False Imprisonment

A lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court on Friday accuses Costco Wholesale Corp. of breaking California labor law by routinely keeping employees from going home each night for 15 minutes as managers remove jewelry from cases and check registers. The policy, the suit says, amounts to false imprisonment.

Prosecutors have long been shielded from lawsuits brought by people who were wrongly convicted. Even if a defendant is later shown to be entirely innocent, the prosecutor who brought the charges cannot be held liable for the mistake. The Supreme Court has ruled that "absolute immunity" is needed so that prosecutors -- and judges -- can do their jobs without fear of legal retaliation. But a California case that the high court is considering taking could open a back door for such lawsuits.

A man who spent nearly 23 years in prison for a rape and burglary he did not commit has been set free in Dallas. A judge overturned the convictions of 49-year-old Thomas Clifford McGowan based on a DNA test. He was convicted of a crime that took place in 1985 and got life sentences on both the rape and burglary counts.

A state agency has recommended that a former Buena Park man be paid $31,700 for spending 10 months in prison for a carjacking he did not commit. On Wednesday, James Ochoa, 22, also reached a tentative $550,000 settlement of lawsuits he had filed against Buena Park, its Police Department and a dog handler involved in the investigation. Ochoa pleaded guilty on the third day of his trial in 2005 after Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert F.

Thirty-six years have passed since she saw him last, but Leontine Verrett has never forgotten the face of the man she still calls her true love. His name was Brent Miller. He was lean and cocksure and strummed his guitar a little too loud. Their romance blossomed on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the plantation turned prison built along a bend of the Mississippi River. He came from a clan where men had served as prison guards for generations.

A man arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol was actually suffering from a stroke, according to a lawsuit filed against the city of Costa Mesa. Salvador Jimenez, a gardener, accused police of negligence and failure to provide medical treatment in the civil lawsuit filed last week in Santa Ana. He is seeking more than $250,000 in damages in connection with his arrest two years ago by Officer Heather Keller. Costa Mesa officials declined to comment on the lawsuit.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that a Venice man imprisoned more than 20 years in the murder of a florist shop owner was wrongly convicted and ordered his swift release. The decision means that Timothy Atkins, now 40, who was convicted of second-degree murder and two robbery counts as an accomplice in an attempted carjacking on New Year's Day in 1985, could be freed without bail as soon as today. Judge Michael A.

The Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to pay $320,000 to settle a lawsuit by a man who was cleared of murder when footage shot for the HBO comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" showed him at a Dodgers game when the crime occurred. Juan Catalan had filed a police misconduct suit against the city after spending nearly five months in jail for a crime he did not commit -- a point his lawyer proved after producing outtakes from the television show.

Finding that a sheriff's detective had falsified evidence, a federal jury in Los Angeles ordered Riverside County on Monday to pay $2 million to a man exonerated by DNA evidence after serving 12 years in prison for rape. The verdict came 19 years after Herman Atkins was sentenced to 45 years in prison for a 1986 rape and robbery in Lake Elsinore. Atkins steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2000, DNA tests conducted by Richmond, Calif.

An influential California commission said Thursday that forensic science errors are a major contributor to wrongful convictions and called for better training, more monitoring and stronger standards in the real world of "CSI." The report cited the Innocence Project at New York's Cardozo Law School, which identified forensic science testing errors in 63% of a set of nationwide DNA exoneration cases analyzed.