Judges

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

A company headed by cellphone pioneer Craig O. McCaw asked the California Supreme Court to reinstate a $603-million fraud and breach-of-contract verdict against Boeing Co., alleging that two appellate justices had conflicts of interest. ICO Global Communications, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corp., said in its appeal filed Wednesday that two state 2nd District Court of Appeal judges considered Boeing's petition to toss out the trial court verdict even though they owned stock in Boeing.

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!

In a setback for federal regulators, a federal judge threw out many of the fraud allegations against former IndyMac Bancorp Chief Executive Michael W. Perry in a case stemming from the collapse of the onetime Pasadena mortgage lender. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real tossed five of seven public filings late Monday that had supported civil claims filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also ruled that Perry could not be forced to repay allegedly ill-gotten gains. Perry's lead attorney, Jean Veta of Covington & Burling in Washington, said the SEC suit "should never have been filed" and that she would contest the remaining accusations at a non-jury trial scheduled for June 26 before Real.

The June 8 primary ballot includes 21 candidates competing for six positions on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. That's a fraction of the court's more than 400 judges, the vast majority of whom are appointed by the governor. It's too small a number for the electorate to be able to correct any perceived political, gender or racial imbalances on the court, or to try tinkering with the proportion of prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers or civil practitioners who come to the bench. This allows voters to focus on one basic question: Which candidate in each race would make the best judge?

Trial judges are, on the books, elected officials, and even the vast majority of those whose names never appear on a ballot are subject to election challenge every six years. Should voters not call them to account for their performance, as they do with any other politician, on election day? Should they not encourage opponents to challenge incumbent judges? Or are judges different from members of Congress or city councils? Judges are most definitely different. The last thing we want or need in California is trial judges who sit on the bench with one eye on justice and the other on how any particular ruling is going to play with the public.

Citing concerns about remarks he made in an earlier hearing, an Orange County judge removed himself Monday from a case involving televangelist Paul Crouch. Judge John M. Watson made the decision during a contempt-of-court hearing for Enoch Lonnie Ford, a former TBN employee who says he had a homosexual tryst with televangelist Paul Crouch. Crouch, 70, founded the world's largest religious broadcasting network and is a popular on-air personality. He has vehemently denied the accusations.

Attorney Gary Dubin was in a Honolulu hospital, sedated and suffering from depression after the death of his son, when U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real had him handcuffed and taken to court -- still in his hospital gown -- to answer charges of failing to file tax returns. Real allowed him to send for clothes but refused to postpone the hearing, recalled Dubin, who had to defend himself in a medicated fog without his case files. Judged guilty by Real after a two-day bench trial, Dubin spent 19 1/2 months in federal prison, while his home went into foreclosure and his credit was ruined by identity thieves.

On the same day the Arizona Legislature passed a strict and controversial immigration bill, the state's two U.S. senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, announced a tough new federal border enforcement plan. The federal plan got far less attention than the headline-grabbing state initiative, but it deserves the same scrutiny. Among other problematic suggestions, McCain and Kyl have recommended expanding Operation Streamline, a costly initiative aimed at criminally prosecuting and imprisoning every immigrant who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully.

James R. Browning, the rural Montana native who rose to head the powerful U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and unified its diverse judges in campaigns to enlarge the bench and protect the sprawling circuit from division, has died. He was 93. Browning died Saturday at a Marin County hospital, the court said in a Monday night announcement. The cause was not given. Browning was the last 9th Circuit judge appointed by President Kennedy, whom he met on Inauguration Day 1961, when, as clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court, he held the Bible as the chief justice swore the youngest chief executive into office.

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

Former IndyMac Bancorp Chief Executive Michael W. Perry has won dismissal of much of the fraud lawsuit brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real in L.A. tossed out five of the seven SEC filings by IndyMac that the agency's suit listed as grounds for action. Real ruled Monday that the filings from the giant Pasadena thrift contained no false or misleading statements to investors about IndyMac's deteriorating condition as the housing markets melted down.

The heads of Apple Inc.and Samsung Electronics Co. will sit opposite each other in settlement talks this week, even as the rival smartphone makers continue to blast each other with patent infringement claims. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook was scheduled to participate in a mediation conference with Samsung Chief Executive Gee-Sung Choi in front of a San Francisco judge Monday and Tuesday to discuss how to speed the resolution of a high-profile U.S. patent case. The 13-month-old case in the U.S. District Court in Northern California is one of many around the world that are amounting to a bruising patent war. The two companies have repeatedly accused one another of copying the look and function of their rival's tablets and smartphones.

It has long been clear that the most wonderful thing about Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice is the spectacular marketing skill that persuades consumers to fork over their hard-earned cash for a liquid that sells for five to six times the price of, oh, cranberry juice. As we've mentioned in the past , the key to that marketing is the claim by Pom's makers, the Beverly Hills grandees Stewart and Lynda Resnick and their company, that Pom has wonderful health effects, especially in the areas of prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, and cardiovascular performance.

For 18 years, Dora Sanchez Hernandez has fiercely protected her son. From the time Erik Esequizel was born prematurely at just 24 weeks, she has been there for him. Through 50 surgeries and two near-death episodes. Through the daily demands of feeding, bathing and dressing. Through abandonment by his father and advice from doctors to pull the plug. Now - in what L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael I. Levanas called a "celebration of family" - Hernandez and 14 other families have been granted limited conservatorships over their disabled children.

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.

These days our civic conversation is dominated by declarations rather than argument, by assertion as opposed to evidence. It is, for example, routinely asserted in some quarters that religion and its values are everywhere under siege and that believers are continually discriminated against in public life. In fact, we are, as a people, more God-besotted than at any time in our recent history. America is the only country in the developed world in which a large majority continues to profess belief in a supreme being; slightly more than half our people are formally affiliated with a church, which also is anomalous among advanced nations.

With seven children to care for and a caseload that quadrupled this past year, U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson says he can no longer afford his prestigious lifetime appointment. The 44-year-old, named to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California less than four years ago, is the latest defection in an accelerating nationwide trend toward leaving the federal bench long before retirement age to earn more money in private practice. Vacancies in the federal judiciary are mounting, and too few of the best legal minds are stepping forward to replace them, judicial analysts say. They attribute what they see as a troubling phenomenon to Congress' failure for nearly two decades to pass a significant pay increase for federal judges or to expand their numbers to handle a soaring caseload.

Randy Jackson is known for providing measured critiques to aspiring singers on Fox's "American Idol," but in his private life, he's had to analyze something entirely different: After a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes nine years ago, the music industry veteran needed to reevaluate his diet and lifestyle. Jackson went from piling his plates high with fried food and counting riding in a golf cart as exercise to eating veggies with every meal and working out every day. He talked to us about how his diagnosis changed his life and how he hopes to help others.

A New York federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents contend could subject them to indefinite military detention for political activism, news reporting or other 1st Amendment activities. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan ruled Wednesday in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the Defense Department. Obama signed the bill into law Dec. 31. The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges.