This leaves several trials uncovered, and for that, I'm very sorry. I'd have liked to have stayed on the beat for quite some time and hope that we'll be able to pick up coverage as good court issues come along. It's been a pleasure playing your host here-- this blog was one of my favorite parts of my job in recent months. I hope it was as entertaining for you as it was for me. And whether you read it here or anywhere else, keep watching those courts-- there's a lot of important news that goes on there from which we can all learn.

So thanks again for your time and your feedback. I've enjoyed our time together and will see y'all round the blogosphere.

-Brent Hopkins
afropic@gmail.com

The second day on the job, as he was still learning his way around the office, a colleague waved him in and showed him an autopsy photo of a dead body with hole in the chest. Everything changed.

"It was an epiphany for me," he said. "I didn't even know what side of the table to sit on yet, but I couldn't get that image out of my head. All I could think was, 'How could someone do that to somebody else?'"

And so the wide-eyed college student gave way to the tough deputy district attorney. He took on the case of a librarian killer and got the man convicted, getting him a death sentence. Twenty nine years later, the killer, Steven Lamar Fields, still sits on death row. Coen tried five more death penalty cases in his 11 years behind the prosecutor's table.

Most famously, he took on porn star John Holmes in the Wonderland murder trial. While he lost the case against Johnny Wadd, a heavily-covered showcase that left Coen in a cold sweat as he addressed the jury, the shaken deputy DA bounced back.

He became a Superior Court judge in 1985, where he cultivated a reputation as a tough, strict sentencing jurist who tolerates no guff in his San Fernando courtroom. On the bench, he can be tough on lawyers, particularly those who don't show up on time or indulge in excessive theatrics, but he goes out of his way to keep the jury happy.

When court is in session and he's dressed in his long, black robes, he's a commanding, fearsome figure. He can also easily shift, however, into a laidback, jocular mode where he trades jokes and shows off his wickedly sharp wit with attorneys whom he'd lectured just minutes earlier.

During a break during the Williamson trial, Coen showed off both sides of that persona when a group of young school kids came into the court to learn about the justice system. He adopted a stern tone and stared them down through steely eyes.

This was a high profile case, he warned them, with media attention and heightened security.

"The baliff behind you, he's got a gun, but no bullets," he said, as 10 sets of young eyes widened and swiveled to see the deputy calmly sitting at the back of the room. "And this guy up here, he's got bullets, but no gun, so, if anything happens... ."

As the kids gasped, Coen burst into laughter and dropped the charade.

"I'm kidding," he chuckled. "Come on!"

A few hours later, he was back on the bench, overruling objections and watching the lawyers' ill-fated attempts to save their clients' freedom.

In an ironic twist, the former death penalty hater has become the one of the state's leading authorities on capital cases. No California judge can try a death case without taking his 16-hour, two-day course on the subject.

"I could retire in June with full benefits," he said. "And I have no intention of doing so. This is the greatest soap opera in the world and I have the best seat in the house. The only thing missing is the popcorn."

Since 2005, police had been monitoring postings by Miura, who had become an outsized Japanese personality because of media coverage of his alleged crimes.

Here's the whole deal.

The half-billion bills appeared to be Federal Reserve notes printed in 1934 and bearing the picture of Pres. William McKinley. The only problem is, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing didn't make notes of that denomination, not even close. The bills, used for transaction between Fed banks, only went up to $100,000 and weren't publicly circulated. Johnson and his confederates allegedly tried to trick investors into taking the notes by weathering them to make them appear older.

“You would think the half billion dollar denomination would be a dead give away that these notes are fake, but people are nevertheless taken in,” said Deputy Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Silliman, in an unusally funny press release. “For investors, the bottom line needs to be, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

ICE says it caught Johnson with close to 500 phony notes, both at home and at his Wilshire Boulevard office. It also grabbed his associates, Renato Gaza, a 60-year-old from San Diego and Dallas resident Victoria Hoffman, 48. Johnson appeared in federal court on Friday, when a judge set his bond at 100 grand (no word on whether he attempted to post it with a really old looking $100,000 bill).

Agents are still looking for anyone who got caught up in the scheme and would like 'em to call 1-866-DHS-2ICE with any info.

Oh yeah, the best part of this? Johnson's job: attorney-at-law. So, if he's guilty of his alleged crime (and, as always, he's innocent until proven otherwise), he really shoulda known better.

Authorities burned down part of the warehouse in the Van Nuys area after concluding that it was too dangerous to move the old, deteriorated dynamite. A portion of Interstate 405 was closed and train service in the area was suspended while the fire burned. About 50 people in the area also were evacuated.

In May 2006, Wurth pleaded out and the other two proceeded onward in the legal system.

VAN NUYS -- A Los Angeles man was sentenced Wednesday to three years in state prison and two other men were ordered to stand trial in connection with the discovery of unstable dynamite in a Van Nuys industrial building.

The judge found sufficient evidence to allow the case against Wurth's co-defendants, Arthur Chorny, 36, of Marina del Rey, and Guy Fostersmith, 44, of Los Angeles, to proceed to trial.

Just when it looked like things were going to get underway for Chorny at the Van Nuys courthouse, he done r-u-n-n-o-f-t (that's ran off, for those of you who aren't fans of "O Brother Where Art Thou?"). Quinones called me this morning to share the news and the LA Superior Court press office confirmed that the judge issued a bench warrant to track down Mr. Chorny.

Now I'm being a little light here, I realized. He may have a perfectly legitimate reason for not showing up. But it'll be interesting to hear what he tells the judge when they find him and get him back into court, that's for sure. We'll keep you posted.

The Glendale News-Press broke the story on Friday. Rather than showing up for the hearing, Alvarez camped out in his cell and refused to show up.

We don’t know why he’s not here,” attorney Michael Belter told the paper. “He reports to us that he has had some problems upon his return. His cell has been tossed, sometimes his blankets have been soaked. In his mind, he feels it’s better for him to stay in his cell.”

I've got an e-mail into Tom Kielty, Belter's co-counsel, asking for some more details, so we'll see if he cares to chat. According to the story, Belter says Alvarez has been on suicide watch and spent additional time in the jail's mental clinic. Given the circumstances of his arrest, an alleged suicide attempt that killed 11 innocent people in the process, I suppose it's not surprising that he's still got some issues, but this one still caught me off guard. Stay tuned for more... .

The contributions went to Clinton's political action committee and Boxer's 2004 re-election campaign.

Here's the whole thing.

Whenever this kind of thing happens, it's tempting to point fingers and call whomever received the tainted cash a bum. But whether it's Obama and Rezko or McCain and Keating, or Clinton and Norman Hsu, it comes up so often that it's difficult to find an unsullied candidate. In general, it seems like it's the campaign finance system that's the bum, but don't expect that to get thrown out anytime soon, unfortunately.

Dutton's was the first bookstore I visited where I felt like a real adult. I went there in college with a very cultured older friend and immediately fell in love with the place. Its weird layout, its cafe, its boundlessly knowledgeable staff. There was seemingly nothing they couldn't find or didn't know. On that first trip, I bought my first book by a man who'd become one of my heroes, Richard Halliburton. When I got "The Royal Road to Romance" home, I knew I'd be back to Dutton's again and again.

And indeed, I did. Whether I needed Raymond Chandler or Michael Chabon, Dutton's never let me down. After his brother, Dave, shuttered his North Hollywood shop of the same name a few years back, I became an even more frequent patron. I didn't care if Barnes and Noble or Borders had cheaper rates, I kept going back for the pleasure of walking through the aisles. Plenty of times, I ran in five minutes before closing, not only to find the one book I wanted, but several others I didn't even know I couldn't live without. In my geekier moments, I dreamed what it would be like to do a book signing there.

Dammit, I even went there for my reporters' notebooks.

Last summer, Dutton's gave me one of my fondest literary memories when the latest Harry Potter book came out. My wife and I reserved a copy and showed up for the midnight release party, arriving fifteen minutes after they started handing out the highly-coveted books. And, man, what a scene.

Kids were walking down the street with their parents, dressed in costume. Adults were wandering back to their cars, so hungry for the first chapter that they read as they walked. Teenagers wore witch garb, twenty-somethings toted Gryffindor scarves and a man in a wizard hat sat, absolutely wrapped up in his book, out front, completely unaware of anything except for the text.

We got our copy and drove a few miles to Cafe 50's, where we found several other tables full of similarly dorky groups, all chewing through the pages. Over milkshakes and fries, Rebecca and I sat side-by-side and took in the first chapter. It was one of those moments that just made you feel good to be alive.

Dutton's wasn't the only one to have such an event-- there were gazillions of 'em across the world. But there, you always felt at home, whether you were reading Harry Potter or James Bond. I never felt embarrassed to ask for anything, because they'd know what I wanted and, often times, had read the book themselves. Stores like that are getting rarer by the week and each time one of them closes up, they're gone forever.

So thank you, Mr. Dutton, and to all the people who made that place what it was. You will be sorely, sorely missed and the literary world, the city and poor little me (in descending order of importance) will be far poorer as a result.

(Thanks to Kevin at LA Observed for sharing the sad news and ruining my day)

From September 2000 to January 2005, Gilabert collected millions of dollars from more than 40 clients, concealing he lost most of the money and misappropriated much of the rest.

Courtesy of a wire service, here's the rest.

Madonna, it seems, has jury duty. The gossip site tells us that she showed up for court wearing a Juicy Couture track suit (locally designed in Pacoima, baby) and sipping some Starbucks. I don't know if that passes for the business attire that the Los Angeles Superior Court requires, but, given her other choices of attire, I suppose that's a good choice.

Something tells me the attorneys will challenge her off any jury, but who knows, she may treat her fellow citizens to a little rendition of "Love Makes the World Go Round" as they prepare to render their verdict....

Don't judge a man 'til you've been standin' in his shoes
You know that we're all so quick to look away
'Cause it's the easy thing to do
You know that what I say is true

(Thanks to Val Kuklenski for the tip on this one)

Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, was planning a relaxing vacation in Saipan last Thursday. When he stepped off the plane, he didn't enjoy some mangoes, Levi's jeans or a bad Tom Clancy novel, all of which are connected to the US Commonwealth. Instead, authorities greeted Mr. Miura with an arrest warrant.

More than a quarter century after he allegedly murdered his wife, Kazumi, in downtown Los Angeles, the LAPD's cold case unit caught up with Miura. They've been waiting for him to leave his native Japan and set foot on American soil since 1981, and, acting on a tip, caught him in Saipan. They're discussing his arrest in a press conference right now. He faces murder and conspiracy charges.

The Times did a good story on this on Saturday, but, alas, their Web site is clunky and the only mention of the story now is a correction of the spelling of Kazumi Miura's name. So, instead, check out the Yomiuri Shimbun version instead.

Looks like even after all this time, Mr. Miura is in some pretty hot water. A court denied him bail and Japan is considering handing him over, even though he's already been acquitted on the charges there.

I hate situations like this, because I can't deny anything she said. On one hand, the term is true. That's how the DA's office initially described the killing and Santa Clarita Gifts indeed sells sex toys. From the earlier material I read, it sounds like the products played into Mr. Wheeler's tragic choice of targets, so I felt like it was relevant to the story.

But let me say this, to the entire Simons family: I apologize for any stain on Christopher's memory. He was brutally killed by a disturbed man and he should not be remembered solely based on his job. I know you've suffered terribly in the past three years and regret any role in prolonging your heartache. If you, or anyone else who knew Mr. Simons, would like to leave remembrances about who he was, I'd like to share his legacy beyond just the senseless way he died.

After hearing from Simons' parents and Stearns, Judge Ronald S. Coen gave Wheeler close to the maximum sentence. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Wheeler did not plead guilty to special circumstances that would have made him eligible for life without possiblity of parole.

Cheers,
Brent

This is bad form, I know. My mom would be appalled, because if you respond to a bully, then you only give them strength, right? Well, then I fell into the trap and shame on me.

No, better yet, shame on Mr. Griffin.