Criminal Records

The California Supreme Court gave prosecutors a victory Thursday, ruling that serious felonies committed by a juvenile, even when dealt with by a Juvenile Court, can count as prior strikes under the state's three-strikes law. Legal experts said the ruling settles the issue of what a judge may consider in deciding whether a convicted adult felon is subject to the 25-year-to-life sentence mandated by the three-strikes law for repeat felons.

More than 200 people arrested during the Occupy L.A. sweep remained in jail Thursday night, drawing protests from civil right attorneys who said many may not face charges and should be freed immediately. As the total of nearly 300 arrestees began moving through the criminal justice system, Los Angeles Police Department records offered a more detailed portrait of those involved in the final throes of the two-month demonstration. They show that the arrestees skewed young, white and male, but included a wide spectrum of races and ages.

Amid an aggressive push to bolster its ranks with thousands of new deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department loosened its hiring practices and gave jobs to recruits who in the past would have been rejected, according to a department watchdog report released Thursday. Among those hired were applicants with criminal records, drug and alcohol problems and financial woes. One recruit, for example, had been released from another police agency after using excessive force.

Dozens of registered nurses who have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault have been identified by California regulators reviewing newly required fingerprints from tens of thousands of caregivers. The state Board of Registered Nursing expanded its review of nurses' criminal records after an October 2008 story by The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica found that regulators often didn't know about nurses' convictions and didn't act quickly once they learned of them.

A surgical technician convicted of firing a gun into an occupied car was back on the job last week at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, just days after being released from jail, despite vows by Los Angeles County officials to crack down on medical personnel with criminal records. Norris Smith, 53, had spent 169 days behind bars before pleading no contest to the felony charge Aug. 26. In exchange for the plea, a five-year state prison sentence was suspended. He was placed on probation and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment and abstain from alcohol, according to court records.

For more than five years, U.S. immigration authorities have touted the success of a national program aimed at arresting and deporting dangerous criminals and fugitives. In frequent early morning raids at homes in Los Angeles and around the country, federal fugitive teams have sought out immigrants with criminal records or outstanding deportation orders. And year after year, the Department of Homeland Security has received congressional support and funds to expand the program.

Eben Gossage, 43, wants to become a lawyer. He passed the bar exam on his first try. His friends and business associates agree he has a keen mind, dogged persistence and integrity. A handful of elected city officials, including a state senator and the district attorney, are supporting his quest. But the earnest, clean-cut Gossage has a past, a terrible past.

Before Kimberly Haven set out to register voters this month, she checked Baltimore city records to find a neighborhood with a surprising feature: a large number of felons. There, on a litter-strewn street corner, her team ran into Lonnell Burke, who was waiting to catch a bus to a local drug rehab center. With cocaine and armed burglary convictions, Burke assumed he was barred from the polls forever.

Re "Criminal past no bar to nursing in California," Oct. 5 Your article points out that there are a number of nurses with criminal records, and gives examples. Frankly, their criminal records have nothing to do with their job performance as nurses. And it is well known that we have a shortage of nurses. Their criminal records for things like drugs or alcohol and so forth should not be used to prevent them from working. The state of California, through its excessive laws and punishments, has harassed them enough.

The Army spent nearly $500 million on no-bid contracts for private security guards and also used contractors that hired people with criminal records, according to congressional investigators. "The Army's procedure for screening prospective contract guards is inadequate and puts the Army at risk of having ineligible guards protecting installation gates," the Government Accountabilty Office said.

Immigration agents arrested nearly 300 foreign nationals with criminal records during a three-day sweep in California, officials announced Friday. The operation was the largest of its kind and resulted in the arrests of illegal immigrants convicted of robbery, assault and rape, said John Morton, head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The sweep ended Thursday night. Officials said 96 of the 286 arrests took place in Los Angeles County. Among those arrested in the county were a suspected gang member from El Salvador who had a 2004 robbery conviction and a Guatemalan man with a 1993 conviction for lewd acts with a child under 14. "These are not people we want walking our streets," Morton said.

A surgical technician convicted of firing a gun into an occupied car was back on the job last week at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, just days after being released from jail, despite vows by Los Angeles County officials to crack down on medical personnel with criminal records. Norris Smith, 53, had spent 169 days behind bars before pleading no contest to the felony charge Aug. 26. In exchange for the plea, a five-year state prison sentence was suspended. He was placed on probation and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment and abstain from alcohol, according to court records.

Phillip Garrido, who was convicted in a 1976 kidnapping and rape, was arrested four years earlier for allegedly drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl near his hometown, police in Antioch, Calif., revealed Thursday for the first time. Garrido was arrested last week on suspicion of kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was snatched from her street in South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and was allegedly kept in a hidden backyard warren of sheds and tents for 18 years.

Two years ago, Calgary real estate executive Ryan Alexander Jenkins was sentenced to 15 months' probation and ordered to complete domestic violence counseling after hitting his then-girlfriend. But Jenkins came to Los Angeles and was selected as a contestant on the VH1 reality show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," on which wealthy men compete for the love of a young woman. Now Jenkins is wanted in the slaying of his ex-wife, model Jasmine Fiore, and "Megan Wants a Millionaire" has been abruptly pulled off the air by VH1. The case raises questions about how a man with a record of domestic violence got onto a show on which the object is to marry a woman.

Pledging more oversight and accountability, the Obama administration announced plans Thursday to transform the nation's immigration detention system from one reliant on a scattered network of local jails and private prisons to a centralized one designed specifically for civil detainees.

Charles Samuel, the parolee accused of killing Lily Burk, was convicted 22 years ago of another violent robbery that bore a striking similarity to last month's abduction and slaying of the high school senior in downtown Los Angeles, according to court records reviewed by The Times. As in the Burk case, Samuel was accused of kidnapping someone -- this time an elderly man -- and driving in the man's car to an ATM, where he demanded that the man withdraw cash.

The construction company that allegedly bilked Los Angeles County out of $1.5 million in cash and construction costs while one of its top executives was in jail for drug trafficking will be charged next week with at least one count of fraud, a source close to the investigation said Thursday.

Eddie Mendiola thought his troubles were over when a federal judge dismissed the case against him for entering the country illegally. But weeks after the ruling, the Orange County resident remains in custody while the government presses ahead with efforts to deport him. In August, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles did not oppose his attorney's motion to dismiss the case, seemingly clearing the way for Mendiola's release from custody. David A.

The man charged in the kidnapping and murder last week of a teenage girl had been given permission to leave a residential drug program in order to visit a Department of Motor Vehicles office, even though the office was closed, state officials confirmed Wednesday. Authorities also said they were investigating whether state rules requiring that a parole agent approve requests to leave such facilities were violated.

As Congress moves slowly on immigration reform, President Obama is making numerous policy changes in enforcement and other areas that are designed to shift priorities and boost confidence in the administration as it lays the groundwork for possible legislation. Most of the changes are being driven by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and are primarily aimed at illegal immigrants with criminal records and employers who hire undocumented workers.