Juveniles

She starting leaving home at 13, and soon she was gone for good. The streets drew her, the Barrio Pobre gang took her in. She does not deny that at 16 she was there in Long Beach the night her boyfriend killed a younger girl in a gang dispute over a piece of jewelry. Now she is 37, and though two decades have passed, Elizabeth Lozano still looks young — short, thin, with long black hair and expressive eyes. Even in her prison blues, she radiates youth, and she has won acclaim for reaching out to help teenagers in prison and others who are at risk of ending up there.

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...

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.

Jockey Garrett Gomez turned 40 on New Year's Day, which only means he's getting wiser and better based on the way he has been riding at Santa Anita. He has become the jockey to bet on in stakes races, winning his fourth in a row and sixth in nine days at Santa Anita on Saturday. Gomez guided 10-1 longshot Out Of Bounds to a half-length victory over 1-2 favorite Secret Circle in the Grade III $100,000 Sham Stakes, the first major West Coast prep race for 3-year-olds seeking a spot in the Kentucky Derby.

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.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider putting a new national limit on life sentences for juveniles who are age 14 or younger. Nationwide, there are 73 prisoners who are serving life terms with no possible parole for their role in homicides committed when they were 14 or younger. The justices voted to hear appeals from two of those inmates — one from Alabama and one from Arkansas — to decide whether such a sentence for a very young criminal violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

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.

California lawmakers have repeatedly missed opportunities to bring some fairness, rationality and humanity to juvenile sentencing. They get another chance this week, and they should take it. The Assembly should pass SB 9, a bill to give offenders sentenced as minors to life without parole a chance to request a parole hearing. Assembly Democrats who have voted against earlier versions of this bill for fear of being labeled soft on crime should look at the facts. SB 9 would not automatically open prison doors for violent criminals.