Courtrooms

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.

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.

Recently the Orange County district attorney's office has adopted a policy of refusing to discuss cases in chambers with the court and defense counsel. This attempt by Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks is not only unwise, it's a maneuver that will backfire and cause serious ramifications to our criminal justice system. It has already caused a serious logjam in the system. All defendants accused of felony crimes are entitled to a jury trial within 60 days of the day of their arraignment in Orange County Superior Court.

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.

Every weekday morning Ralph E. Burns, a gruff-voiced, 85-year-old court commissioner, peers down from his bench in the downtown Los Angeles civil court building. Every one of the 160 seats is taken. Many of the faces that stare back at Burns are blank with confusion, frozen by procedural fear. These are the defendants. Soon Burns will begin ordering each into one of a dozen smaller courtrooms, where each will have a few minutes before a judge. The vast majority will lose. This is Division 20. This is where you go when you are being evicted.

Tensions exploded in a Compton courtroom Tuesday during a tumultuous day in which three young men were found guilty of murdering 17-year-old Corie Williams, an innocent high school student hit by bullets fired into an MTA bus in a gang feud. Just moments after the jury announced its verdict, as family members wailed in disapproval and one defendant was taken away, defendant Randall Amado sprang from his chair and vaulted toward the prosecutor.

Two Van Nuys courtrooms converted to high-tech fortresses at a cost of $140,000 for trials involving potentially violent defendants or spectators have seldom been used for that purpose, partly because judges and lawyers dislike the oppressive atmosphere they create. Instead, a steady stream of traffic scofflaws, evicted tenants and compliant crooks have argued their cases there--protected by the best bullet-resistant glass and high-security doors that money can buy.

Wife learns her once upstanding husband has been leading an alleged double life. She hears of hidden assets, an affair with another woman--decides to take matters, literally, into her own hands. Wife pummels alleged mistress. No, it is not a new installment of the "Jerry Springer Show," but the latest twist in a trial taking place in Los Angeles federal court.

When Marsha and Larry Lipsky wanted to evict a troublesome tenant from their home in Arlington Heights, Ill., they consulted a few attorneys but couldn't afford fees that ran from $500 to $5,000. So they did what a lot of people with legal trouble are doing these days: They became their own lawyers. "I was a nervous wreck," Marsha Lipsky, 67, said after presenting her case to a judge and winning an order for the tenant to leave. Legal service has never come cheap. But lawyers, judges and other experts say that for many people, the recession has made it a nearly impossible expense.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Charles "Tim" McCoy is warning of dire things to come should the state's budget crunch continue to take a toll on the nation's largest trial court system. In recent weeks he has met with attorneys and court officials around the county, telling them the once-a-month closures and furloughs that began in July may be just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next four years, he says, as many as 1,800 jobs may be eliminated and up to 180 courtrooms may have to be permanently shuttered.

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.

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.

Dear Friends: Happy Holidays and amen!!! Can you believe how much we've accomplished this year? We held three really big trials, made an international celebrity out of an alleged madam, gave President Clinton the best haircut he'll ever see--on the airport Tarmac, no less--installed a new mayor for the first time in 20 years, elected an openly gay City Council member for the first time and snuffed out apocalyptic fires (with the help...

Re "Courts Face Closures, Job Cuts," Aug. 27: I don't get it. We will have to close 29 courtrooms and lay off 168 employees. So why did we have to spend more than $90 million on the Chatsworth courthouse? It's an extravagant building that wasted lots of money for expensive granite yet contains too few (only eight) tiny courtrooms for the space it occupies and the money it cost. So where are the logic and the planning? Stephany Yablow Sherman Oaks

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.

A string of angry shouts, including "I hate you! I hate you!" tore through a packed Santa Ana courtroom Friday as the man accused of killing eight people and wounding a ninth at a Seal Beach beauty salon made his first court appearance. The defendant, Scott Dekraai, showed no emotion amid taunts from the spectators, who included dozens of the victims' family members and friends. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against Dekraai, who is charged with eight felony counts of special circumstance first-degree murder, and one felony count of attempted murder in connection with the worst mass killings in Orange County history.