decades-old trash, his father peered inside a fiberglass box and sifted through its contents, Perez recalled Wednesday in an Alhambra courtroom. His father pulled something out and held it up with the rebar.

The man accused in the largest mass murder in Orange County history pleaded not guilty Wednesday to shooting and killing eight people at a Seal Beach beauty salon, including his ex-wife. Scott Evans Dekraai, wearing a mustard-yellow jumpsuit, his hands handcuffed in front of him, said nothing during his brief arraignment before a courtroom crowded with emotional family and friends of the victims of the Oct. 12 shooting spree at Salon Meritage. Dekraai was kept behind a barrier during the hearing at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana and did not look at the crowd.

Power Concedes Nothing One Woman's Quest for Social Justice in America, from the Kill Zones to the Courtroom Connie Rice Scribner: 368 pp., $26 Connie Rice is known in Los Angeles as a brilliant civil rights advocate and agitator, but people farther afield have often confused her with Condi, the former secretary of State. Connie narrowly escaped being Condoleezza, a family name; the two Rices are second cousins (and hold disparate political beliefs). Connie Rice dispenses with any confusion in the first pages of her memoir "Power Concedes Nothing" so she can get down to the business of telling her story.

As escape attempts go, Glendale lawyer J. Bruce Johnson's bolt for freedom Wednesday isn't likely to make much of an impression on history. But it certainly enlivened Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Boland's courtroom. One minute, those in the courtroom were quietly watching a seemingly routine proceeding: Boland sentenced Johnson to three years in prison for defrauding the Southern California Rapid Transit District of $62,000 in bogus insurance claims.

James F. Neal, a formidable lawyer who won noteworthy victories on both sides of the courtroom ? as a prosecutor he sent Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa and top Watergate figures to prison, and as a defense attorney he saved film director John Landis and Ford Motor Co. from serious criminal charges ? died Thursday at a Nashville hospital. He was 81. The cause was esophageal cancer, said his longtime law partner, Aubrey B. Harwell. Neal's reputation for tenacity and brilliance in the courtroom began with the 1964 prosecution of Hoffa, who had successfully fended off two dozen indictments until Neal, a stocky, cigar-chomping ex-Marine with a Tennessee drawl, was assigned to his case.

Like any concerned mother, Athena Hohenberg wanted to be sure her 4-year-old was getting a good breakfast. So she served up Nutella, a hazelnut and cocoa spread marketed as part of a balanced breakfast. "Start your day with Nutella spread," urge the TV ads. But Hohenberg was shocked to learn, she said in a lawsuit filed in February, that the sandwich spread is chock full of fat and sugar — "the next best thing to a candy bar," she alleged. Nutella manufacturer Ferrero USA Inc. has agreed to settle the suit brought by the San Diego mother on behalf of hundreds of thousands of consumers who may have been similarly deceived, even though the ads specified that fruit, milk and whole wheat bread were also part of that balanced meal.

Appearing in a military courtroom Friday for the first time, accused WikiLeaks source Army Pfc. Bradley Manning said he understood the charges against him in a criminal case that involves one of the largest leaks of classified material in U.S. history. The pretrial proceeding got bogged down in legal maneuvering when Manning's civilian lawyer, David Coombs, argued that the presiding military officer could not be impartial because he is also a federal prosecutor. Coombs said Army Reserve Lt. Col. Paul Almanza should step aside because he is the deputy chief prosecutor of the child exploitation and obscenity section of the criminal division of the Department of Justice.