Author: Carol Williams

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked a Los Angeles court Tuesday to restrict Conrad Murray’s license to practice medicine in California while he is subject to criminal proceedings.

"Murray administered a lethal dose of propofol, as well as other drugs to Michael Jackson," Brown said in his filing with the Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of the California Medical Board. "We will argue in court that Murray was reckless in giving Jackson such a dangerous drug and has demonstrated a serious lack of judgment that should prohibit him from practicing medicine."

Murray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the pop singer’s June 25 death from what the county coroner’s office attributed to "acute propofol intoxication" in combination with sedatives.

Murray pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied any wrongdoing. He told investigators that Jackson, 50, was a chronic insomniac and had become dependent on propofol to fall asleep, according to police files.

Houston lawyer Edward Chernoff, who represents Murray, didn’t immediately return phone calls or e-mails.

The California Medical Board is responsible for protecting the public from dangerous, incompetent or impaired doctors.

— Carol J. Williams

Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II never intended to bestow his fortune on his wife Anna Nicole Smith, a federal court ruled Friday, marking another twist in a convoluted inheritance battle that has outlived both Smith and her adversary, Marshall’s son and executor E. Pierce Marshall.

The decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal recognizes a 2001 jury verdict in a Texas probate court as having determined that Marshall’s will was valid and free of illegal coercion by his son. The will left the oilman’s $1.6-billion estate to Pierce Marshall.

The ruling appears to derail the late actress’ efforts to be recognized as an heir to half of Marshall’s estate, which she claimed he had promised to leave her.

A topless dancer and Playboy centerfold, Smith met the 89-year-old Marshall at a Houston strip club he frequented, and they were married in 1994. Marshall died 14 months later, leaving behind an irrevocable trust and will that Smith claimed his son had forged or coerced her ailing husband into signing.

Smith had prevailed in getting judgments in her favor under bankruptcy proceedings in California, winning a court ruling in 2000 that she was due $450 million from her late husband’s assets, an amount later reduced by a federal district judge to $89 million.

Smith died of a prescription medication overdose at a luxury South Florida hotel three years ago. Pierce Marshall preceded her in death in 2006 at age 67 from complications of an infection. Lawyers for the two sides were representing the interests of Smith’s now 3-year-old daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, and Pierce Marshall’s widow, Elaine.

The 9th Circuit panel ruling said the probate judgment precludes the bankruptcy case, giving precedence to the Texas court’s decision that Marshall left everything to his younger son. The earlier case also denied claims to the fortune by J. Howard Marshall III, who had been written out of the oilman’s will after business management disagreements.

An attorney for Pierce Marshall’s widow said they were pleased with the appeals court ruling and hoped the long legal fight is now over.

"Our position has always been that there was a full and complete trial in probate court in Texas vindicating Pierce Marshall," said Hartford attorney G. Eric Brunstad, who represents Elaine Marshall. "That should have been the end of the matter."

Kent L. Richland, the Los Angeles attorney who represented Smith’s executor and former partner Howard K. Stern, deemed the 9th Circuit ruling “a fairly startling extension of the law” as it gave precedence to the probate ruling that came after the bankruptcy court decision. Richland said he was exploring the estate’s options to request rehearing by the full 9th Circuit or to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court again, vowing that “we will certainly be pursuing something further.”

[Updated at 3:08 p.m.: A previous version of this post said Richland could not immediately be reached for comment.]

A legal battle over Dannielynn’s paternity also carried on after Smith’s death at age 39. Both Stern and Los Angeles photographer Larry Birkhead claimed to have fathered the girl. DNA testing eventually proved Birkhead was her father and he was awarded custody of the child.

–Carol J. Williams

Photo: Anna Nicole Smith in 2005.

Credit: Danny Moloshok /
Associated Press

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Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II never intended to bestow his fortune on his wife Anna Nicole Smith, a federal court ruled Friday, marking another twist in a convoluted inheritance battle that has outlived both Smith and her adversary, Marshall’s son and executor E. Pierce Marshall.

The decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal recognizes a 2001 jury verdict in a Texas probate court as having determined that Marshall’s will was valid and free of illegal coercion by his son. The will left the oilman’s $1.6-billion estate to Pierce Marshall.

The ruling appears to derail the late actress’s efforts to be recognized as an heir to half of Marshall’s estate, which she claimed he had promised to leave her.

A topless dancer and Playboy centerfold, Smith met the 89-year-old Marshall at a Houston strip club he frequented, and they were married in 1994. Marshall died 14 months later, leaving behind an irrevocable trust and will that Smith claimed his son had forged or coerced her ailing husband into signing.

Smith had prevailed in getting judgments in her favor under bankruptcy proceedings in California, winning a court ruling in 2000 that she was due $450 million from her late husband’s assets, an amount later reduced by a federal district judge to $89 million.

Smith died of a prescription medication overdose at a luxury South Florida hotel three years ago. Pierce Marshall preceded her in death in 2006 at age 67, from complications of an infection. Lawyers for the two sides were representing the interests of Smith’s now 3-year-old daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, and Pierce Marshall’s widow, Elaine.

The 9th Circuit panel ruling said the probate judgment precludes the bankruptcy case, giving precedence to the Texas court’s decision that Marshall left everything to his younger son. The earlier case also denied claims to the fortune by J. Howard Marshall III, who had been written out of the oilman’s will after business management disagreements.

An attorney for Pierce Marshall’s widow said they were pleased with the appeals court ruling and hoped the long legal fight is now over.

"Our position has always been that there was a full and complete trial in probate court in Texas vindicating Pierce Marshall," said Hartford attorney G. Eric Brunstad, who represents Elaine Marshall. "That should have been the end of the matter."

Attorneys for Howard K. Stern, Smith’s partner at the time of her death and the lawyer representing her estate, didn’t immediately return phone calls about the Friday ruling.

A legal battle over Dannielynn’s paternity also carried on after Smith’s death at age 39. Both Stern and Los Angeles photographer Larry Birkhead claimed to have fathered the girl. DNA testing eventually proved Birkhead was her father and he was awarded custody of the child.

— Carol J. Williams

Photo: Anna Nicole Smith in 2005. Credit: Danny Moloshok /
Associated Press

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The full Western appeals court voted Thursday to let stand its September decision that former U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is not immune from a civil action charging that he violated a Kansas-born Muslim convert’s constitutional rights by having him arrested without probable cause.

Ashcroft had petitioned the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for rehearing of his claim of immunity, which was denied in the 2-1 ruling six months ago that Abdullah Kidd could proceed with his lawsuit.

Kidd, a former University of Idaho running back whose birth name was Lavoni T. Kidd, claims in his suit that Ashcroft‘s policy of using material witness warrants to detain those suspected of terrorist ties subjected him to unreasonable search and seizure and denied him due process of law. Kidd lost his security clearance and his government contractor job after his March 2003 arrest and 16-day detention for interrogations in Virginia, Oklahoma and Idaho.

In the September ruling by the split three-judge panel, the majority characterized Ashcroft’s alleged detention policy as “repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

Thursday’s vote to deny rehearing by an 11-judge panel included a dissent signed by eight of the court’s 26 active judges, an action likely to draw the attention and review of the U.S. Supreme Court before Kidd’s suit can go to trial.

— Carol J. Williams

Students at an elite L.A. private school who posted death threats and antigay messages on the Internet site of a 15-year-old classmate can’t claim the constitutional protection of free speech, a California appeals court has ruled.

The parents of the boy targeted by the threatening and derogatory posts on his website withdrew him from Harvard-Westlake School and moved to Northern California to protect him from classmates who had incorrectly labeled him as gay and pronounced him "wanted dead or alive," the boy’s father said in a lawsuit brought against six students and their parents.

The defendants had attempted to deflect the charges by seeking a judgment from Los Angeles County Superior Court that the comments were 1st Amendment-protected speech on an issue of public interest, a motion denied by the lower court and upheld by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision Monday.

The Los Angeles Police Department detective who initially investigated the hostile website postings against the student, identified only as D.C., had declined to pursue charges against the other students, saying their "annoying and immature Internet communications did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution."

The Los Angeles County district attorney likewise declined to prosecute.

The appeals court decision separating cyber-bullying from free speech will allow the boy and his parents to move forward with their suit against the students for alleged hate crimes.

–Carol J. Williams

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Former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr is leaving his position as dean of Pepperdine University Law School to become president of Baylor University, both schools announced Monday.

Starr, who investigated President Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals and represented the backers of California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage during its state constitutional challenge last year, has been dean of the law school in Malibu for five years.

A Texas native, Starr will become the 14th president of Baylor, located in Waco. With the announcement of Starr’s appointment effective June 1, Pepperdine President Andrew K. Benton announced the launch of a nationwide search for a new law school dean. 

“Ken has had a tremendous impact on our students, the law school and the Pepperdine community at large,” Benton said. “His leadership, his love of scholarship and his devotion to our students helped raise the national stature of our school, and we will benefit from the good he accomplished here for many years to come.”

Starr was not immediately available for comment.

— Carol J. Williams

Photo: Kenneth Starr. Credit: Associated Press

California has the strongest animal-protection laws in the country, with detailed regulations shielding animals from harm whether in homes, on farms, at racetracks or in the wild, the Humane Society of the United States reported Monday.

In a comprehensive analysis of the laws in each of the 50 states, the animal-welfare advocates ranked the Golden State No. 1 for the legal protections it has enacted across the animal kingdom. New Jersey, Colorado, Maine and Massachusetts also scored high in protecting pets and livestock. Idaho and South Dakota earned the lowest scores, in part for their failure to make egregious animal abuse a felony or to outlaw cockfighting.

California scored 45 on a 65-point checklist for laws governing conditions on farms, in shelters and in laboratories and for those dealing with breeders and commercial ventures. It is one of the few states that outlaws the use of animals in product testing when an alternative exists and gives students the right to choose an alternative to animal dissection in schools.

The state prohibits all forms of animal fighting and the keeping of primates, venomous snakes, bears, wolves and big cats as pets. It also outlaws force-feeding of geese for the production of foie gras, battery cages for egg-laying hens and tail-docking of dairy cows.

Bear hunting is allowed in the state, but trade in bear parts is prohibited. In equine protection, California is one of only four states to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption.

"The trends are positive, but there are major gaps in the law throughout the nation," said Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society president. "Anemic animal protection laws in many states will allow cruelty and abuse to continue, and that must change."

The report said the Humane Society helped pass 121 new laws last year to strengthen animal protection.

— Carol J. Williams

Learn more about the most popular breeds and dog names in Los Angeles County on The Times’ interactive database: L.A.’s Top Dogs

Photo: Times file

The 22-year prison sentence given to would-be Los Angeles International Airport bomber Ahmed Ressam is so lenient that it constitutes procedural error and failure by the Seattle judge who sentenced him to adequately protect the public, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Algerian’s case transferred to a different judge for resentencing, saying that U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour failed to heed federal sentencing guidelines and a U.S. Supreme Court rebuke.

Ressam was detained in Washington state in December 1999 when he attempted to smuggle explosives into the United States on a ferry from Canada with plans to detonate them at LAX. He initially cooperated with interrogators and provided what Coughenour termed vital insight into the workings of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda.

But Ressam ceased helping federal agents and retracted his statements implicating other terror suspects after being subjected to solitary confinement and what he considered interrogation excesses.

Coughenour twice rejected the federal sentencing recommendation of 65 years in prison for the terrorism conspiracy offense, a position the 9th Circuit panel said constituted procedural error. The judge also failed to consider the potential national security consequences for the U.S. public if Ressam were to be released after only a 22-year term, as he would be only 53 years old, the appeals panel said.

Ressam, now 42, has remained incarcerated the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., throughout the legal appeals of his sentence.

— Carol J. Williams

Photo: FBI

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