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Inland Empire Law Weekly provides honest news on suits, prosecutions, and courts in San Bernardino and Riverside.
Good day, and welcome, to the January 18th weekly edition of Inland Empire Law Weekly. This news is written by Aidan McGloin, published Sunday morning on the website ielaw.news, and read by Robert Sides. This abridged audio format is produced as a service to our commuting subscribers, and brought to you by the personal injury firm Rizio Lipinsky Heiting.
Jazmine Torres, a longtime public defender in Orange County, officially took the oath of office as commissioner for San Bernardino Superior Court on Jan. 16.
Commissioners are judicial officers who are appointed by vote of a court's existing judges.
Twenty-five spectators attended the event, including nine judges, her husband and her family.
Yoko Mai Townsend, Torres' friend, spoke first.
"For years, Jazmine has always talked about wanting to be a commissioner due to the importance of ensuring that law was being properly implemented, and all individuals are being treated the same no matter their wealth, occupation, sex or nationality," Townsend said.
Former supervisor and mentor Douglas Laboto spoke to Torres' unflagging focus and personal interest.
"She became one of my quick ones, because I could see she could handle the most difficult of clients," Laboto said.
Torres herself gave a short speech, thanking the audience for supporting her and San Bernardino’s judges for giving her the opportunity.
Redlands High School, Team Blue, and Rancho Cucamonga High School will head to San Bernardino County Mock Trial finals on Saturday, Jan. 24. The event will run from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the San Bernardino Justice Center. County finals are open to the public, but spectators must wear court appropriate clothing and must not wear their team on their clothes. Both schools competed in a two-day semi-final competition against Citrus Valley and Cajon high schools last Wednesday and Thursday.
The two plaintiffs who sued Jurupa High School over the inclusion of a transgender athlete on the girls' volleyball team have dropped their request for an injunction against California's transgender athlete policy because the students plan to graduate early.
In a separate chain of events, The Jurupa Unified School District asked for the case to be thrown out on Jan. 9. Their motion says that it is settled law.
"The question of whether a school district may allow issue a policy allowing a student to use school facilities (including a locker room) 'that match their gender identity rather than the biological sex they were assigned at birth' has been settled in the Ninth Circuit in the affirmative in Parents for Priv. v. Barr," the motion says.
California Central District Judge Sunshine Sykes will hold a hearing on the motion to dismiss on March 13.
The Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ICIJ) did not prove standing to bring a suit against Fontana's food vendor policy, California Central District Judge Sunshine Sykes ruled Jan. 15.
The ICIJ argues that the city illegally steals food vendors' property and violates California law by making it too burdensome to get a food vendor license, as Inland Empire Law Weekly reported in August.
Sykes wrote: "Although individuals have undoubtedly been injured by the City’s ordinances and implementation of the ordinances, the complaint nevertheless provides scant factual support to illustrate how Plaintiff ICIJ was injured to support organizational standing to sue.”
The case is not entirely thrown out: ICIJ is able to amend its complaint.
A three-judge panel of the Central District of California denied a Republican request to stop the congressional maps adopted through Proposition 50.
The majority opinion found that the new maps were made through legal political gerrymandering, not illegal racial gerrymandering.
The Jan. 14 ruling does not finalize the lawsuit. Central District Judge Kenneth Lee dissented. The Republican's immediate appeal was denied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal on Friday.
Central District Judge Josephine Staton, in the majority opinion, wrote that the plaintiffs failed to show any racial gerrymandering occurred.
"Our conclusion probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news in the summer and fall of 2025. In the roughly two and a half months between the California Legislature’s initial consideration of the ERRA and the special election on November 4, 2025, Proposition 50 and its new map were heavily debated. No one on either side of that debate characterized the map as a racial gerrymander.
Judge Kenneth Lee, in his dissent, wrote that at least one new district was racially gerrymandered.
"We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the smoking gun is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state legislature," Lee wrote.
Staton, in her majority opinion, wrote that the Republican plaintiffs did not show California voters approved Proposition 50 with the racial gerrymandering of District 13 in mind.
Read more excerpts from the opinions at ielaw.news.
Aidan is trying to figure out exactly why we declared independence over 250 years ago. In his celebration of America’s founding, he is going through the twenty-seven complaints in the Declaration of Independence, and trying to decipher them. The third reason: He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
So, what does that mean? The crown did not want to recognize the rights of frontier settlers to have a court system or political representation. Find out more on ielaw.news.
Most weeks of Inland Empire Law Weekly, Aidan recommends a book. This week, he recommends three. Finding the explanations for the declaration painfully deficient in the books he owns and the websites he finds, he has purchased three books to help him understand the Declaration of Independence: Inventing America by Garry Wills, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence by Allen Jayne, and American Scripture by Pauline Maier. He recommends each of these books to you as well. A nation that does not know its reasons for independence is not a nation at all.
This week, Aidan also writes on a botched deal between Google, the legislature, and newsrooms; and what Sacramento actually should focus on if they wanted to prioritize the press.
This week, Inland Empire Law Weekly, at ielaw.news, has also published syndicated content about a biology major at California State University, San Bernardino, who spent time as an incarcerated wildland firefighter following an Indio shooting. You can read about the state’s 14% drop in parole rates over seven years, and the State Department of Justice’s order to xAI to stop generating sexual photos of women and girls. There is also an interview with California Attorney General Rob Bonta on the deployment of the national guard, Newsom’s struggle to settle a school facilities lawsuit and the Supreme Court’s gun control cases. All that news from this week at ielaw.news.
Some headlines from around the nation to end this program, all of which can be found and linked to their original stories at ielaw.news:
Trump Cabinet secretaries conspired to violate Constitution, U.S. District Judge William Young says in foreign student case
A West Virginia teenage trans athlete’s case goes to the Supreme Court
Man gets 15 to life for 1980 killing of Pomona teen whose body was found in grapefruit grove
SCE files lawsuits hoping to force other public agencies to share liability for Eaton fire damages
Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit seeking detailed voter information from California
Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil's freedom jeopardized by court ruling
Shasta County Activist Jenny O’Connell-Nowain says she’ll accept jail time for disrupting a public meeting
Newsom moves to stop Louisiana from extraditing doctor accused of mailing abortion pills
David Ellison Takes Warner Bros. to Court as Paramount Launches Proxy Battle Over Netflix Bid
Ex-Navy SEAL convicted of planning to fire explosives at police during San Diego ‘No Kings’ rally
Sen. Mark Kelly sues Hegseth to block move to cut rank and pension over illegal orders video
Justice Department sees no basis for civil rights probe in Minnesota ICE shooting, official says
New federal Legislation Would Rein In ICE’s Facial Recognition App
Man found guilty of lesser charges in San Francisco death of 'Grandpa Vicha'
Judge is skeptical on ICE agents wearing masks; case could have national implications
Her young son died in a road rage shooting on an O.C. freeway. Now the dad is blaming her.
That’s this week’s broadcast. News written by Aidan McGloin and read by Robert Sides for Inland Empire Law Weekly, available at ielaw.news. Until next week.