Juvenile Court

Los Angeles County Juvenile Court will be opened to press coverage regularly, with certain exceptions intended to protect the interests of children, under an order issued Tuesday by the court's presiding judge. FOR THE RECORD: Juvenile Court: In the LATExtra sections of Feb. 1 and Feb. 8, articles about a decision to open Los Angeles County children's courts to reporters erred in some instances in headlines and in text by referring to access by media. The order by Judge Michael Nash specified that those courtrooms be open to the press.

Judge Michael Nash, who presides over the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, has long argued that public access to the court's proceedings would improve its accountability and the accountability of those who appear before it. Last week, he set out to prove it. Nash, along with this page, had supported state legislation that would change the presumption that dependency court hearings, in which the fate of children in foster care is decided, should...

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.

Los Angeles County Juvenile Court will be opened to press coverage regularly, with certain exceptions intended to protect the interests of children, under an order issued Tuesday by the court's presiding judge. FOR THE RECORD: Juvenile Court: In the LATExtra sections of Feb. 1 and Feb. 8, articles about a decision to open Los Angeles County children's courts to reporters erred in some instances in headlines and in text by referring to access by media. The order by Judge Michael Nash specified that those courtrooms be open to the press.

Lawyers for a 14-year-old Oxnard boy accused of gunning down gay classmate Lawrence King are mounting a novel defense, saying the district attorney's process for charging youths as adults is so flawed that the case should be dismissed and refiled in Juvenile Court. Ventura County prosecutors last year charged eighth-grader Brandon McInerney as an adult, two days after he allegedly walked into English class, took his seat and shot King, 15, twice in the back of the head.

Frankfurt officials said today that Mohammed Ali Hamadi, charged with air piracy and murder in the 1985 TWA hijacking to Beirut, will be tried before a juvenile court because he was only 20 at the time. The decision means Hamadi faces a maximum of 10 years imprisonment if convicted rather than life imprisonment. In the hijacking, Shia Muslim gunmen seized a TWA jetliner on an Athens-to-Rome flight and forced it to Beirut. A U.S.

When former Juvenile Court Judge Steven Z. Perren traveled to Sacramento five years ago to ask for $40 million in state funding to help pay for a new juvenile justice complex in Ventura County, he wasn't convinced he would win his case. On Friday, Perren joined county officials at a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new courthouse at the El Rio site where the sprawling complex is under construction.

Juvenile Court, Kearny Mesa. Downstairs, it's bedlam. Upstairs, it's beautiful. Below, on the first floor, a mom is howling at the sentence her child has just gotten. Here, upstairs in Bea Dollar's little office, baby Sean is googling and his teen-age mom is asking if she can get married. Leah and Kraig are two kids. Two beautiful kids, 16 and 17. High schoolers. Parents already.

A judge decided Monday that a 17-year-old high school honor student should be tried as a juvenile rather than as an adult in the pipe bomb explosion that killed his best friend and rocked the affluent San Diego neighborhood of Del Cerro.

Harry Simons, 83, Los Angeles County probation officer, juvenile court referee and commissioner for 39 years. Simons began working for the county during summers as a UCLA and USC student deputy probation officer. After serving in the armed forces during World War II, he became a full-time probation officer. Moving into administration, he eventually became director of the Santa Monica office of the Probation Department.

Juvenile dependency courts exist to protect children and youths who have been neglected and abused, so it's shocking that the presiding judge who oversees the Los Angeles County Superior Court's juvenile division is pushing a plan that puts foster children and youths at risk of further harm. If Judge Michael Nash's order stands, vulnerable children, youths and their families, who are already dealing with painful consequences of neglect and abuse, would face the additional burden of proving why the most intimate details of their lives should be kept private.

Dozens of foster children and attorneys protested Monday outside Los Angeles County's Edelman Children's Court in opposition to the proposed opening of juvenile dependency hearings to the public. Currently, members of the media and public are barred from entering dependency courtrooms without court permission. But Judge Michael Nash proposed a blanket order this month that would make the hearings open unless someone objects and a judge decides to close the proceeding. Lucias Bouge, a 19-year-old former foster youth opposed to Nash's proposal, said: "Kids laughed at me because of the way I talked, because my family was poor and because I was different from everybody else.

The presiding judge of Los Angeles County's Juvenile Court is preparing to open child dependency proceedings to the public in an effort to improve accountability and transparency in child abuse, neglect and foster care placement cases. Currently, members of the media and the public are barred from entering dependency courtrooms without court permission. But Judge Michael Nash is proposing a blanket order that would make the hearings open unless someone objects and a judge decides to close the proceeding.

When Suad Dabbagh and two other women graduated from Iraq's Judicial Institute in 1979, they became the first female judges in a nation run by Saddam Hussein. The novelty led to a deluge of news photo and interview requests. But progress was short-lived. By the mid-1980s, when Hussein's government once again stopped accepting women in its judicial study program, there were only six female judges. These days, after eight wrenching years of invasion, occupation and rebuilding, the outlook is different: There are 72 female judges working in Iraqi courts.

I retired recently as a Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner after 26 years on the bench, and I take issue with The Times' June 14 article, "Juvenile justice diverges in court." I was a criminal defense lawyer before becoming a commissioner, and a great part of my practice was representing juveniles in the Juvenile Court. (Many of the county's judges had similar experiences before being elevated to the bench.) As commissioner, I heard thousands of juvenile cases over the years involving countless different offenses, including murder, rape and robbery.

Travell Lincome was a 15-year-old special education student when he was charged two years ago with assault with a deadly weapon. He and a 16-year-old friend had allegedly thrown bleach at a woman and her baby at a South Los Angeles car wash. His friend, who faced similar charges, got a public defender. To avoid a conflict of interest, Travell was assigned to one of the private lawyers Los Angeles County contracts with for such cases. In the county's juvenile justice system, defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney face two distinct — and critics argue unequal — paths.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich predicted Wednesday that the Antelope Valley, with what some have characterized as the most serious child abuse problem in the county, will get a satellite court soon to handle juvenile dependency cases.

Alarmed by a rising tide of violent confrontations, many of them involving rival gang members, administrators at Juvenile Court have asked the county Board of Supervisors to approve the purchase of a walk-through security system for the busy Kearny Mesa facility. On Tuesday, court officials will ask the supervisors for $31,000 to purchase an X-ray machine and metal detector--screening equipment they contend is necessary to intercept weapons and protect employees and litigants at the courthouse.

Most judges in Los Angeles County have opted to give up a day's pay to help fill a budget shortfall that has led to monthly court closures and furloughs, according to a report submitted Monday. While other Superior Court employees were subject to mandatory furloughs beginning last month, judges were spared because of a constitutional provision that says judicial officers' salaries cannot be reduced during their term. Instead, the court set up a fund so that judges could donate a day's pay every month to help sustain court operations.

Lawyers for a 14-year-old Oxnard boy accused of gunning down gay classmate Lawrence King are mounting a novel defense, saying the district attorney's process for charging youths as adults is so flawed that the case should be dismissed and refiled in Juvenile Court. Ventura County prosecutors last year charged eighth-grader Brandon McInerney as an adult, two days after he allegedly walked into English class, took his seat and shot King, 15, twice in the back of the head.