California Legal Brief

The Rule of People v. Nielsen is that a trial court's failure to make express findings under Penal Code section 1170(b)(6) does not require reversal when the record demonstrates the court understood and considered childhood trauma as a mitigating factor and weighed it against aggravating circumstances, under circumstances where the defendant made an initial showing that childhood trauma contributed to drug addiction and criminal conduct, but no party explicitly raised section 1170(b)(6) at sentencing.

The Rule of In re the Domestic Partnership of Torres Campos and Munoz is that a party forfeits the right to challenge a trial court's reliance on fictitious case authorities when that party's own counsel drafted and submitted the order containing those fabricated citations without objecting or alerting the court to the error, under circumstances where the party had ample opportunity to verify the citations and correct the error in the trial court.

The Rule of People v. Gomez is that use of animal imagery in criminal proceedings does not violate the Racial Justice Act when the animal reference is benign, endearing, and used solely to explain legal concepts rather than to dehumanize or exhibit racial bias, under circumstances where an objective observer would understand the comparison relates to the state of evidence rather than character traits.

The Rule of Maynard Matthews et al. v. Patrick Ryan is that a section 998 settlement offer conditioned on consent by the defendant's insurance carrier is valid, under circumstances where the defendant is defended by an insurer whose consent is necessarily required for any settlement regardless of whether such consent is expressly stated in the offer.