No. 37
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2014 Temecula murder conviction reversed over Miranda rights
Jason John Omar Zapata was convicted for the 2014 murder of Justin Triplett after confessing to two undercover officers posing as inmates. On Feb. 10, the Court of Appeal agreed with Zapata that the confession, played at his trial, violated his Miranda rights.
One year after the shooting, the ruling said, Zapata was in custody for an unrelated issue. A Riverside Sheriff's deputy placed Zapata in a cell with two other law enforcement agents, both posing as inmates. They were together for over three hours, with the conversation being monitored.
Read it here
Covert Chinese agent in Chino Hills gets 4 years
Yaoning "Mike" Sun of Chino Hills was sentenced to four years in state prison Feb. 9th after pleading guilty to secretly working as a foreign agent for China.
The indictment against Sun alleged two counts: one of failing to register as a foreign agent, which he plead guilty to. The other count, of conspiracy to commit offense against the United States, was dropped. The conspiracy count listed 63 acts, including plans for Sun to meet "the leader" during a visit to China, funding for a pro-Chinese float at a Fourth of July parade in Washington, D.C., and coordination to help the unidentified politician.
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The Declaration: He has discouraged immigration
"From the Old to the New World" shows German emigrants boarding a steamer in Hamburg __and arriving in New York.__Harper's Weekly , (New York) November 7, 1874
In celebration of the 250th anniversary of America's independence, Inland Empire Law Weekly is reviewing all 27 reasons why we declared independence. We've now landed on the sixth reason: the discouragement of immigration.
"He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
Independence was over immigration law
Reading
Every week, Inland Empire Law Weekly recommends a book. Today's recommendation is The Development of American Citizenship, by James Kettner, a former Berkeley professor. This book helped me understand our colonial immigration policies for the above article on the Declaration of Independence.
The entire history of American immigration is fascinating, but I had no idea of the wide open arms of colonial immigration practices.
In New England generally, Kettner wrote, "As long as the foreign-born settler behaved peaceably and was of 'honest conversation,' long residence and local acceptance were perhaps enough to overcome any initial discrimination."
Kettner details the difference between England's idea of subjecthood and the colonies' idea of citizenship:
"Colonial societies adopted naturalization policies that were suited to practical needs, regardless of doctrinal consistency. Americans continued to value their status as subjects and to affirm their allegiance to the king, but they also moved toward a new understanding of the ties that bind individuals to the community. English judges of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assumed that the essential purpose of naturalization was to make the alien legally the same as a native, that is, to make his allegiance natural, personal, and perpetual. In the colonies this reasoning was being reversed."
Although I focused on reading the section on colonial immigration, the book goes all the way up until 1870. A free version is hosted by the Internet Archive.
$57.50 through your local bookshop
This day in 1879: women allowed to practice in federal court
Belva Lockwood’s 1879 Supreme Court Bar Certificate Fenimore Art Museum Library, Cooperstown, New York, Belva Lockwood Collection, coll. 213.01
On Feb. 15, 1879, after years of advocacy by lawyer and suffragette Belva Lockwood, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing women lawyers to argue before the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts throughout the nation.
Lockwood completed the educational program offered at the National University Law School in 1871, along with 15 other women, according to the Supreme Court's website. Her diploma was held from her due to her gender, until President Ulysses Grant intervened.
Albert Riddle, a Washington lawyer, moved Lockwood to be admitted to the Supreme Court Bar in October 1876. Chief Justice Morrison White wrote in his denial: "none but men are admitted to practice before [the Court] as attorneys and counsellors."
It took two more years for Congress to pass, and Hayes to sign, the Lockwood Bill. Lockwood was admitted to the Supreme Court Bar on March 3, 1879. She argued before the highest court in November, 1880, regarding a $16,000 debt—but lost the case. She came back to the Supreme Court in 1906 on behalf of the Cherokee Nation. The federal government, she argued, needed to fulfill an agreement to pay the Cherokee for land. She won that case, delivering a $5 million payout to her clients.
Judge rules on CA’s mask ban for law enforcement
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents face off against protesters during a federal immigration raid in Los Angeles on June 6, 2025. Photo by J.W. Hendricks for CalMatters
A federal judge has pumped the brakes on a California law banning local and federal officers from wearing masks. But both sides — California lawmakers and the Trump administration — are claiming victory.
In her ruling Monday, District Judge Christina Snyder, a Clinton-appointee, said that because the legislation exempted state law enforcement, it discriminated against federal agents and is therefore unconstitutional. Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, the law was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, but has been put on hold after the Trump administration sued last November to block the measure. Snyder’s temporary injunction goes into effect Feb. 19.
Read it here
Trump scraps a cornerstone climate finding, as California prepares for court
A truck driver prepares to leave after receiving a shipping container at Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on Feb. 11, 2025. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters
The Trump administration formally rescinded the legal foundation of federal climate policy Thursday — setting up a new front in California’s long-running battle with Washington over emissions rules.
“Today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at a White House press conference. “Referred to by some as the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach, the 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding is now eliminated.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the federal government may regulate greenhouse gases if they were found to endanger public health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a scientific determination that greenhouse gases indeed were a threat. By withdrawing its own so-called “endangerment finding,” the EPA is abandoning its justification for federal tailpipe standards, power plant rules and fuel economy regulations.
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California sues as Trump cuts $600M in public health grants to four states
STD Investigator Hou Vang unlocks a refrigerator that houses immunizations in the Fresno County Department of Public Health on June 8, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local
California is suing the Trump Administration over its plans to cut $600 million in public health funding from California and three other Democratic states, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Congress it would end Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The attorneys general in those states filed a joint lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Wednesday, arguing the cuts are based on “arbitrary political animus” and would cause irreparable harm.
The grants under threat help fund workforce and data modernization as well as testing and treatment for diseases like HIV.
Read it here
Trump administration losing credibility with judges and grand juries – a former federal judge explains why this is ‘remarkable and unprecedented’
The word “unprecedented” is getting a workout after a grand jury in Washington on Feb. 10, 2026, rebuffed an attempt by federal prosecutors to get an indictment against perceived enemies of President Donald Trump.
It began with an unprecedented video in November 2025 featuring six Democratic lawmakers alerting members of the military that they had the duty to disobey illegal orders. That enraged Trump, who in an unprecedented move said the lawmakers were guilty of sedition, which is punishable by death. The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, made the unprecedented attempt to indict the lawmakers. The final element in this drama – the federal grand jury’s rejection of Pirro’s request – wasn’t itself unprecedented. That’s because it’s only the latest in an unprecedented string of losses for the Trump administration before grand juries.
Dickinson College President John E. Jones III, a former federal judge, spoke with The Conversation politics editor Naomi Schalit about the role of grand juries, why a grand jury would not indict someone – and how all of this is a reflection of the administration’s remarkable loss of credibility with judges and the citizens who make up grand juries.
Read it here
Members of Congress again challenge Noem policy limiting visits to immigration facilities
Members of Congress on Thursday sought a ruling from a federal judge to block yet another Department of Homeland Security policy that required a notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities.
The policy is the third from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the subject, and it is nearly identical to the previous two.
Noem’s policies put in place a new requirement that members of Congress must give DHS seven days notice before conducting an oversight visit at a facility that holds immigrants, despite a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits by lawmakers.
Read it here
** Read this paywalled article courtesy of Inland Empire Law Weekly:**
White House fires U.S. attorney in N.Y. hours after judges appointed him
Donald T. Kinsella was chosen by judges to lead the federal prosecutors’ office in Albany, then fired hours later via an email from the White House.
The Washington Post
News from around the web
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