Author: Michael Rushford

A Californian is four times more likely to be killed in a hit and run accident than a person living in New York or Illinois. Marc Sternfield of KTLA reports that data from the National Traffic Safety Board indicate that more than one out of every ten fatal car accidents in the state were hit an run incidents. The national average of traffic fatalities that involve a hit and run driver is 6.33%.  It is 10.48% in California. The city with the highest hit and run death rate is San Francisco at 22% followed by Los Angeles with 15%. Most of the Californians killed by hit an run drivers were pedestrians. California also leads the nation on the number of stolen vehicles according to 2022 data with over 202,000, nearly twice as many as the second-place state of Texas. So the next time a California politician brags about the state being a national leader, believe him.

An illegal alien from El Salvador, who has been deported four times, is facing vehicular homicide and DUI charges for killing a Colorado mother and son while driving drunk. Greg Norman and Greg Wehner of Fox News report that on December 12, Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas was driving a pickup at high speed in the town of Broomfield when he crashed into a car driven by 47-year-old Melissa Powell, killing her and her 16-year-old son Riordan. Menjivar-Alas had been convicted of drunk driving four times since 2007 and was deported after serving each sentence. Colorado is among the twelve sanctuary states in the U.S. which resist federal efforts to deport illegal aliens.

Utah is preparing to execute Ralph Leroy Menzies for the 1986 robbery and murder of Maurine Hunsaker. Scott Pierce of the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that after decades of appeals, Menzies has run out of further opportunities to delay his execution. This morning the Utah Attorney General asked a District Court Judge to sign an order for Menzies’ execution by firing squad. While that method of execution was Menzies choice, in December he and three other condemned murderers claimed that it was cruel and unusual punishment which violates the Eighth Amendment. That claim was rejected. It would be the first time a murderer has been executed in Utah since 2010.

Continue reading . . .

The U.S. Supreme Court’s agreement last Friday to review an appeal by the City of Grants Pass challenging a Ninth Circuit ruling which is blocking the enforcement of ordinances prohibiting camping on streets and in parks, has garnered national attention. While that ruling (Martin v. City of Boise) only affects the nine western states in the Ninth Circuit, twenty states have submitted argument to the high court seeking to overturn the Martin ruling in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, including Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. CJLF has filed a brief in that case and Legal Director Kent Scheidegger was a guest yesterday’s John Kobylt show, the most listened to talk radio broadcast in Los Angeles, to discuss it. Here’s the link to the podcast. The interview is at 24 minutes into hour 2 of the show.

Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old who murdered 10 people at the Tops Grocery Store in Buffalo in May 2022, is facing federal murder and hate crime charges which, if convicted could result in a death sentence. Greg Norman of Fox News reports reports that Gendron’s case will be the first time Attorney Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has decided to seek or uphold a death sentence since it defended Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s  conviction and death sentence in 2021. Under Garland’s leadership, the DOJ has withdrawn from seeking the death penalty in over two dozen federal murder cases. As with the Boston Bomber case (United States v. Tsarnaev) the Attorney General’s decision  appears to be political. Gendron has already been convicted of the murders in New York and is serving a life without parole sentence.  He has agreed to plead guilty to the federal charges in exchange for another life sentence.

Continue reading . . .

Roughly $1.27 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars is being spent to support alternatives to law enforcement in Wichita, Kansas. The Act was passed out of Congress and signed by President Biden in 2021 on the fiction that the $1.9 trillion slush fund would be spent to help the country recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Chance Swaim of The Wichita Eagle reports that the Wichita interrupter program will be run by the non-profit Community Restorative Innovation and will send counselors and “violence interrupters” into high crime neighborhoods to implement the Cure Violence model, which treats violent crime as a public health problem which can be reduced through education, counseling and encouragement.  The same model has been utilized in Chicago for 24 years.  How has that been working out?

Continue reading . . .

The following article was published on December 28 in the California Globe:

In a unanimous ruling announced on December 18, the California Supreme Court held that a 2021 bill that narrowed the definition of “street gang” to reduce the number of criminal defendants designated as gang members, did not violate Proposition 21, a 2000 ballot measure cracking down on gang criminals.

The Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act was adopted by state voters to, among other things, require that gang members convicted of first degree murder receive a sentence of either death or life in prison without parole (LWOP). Critical to a court’s ability to sentence a gang murderer is his gang affiliation, which is considered under state law to be an aggravating factor to the crime.

Continue reading . . .

A federal judge in San Francisco has rejected plea deals for two illegal aliens dealing drugs in the Tenderloin.  J.D. Morris and Megan Cassidy of the Chronicle report that District Judge William Alsup told federal prosecutors that he would not accept any plea agreement that failed to give the illegals jail time before they were deported. Both defendants were arrested for dealing fentanyl, which the judge called “public enemy number one.” Judge Alsup is not the only federal jurist denying lenient plea deals. District Judge James Donato also rejected a similar deal involving an illegal immigrant from Honduras earlier this week, because it was “not consistent with the goals of sentence and the ends of justice.”

Continue reading . . .

Pro-Palestinian protesters who blocked the Oakland Bay Bridge for 4 hours on November 16th are being prosecuted by San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. The Associated Press reports that 17 of the 80 protesters arrested were in court Monday facing several charges including false imprisonment and refusing to comply with a police officer. Dozens more will be charged and arraigned throughout the week. This is a sharp turnaround from former progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who refused to prosecute protesters and many criminals.  Last year 60% of San Francisco voters recalled Boudin for failing to enforce the law, leaving the city ravaged with crime. Jenkins was elected after promising to restore law and order.  Over the past year she has been keeping her word.

Continue reading . . .

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has held that the Newsom Administration’s effort to grant early releases to tens of thousands of prison inmates is invalid when it comes to offenders sentenced to indeterminate sentences, most of whom are sentenced for violent crimes. The December 13 decision came in a lawsuit brought by the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF) on behalf of the families of crime victims. CJLF argued that administrative regulations authorizing the inmate releases adopted in 2021 by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) violate numerous state laws and ballot measures which specify when and how a prison inmate qualifies for credits to gain early release.

Continue reading . . .