As Kathy Lemly tells it, the beachside confrontation that led her and her husband, Don Lemly, to the federal courthouse in Santa Ana this month began with an ominous comment from a state park ranger. “I heard someone say, ‘You’re not going to feed these people, are you?’” she recalled on the witness stand. “I turned to my husband and said, ‘I think we can expect trouble today.’”

For Mohamed Hadid, the hikers who traverse his Franklin Canyon property aren’t necessarily a problem, per se. But amid a very public campaign against the millionaire developer—called Hillsides Against Hadid—Hadid says he can’t help but view them as just a little bit ungrateful. “I’m happy to see them enjoying my property, but don’t say I can’t develop it. I have my rights like any other rights in the U.S.” Hadid says. “It’s never been a public easement.”

As a federal judge mulls a potentially historic move in an already headline-grabbing lawsuit over Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis, the County of Los Angeles has launched a formal effort to rid itself of the case entirely. A motion to dismiss filed Monday cites what lawyers for the county describe as “tremendous efforts to support people experiencing homelessness.”

About seven years into his life without housing, longtime San Clemente resident Steven Riley described his plight in an official court declaration. “I use buildings and bushes to protect myself from the sun, rain, wind or other weather,” the then-72-year-old man wrote. “Due to my age and health, I cannot stay outside all day. But I can only afford a motel a few nights per month.”

On what would be the first of three occasions in three days, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney looked into his computer screen one recent January morning and apologized to a criminal defendant for the courthouse’s pandemic-related prohibition on in-person hearings. Then he repeated a move that had already drawn sharp objection from federal prosecutors: He announced the dismissal of all charges, part of a constitutional stance he said has left him feeling isolated and frustrated.

After a spectacular 15-minutes-of-fame crash and burn that included serious talk of a U.S. presidential bid, Los Angeles lawyer and three-time convicted felon Michael Avenatti enjoyed a quiet 2020 confined to a friend’s Venice home on a court-ordered COVID release from jail. But while he’s secured about a dozen continuances in his three cross-county criminal cases, Avenatti couldn’t avoid a sanction issued December 23 in an Orange County civil case: A judge fined him $960 for failing to participate in an evidentiary proceeding in a longstanding lawsuit over $5.4 million Avenatti’s former co-counsel claims he stole. Avenatti’s former business partners, attorneys and wives also are facing ongoing court action for their dealings with him, and each could end up facing financial consequences much heftier than the $960 sanction lodged against Avenatti.

In December 2017, federal prosecutors visited Orange County Superior Court to support something even more unusual than their cross-jurisdictional courtroom presence: an exceptionally light sentence for an attempted murder defendant who once testified he’d killed “up to five, maybe six” people.

Aided by snacks, an iPhone and a friend with a taxi, Vaskin Koshkerian works to be the first stop for newly released jail inmates in Orange County. He’s parked his RV outside the Central Jail Complex most nights a week for several years, helping thousands of people released onto the streets of Santa Ana. Some need only a quick call to a roommate or a cup of coffee; others have nothing but jail clothes and no way to get back to the park where they usually sleep.

A former Buchalter APC shareholder at the center of a $200 million fraud and negligent hiring lawsuit said he believes he did nothing wrong and the plaintiff family owes him an apology, according to video depositions played for jurors on Wednesday. J. Wayne Allen acknowledged lending himself money from the family’s business that he didn’t repay, but he said the loans were part of a larger financial plan that worked as intended. “Sure, I wish those were paid, but by the same token, events occurred that inhibited my ability to pay those back. I wish those hadn’t happened either, right?” Allen said. “I did what I felt was the right thing to do for my client along the way.”