Notable Cases

Each case is decided on its own facts and the law. Each case is different and your case will be different.  Please do not think of these cases as a promise or a guarantee of a result in your own case.

Below is a description of a few of the cases in which I have been involved over the years.

Cases that were dismissed completely before trial.

People v. Young Man

In People v. Young Man I represented a young man accused of mayhem. 

He faced 8 years in prison.  He had been to a house party hosted by one of his friends while the parents were away on vacation.  There was a lot of drinking and rough behavior. 

A fight broke out and then the lights went out.  When the lights came on again, there was a broken liquor bottle at the young man’s feet.  The guest standing next to the accused had a horrible cut on his face from eye to chin.

The issue was who did it. 

The police called the client to the station.  At first they told him he was free to leave at any time.  But they turned the heat up on the questioning very quickly.  Eventually, the client was pressured into writing a false confession.

The young man was accused of mayhem and faced 8 years in prison.

I moved to have the confession excluded based on rulings and precedents established by the United States Supreme Court.  After three days of hearings, the court excluded the confession.

All charges were dropped a week before trial.

The young man has completed college, married and started a family. He is an asset to the community. He has no criminal record at all.

People v. Young Man

In People v. Young Man, I represented a client accused of embezzlement and grand theft.

The young man and two friends worked for a service company at the airport.  They were accused of taking approximately $30,000.00 from the employer’s vending machines.

We made arrangements with the company’s lawyer to pay the money back.

All criminal charges were dropped.  The client has no criminal record at all.

People v. Young Woman

A young woman was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in February of 2011.  I went to court with her on the appointed date about two weeks later.  The prosecutor had not yet filed charges.  He said he was waiting for the results of the blood tests.

I pressed the prosecutor regularly to find out whether he was going to proceed or not.  No reply.  I offered to produce the accused in court at any time.  Still no reply. 

The prosecutor filed charges in May of 2011 and arranged to have a warrant issued for my client’s arrest.  He never notified me.

Nearly two years passed.  The client was stopped for a traffic infraction.  The old warrant came to light and she was brought back to court.

I applied to the court to have the case dismissed.  I said there was no excuse for the long delay by the prosecution.

Result:  All charges were dismissed.

Trials

People v. Cable Installer

In the People v. Cable Installer, I represented a middle aged man who had the job of installing television cables in people’s homes.  He arrived at the home of a young woman and found her watching an adult video.  The two had a sexual encounter and the young woman accused the client of raping her.  The issue was whether the sex was consented to or whether the client forced the young woman.  The client faced fourteen years in prison.

At trial, the prosecutor called the nurse who had examined the young woman in the hospital shortly after the incident happened.  The nurse testified that she found tears in the skin of the woman’s private part, and that the tears proved that there was force used during sex.

We found a physician who specializes in cases like this one.  He testified that the tears did not necessarily prove rape.

He also testified that the tears could have been as much as three days old.

After three weeks of trial, the jury acquitted on the most serious charges and deadlocked on the remaining charges.

Rather than undergo a new trial, the client accepted a sentence of probation.  He walked out of the courthouse a free man.

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Political Refugee

In Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Political Refugee, I represented a young man who was seeking political asylum.

He had been an insurgent guerilla fighter in the Civil War in El Salvador.  Government troops captured and tortured him.  He escaped El Salvador and entered the United States secretly.  Immediately, the government sought to deport him.

I was approached by the Bar Association of San Francisco to represent the client.  This is considered an honor.

These cases are very difficult.   Only about 15% of asylum cases are successful nationwide.

I knew that if my client were sent back to El Salvador, there would be someone waiting for him.  I treated the case as a death penalty case.

I prepared the client’s written application for asylum.  We met almost every week to prepare.  When we arrived for trial we were ready.

The trial was hotly contested.  After trial, the immigration Judge granted the client’s petition for asylum.  He has been granted permanent lawful resident status in the United States.

We were able to arrange to have the client’s entire family immigrate to the United States. 

He now works as a manager in a local business.

People v. Young Father

In People v. Young Father, a young man came to me saying that his children had been taken away from him.  His wife told the police that my client had sexually molested his daughters.  Both of the children were under the age of five.  The children had been placed in foster care and a hearing was set for the next day in Juvenile Court to find out whether to take the children away from both parents and continue to keep them in foster care.  There was a second case in Criminal Court against the young man for molesting the girls.

The accusations in the juvenile court case and the accusations in the criminal court case were based on exactly the same facts. 

The client faced eleven years in prison.

I handled both cases.  We tried the juvenile court case before a judge for three weeks.  The result in the juvenile case is confidential.  The young man was sentenced to probation in his criminal case.  For more information, see my article Child Molesting Cases for Family Lawyers.

People v. Juvenile Male

A teenage boy was accused of felony assault with a deadly weapon in juvenile court.

He and two other boys had beaten a young father up outside of a local golf course.  Before trial, the Judge was ready to lock the boy up and send him away.  There was really no dispute that the boys had beaten the young father up without any provocation.

At trial it developed that the employer of one of the boys was the root of the problem.  The boss had been in an argument with the victim, and put the young man up to committing the beating.  Now the judge saw the case in a different light.

The boy was sentenced to probation.  He went on to graduate from college.  His record has been sealed.

Plea Bargains

People v. Traffic School Owner

People who have had driving infractions can avoid having points placed on their driving records if they take an eight hour traffic education program.

The authorities conducted an undercover operation. They learned that the traffic school operator took fees for the traffic school, but did not hold the classes. The client was accused of nine counts of perjury and nine counts of causing false papers to be filed with the court.

She faced thirteen years in prison.

We proposed many different alternatives to settling the case. We were able to persuade the Judge to focus on one of them and that brought the case to a close. The client was sentenced to probation and home detention.

United States v. Young Man

A young man operated an auto body shop. A friend was a mortgage broker. The mortgage broker paid the young man to lie to the bank. When the bank called the young man on his telephone, he would tell the bank officer that the borrower worked for him for a large salary. It wasn’t true.

The young man was accused of helping to defraud a federally insured bank.

The maximum punishment was 30 years in the Federal Penitentiary.

I negotiated with the prosecution and the young man was sentenced to probation.

United States v. Securities Salesman

A middle aged man had set up a system to sell unregistered securities. He and his representatives made many cold calls every day to encourage people to invest in the companies that he represented. The paperwork for the offerings left out many material terms of the transactions. None of the companies ever made any money for the investors.

One of the investors turned the client in to the Federal authorities. I negotiated with the United States attorney over a period of many years.

The maximum punishment was 25 years in the Federal Penitentiary.

The client was sentenced to probation. He did not have to go to prison.

People v. Young Man

A twenty year old young man met a thirteen year old girl on the internet. They soon began to meet in person. Late one night the police found the young couple in a local park. They were in a very embarrassing position. The young man was accused of committing a lewd act with a child under the age of fourteen.

The young man faced eight years in prison.

I introduced the young man to a counselor who specializes in helping people with problems such as the one he was accused of committing. With the support of his family, the client was sentenced to a very short jail term and then probation.

The matter was later reduced to a misdemeanor.

Most importantly, the young man did not have to register as a sex offender. He is now leading a productive life.