crime

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury's finding in a civil case that Donald Trump sexually assaulted a columnist within the dressing room of a luxury department store within the mid-Nineteen Nineties.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a written opinion upholding the $5 million award that the Manhattan jury awarded E. Jean Carroll on defamation and sexual abuse charges.

The magazine's longtime columnist had testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter within the spring of 1996 right into a violent attack after they playfully entered the shop's dressing room.

Trump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying that the attack ever happened. But he testified briefly earlier this 12 months in a follow-up defamation trial that ended with an $83.3 million award. The second trial stemmed from comments made by then-President Trump in 2019 after Carroll first made the allegations public in his memoir.

In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected claims by Trump's lawyers that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made several decisions that thwarted the trial, including his decision to confess two other women who had accused Trump of marrying them statements about having been sexually abused.

The judge also allowed the jury to look at the infamous “Access Hollywood” video wherein Trump bragged in 2005 about grabbing women's genitals because when someone is a star, “you can do anything.”

“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not established that the district court erred in any of the impugned rulings,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Furthermore, he has failed to establish that any alleged error or combination of alleged errors affected his essential rights necessary to justify a new trial.”

In September, each Carroll, 81, and Trump, 78, attended oral arguments within the 2nd Circuit.

Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, said in an announcement that Trump was elected by voters who “cast an overwhelming mandate, and they are calling for an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a rapid end to all witch hunts, including…” Democratic-sponsored Carroll Hoax, which stays under appeal.”

Roberta Kaplan, an attorney who represented Carroll throughout the trial and will not be related to the judge, said in an announcement: “Both E. Jean Carroll and I are pleased with today’s decision. We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”

The first jury present in May 2023 that Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her with comments he made in October 2022. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.

In January, a second jury awarded Carroll a further $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump made about her while he was president, finding them defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge to simply accept the primary jury's finding that Trump had sexually abused Carroll.

Trump testified for lower than three minutes within the second trial and was not allowed to challenge the jury's May 2023 conclusions. Still, he was animated within the courtroom throughout the two-week trial and jurors could hear him grumbling in regards to the case.

Local News

Attorney General Andrea Campbell is asking the general public for “patience” as she waits for the discharge of a years-old report into clergy sexual abuse within the dioceses of Worcester, Fall River and Springfield.

During an appearance on Boston Public Radio On Tuesday, Campbell was pressed by anchors Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about why the report wasn't released. It was accomplished in fall 2021 under then-Attorney General Maura Healey, in line with New England Public Media.

“It’s up to the courts to decide whether it can be released or not,” Campbell said. “That’s all I can say.”

The report included quite a few sources, including grand jury proceedings.

“You have to be careful with a grand jury, which is normally secret, of course, and there is a particular way that these proceedings are run,” Campbell said. “Then to make it public you have to get permission if not all parties agree to release it. It’s currently before the courts.”

The timeframe for release is as much as the courts, she said.

“I take allegations of sexual abuse – you know, I'm a mother of two boys – very seriously, from whomever,” the attorney general said. “In this particular case, I inherited a completed report that was sitting there. And now I'm doing what I can to see what we can do in terms of publishing. But other than that, it's not my fault personally. It has to go through a process, and that process now involves the court. And when it’s over, people will know where we end up.”

Abuse survivors and advocates said New England Public Media Last 12 months they announced they were being interviewed by the attorney general's office in fall 2021 for a report on the dioceses of Worcester, Fall River and Springfield.

In 2003, a report by then-Attorney General Tom Reilly examined widespread clergy sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. finally that probably greater than 1,000 victims were affected over a period of 60 years.

“It is important to create an official public record of events,” Reilly wrote within the introduction to Report 2003. “The abuse of children was so massive and so prolonged that it bordered on the unbelievable. This report will confirm to all who read it now and in the future that this tragedy was real.”

On Boston Public Radio, Campbell wouldn’t deny or confirm Braude and Eagan's query about whether the three dioceses were the parties that objected to the discharge of the newest report.

“I don’t know if I can even say that,” she said.

OAKLAND – For months, sometimes years, female inmates at Dublin Federal Prison remained silent while they were sexually abused by their guards.

Who could they tell when the warden himself, who was accountable for investigating abuse cases within the prison, sexually abused three of them? Who would consider that the prison chaplain they’d sought out for spiritual guidance was quoting Biblical parables to coerce and manipulate them into sex? How could they reveal it when their tormentors had the ability to make life in a jail cell much more unbearable?

“All of us who were victims were completely helpless once we were inside,” said Darlene Baker, whose attacker has still not been charged.

On Saturday, greater than two dozen former inmates who were victimized in the course of the all-women's prison's “rape club” culture gathered at an Oakland church to inform their harrowing stories of abuse and explain how they finally mustered the courage to come back forward. Their brave actions over the past two years — and the efforts of lawyers, relatives and members of Congress who took up their cause — led to criminal convictions of the warden, chaplain and 6 other prison guards, a class-action lawsuit and, ultimately, the prison's abrupt closure in April. Twenty-nine other prison employees are on paid administrative leave while the investigation continues. A special prosecutor found that so many prison guards were furloughed that the power could only operate with half its staff on the time of its closure. A federal judge called the prison a “dysfunctional mess.”

Saturday's gathering, sponsored by the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, whose members filed the class-action lawsuit, featured former inmates who traveled from as distant as Seattle and Arizona to attend the emotional reunion, starting early within the day with a non-public healing circle.

“Coming together in a group of other women who have been through the same thing I have brings us closer together,” said former inmate Windy Panzo. “It allows us to share this pain and empower each other.”

By Saturday evening, no less than 4 of them were able to tell their stories publicly – and provides their names.

“My name is Windy and I was raped by the chaplain,” she told the greater than 100 people crowded right into a conference room on the First Unitarian Church in downtown Oakland, including relatives of the victims and other advocates.

She was serving a 25-year prison sentence for drug offenses and was “emotionally devastated. I was mentally devastated. I was physically devastated.”

She turned to Chaplain James Highhouse in the hunt for hope and was as a substitute “raped multiple times.”

She found her breath caught as she described her name being called over the prison's PA system to fulfill the chaplain. “He did everything he could to get me to go to the chapel,” she said. “And I had to go. You couldn't say no. You couldn't walk away.”

When she asked for a transfer and told her prison counselor in regards to the abuse, he turned her down: “I'm retiring,” Panzo recalls the counselor saying. “I don't want to hear that.”

“Who do you tell when the director, the chaplain, the guards, the kitchen staff, all are dirty,” said Panzo, “and if they are not directly dirty, do they hide it from everyone else?”

As other victims got here forward with stories of rampant abuse by the hands of prison guards, Panzo finally spoke out about her own. She testified against Highhouse, who’s now serving a seven-year sentence for sexual abuse. During the sentencing, the judge noted Highhouse's “persistent predatory behavior toward traumatized and defenseless women in prison.” Panzo also found the strength to testify before a congressional committee on a video call.

Former prison warden Ray J. Garcia was sentenced to just about 6 years in prison in 2023 for sexually abusing three inmates. Garcia, who was promoted from deputy prison warden to the highest management position within the midst of the abuse case, had boasted to his victims that he could “never be fired.” The chaplain and the prison warden were two of eight correctional officers charged. Seven were convicted.

No charges have been filed against the doctor who, based on Darlene Baker, locked the door to the doctor's office and sexually assaulted her, she said.

“He pushed me into the back of the hospital room and sexually assaulted me. And I said, 'No.' I said, 'Stop,'” Baker told the group. “And then I realized very quickly that I was completely helpless, completely helpless.”

She told a jail psychologist, who said, “We don't have any mental health services.” If she was suicidal, he told her, she could go into solitary confinement. “And that was the end of my conversation with him.”

When her abuser came upon she had complained, he retaliated by withholding her prescription medication for 2 months.

Baker's family contacted then-U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier of San Mateo, who helped bring the scandal to light.

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a part of the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, filed a class-action lawsuit in August 2023 demanding fundamental reforms on the prison and systemic changes on the federal bureau of prisons. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appointed a special counsel, Wendy Stills, to oversee reforms there. Stills and her team had been on site for little greater than every week last April when bureau of prison officials announced the approaching closure — a move inmates said was a brazen try to cover up the scandal and obstruct investigations. The special counsel immediately turned her attention to the chaotic transfer of 603 inmates to other federal prisons for ladies across the country — most on the East Coast. In her report last month, which called conditions there “unacceptable,” Stills described how she prevented numerous buses from leaving on the primary day. Some inmates were left in a parked bus for 4 hours while she ensured that transfers were properly tracked and that anyone near release was held back. Several inmates, including victims of sexual abuse, were released on humanitarian grounds.

After the closure, the Bureau of Prisons filed a motion to dismiss the category motion lawsuit, arguing that the prison was closed and the problems raised within the lawsuit were moot. Last week, Judge Gonzales Rogers dismissed the lawsuit. A trial is scheduled for next yr.

The women who gathered Saturday are still waiting for justice for the opposite correctional officers who remain on paid leave and plan to proceed to advocate for prison reform.

“It's very healing to be able to share our stories with each other. But it also gives us strength, doesn't it? It gives us a voice,” said Kendra Drysdale, whose abuser has not been charged. “Our goal is to give a voice to those who are still there, still in prison, so we can stop any abuse and try to make a change.”

Originally published: September 8, 2024 at 12:42

Local news

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The $38 million verdict in a landmark trial over abuse at a New Hampshire youth correctional facility stays in dispute nearly 4 months later. Both sides filed their final motions with the judge this week.

“It is almost time to fully present and decide the facts,” Judge Andrew Schulman wrote in an order earlier this month, giving the parties until Wednesday to submit their motions and supporting documents.

At issue is the $18 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in aggravated damages that a jury awarded David Meehan in May after a month-long trial. His allegations of horrific sexual and physical abuse on the Youth Development Center within the Nineties sparked a significant criminal investigation that resulted in several arrests, and his lawsuit looking for to carry the state accountable was the primary of greater than 1,100 to go to trial.

The dispute centers on a portion of the decision by which the jury found the state chargeable for just one “incident” of abuse on the Manchester facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center. Jurors weren’t told that under the law, damages against the state are capped at $475,000 per “incident.” Some jurors later said they wrote “one” on the decision to point a single case of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from greater than 100 episodes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

In an earlier order, Schulman said the cap requested by the state could be an “unreasonable miscarriage of justice.” But in his Aug. 1 order, he indicated that the one other option could be to order a brand new trial since the state had not allowed him to regulate the variety of incidents.

Meehan's lawyers, nonetheless, asked Schulman to throw out only the a part of the decision by which the jury mentioned one incident, leaving the $38 million award in place, or to order a brand new trial to find out only the variety of incidents.

“The court should not be so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater because the jury made a single error,” they wrote.

“To force a man – who the jury found was seriously injured by the wanton, malicious or oppressive conduct of the state – to choose between reliving his nightmare in a new and very public trial or accepting one-eightieth of the compensation the jury intended is a grave injustice that cannot be tolerated in court,” wrote attorneys Rus Rilee and David Vicinanzo.

But the state's lawyers provided an in depth explanation of why imposing a cap is the one right plan of action. They said jurors could have found that the state's negligence created “a single, harmful environment” by which Meehan suffered harm, or they might have believed his testimony about only a single, episodic incident.

In support of their latter argument, they cited the testimony of an authority “according to which the mere fact that the plaintiff sincerely believes that he was raped multiple times does not mean that this was actually the case.”

Meehan, 42, went to police to report the abuse in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Since then, 11 former state employees have been arrested, although one has since died and charges against one other were dropped after the person, now in his early 80s, was declared incompetent to face trial.

The trial in the primary criminal case begins on Monday. Victor Malavet, who has pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of aggravated sexual assault, is accused of attacking a young girl in a jail in Concord in 2001.

After the incident was reported in July, San Mateo County Sheriff's Office officials used automatic license plate readers, social media and “other investigative methods” to discover the suspect, the sheriff's office said in a news release Tuesday.

According to the sheriff's office, an investigation revealed that the suspect had tons of of inappropriate conversations with underage girls through social media applications.

The suspect “often drove to the victims or asked them to use public transportation to meet him in person,” the sheriff's office said, adding that many conversations involved the exchange of “child sexual abuse material.”

According to the sheriff's office, he also used false names, including John Kelly and Josh Foire.

On August 15, the Sheriff's Office worked with Pleasanton Police to locate and arrest the suspect.

The sheriff's office said the suspect was booked into Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City. He is charged with sexual penetration of an individual under 18, assault with intent to commit a felony, arranging to satisfy a minor for lewd purposes, contacting a minor for the aim of committing a felony and sending harmful material for the aim of enticing a minor.

According to the sheriff's office, investigators consider there could also be additional victims. Anyone with information in regards to the case can contact Detective Nicole Pitts at 650-363-4060 or npitts@smcgov.org or the anonymous tip line at 800-547-2700.

The LGBTQ community’s long history with law enforcement is so problematic and violent that organizers of a few of the recent Pride parades decided to ban the police from marching within the parade.

During the twentieth century The police frequently raided gay barsarrested guests and put them in prison. Sometimes the names and photos of those arrested were published in newspapers – with potentially dire social and economic consequences.

Police departments across the country have taken steps lately to enhance relations with the LGBTQ community. Creation of LGBTQ liaison officer positions and mandatory awareness training. Nevertheless, raids proceed to occur sporadically. In January 2024 Police entered 4 gay bars in Seattle unannounced, photos of consumers were allegedly taken, and no less than one bartender was cited for exposing a nipple, a violation of city ordinance.

And that's not the one reason why relations between police and LGBTQ people remain strained.

Offensive language and abuse

I’m a Sociologist who studies gender and sexualityTo understand LGBTQ people’s experiences and attitudes towards the police, I recently conducted a Study on the connection between LGBTQ and the police next to Professor Valerie Jennessmy colleague on the University of California, Irvine.

This first-of-its-kind national survey of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people drew on a nationally representative sample of 1,598 people—a gold standard for sociological survey research—followed by in-depth interviews with 59 LGBTQ survey respondents.

The results, a few of which were recently published in a report written jointly with the American Civil Liberties Union were eye-opening.

Our study found that LGBTQ people still experience more police abuse than non-LGBTQ people and have less trust within the police. Perhaps not surprisingly, also they are significantly less willing to call the police for help.

At the broadest level, we found that LGBTQ persons are more prone to be stopped, searched, arrested, and detained than non-LGBTQ people. Just under 15% of non-LGBTQ respondents had experienced such police-initiated contact up to now yr, in comparison with 21% of LGBTQ people and 33% of transgender respondents.

These interactions with police are sometimes uglier for LGBTQ people than for non-LGBTQ people, especially bisexual, transgender, non-binary people and queer people – those that don’t discover with the normal labels of “gay” and “lesbian.” About 1 / 4 of all bisexual and queer survey participants had been the victim of offensive language during an interaction with the police.

For transgender and nonbinary people, those numbers were even higher — 45% and 33%, respectively. For example, one transgender woman we interviewed described how cops intentionally misgendered her, asked her “what” she was, and used anti-LGBTQ slurs.

Black transgender people were most definitely to be victims of police violence. Fifty-three percent of respondents reported being hit, punched, shoved or otherwise physically assaulted by police, in comparison with 25 percent of white transgender people. In contrast, only 8 percent of white cisgender men reported being victims of police brutality.

These data provide a striking illustration of how gender, sexual identity and race influence one another and the way they’re treated by the police.

Afraid to call the police

Given these findings, it is probably not surprising that LGBTQ people, on average, rated the fairness of their interactions with police about 12% lower than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.

Here too, bisexual and queer people reported feeling less fair of their interactions with the police than gay and lesbian people. Transgender and nonbinary people reported even worse feelings of fairness than cisgender LGBQ people.

Consequently, LGBTQ people also expressed lower levels of trust within the police than their non-LGBTQ counterparts, with significant differences across race.

Black and Hispanic LGBTQ people, for instance, rated their trust within the police at 2.9 on a 5-point scale; white LGBTQ people rated it at 3.3, a statistically significant difference. Asians reported having the best perception of police legitimacy amongst LGBTQ people, with a rating of three.6.

Finally, once we asked survey respondents whether or not they would call the police for help if a criminal offense occurred, we found that LGBTQ people were less prone to answer “yes” to this query than non-LGBTQ people: 71% versus 87%.

But there have been also significant differences amongst LGBTQ people. About 80 percent of gays and lesbians said they’d report their victims to the police, while only 69 percent of bisexuals, 61 percent of transgender people and 60 percent of queer people did so.

Interestingly, amongst LGBTQ people, black respondents were most definitely to say they’d call the police for help (77%), followed by 74% of whites and Asians. Hispanics reported the bottom level of agreement at 58%.

Police “more enemy than friend”

In summary, LGBTQ persons are significantly more prone to say They see the police as an enemy relatively than a friend than non-LGBTQ people.

But this general finding obscures essential subtle differences in the info. Some members of the LGBTQ community report having roughly the identical experiences with police as their non-LGBTQ counterparts, and so they have similarly positive perceptions of law enforcement.

White gays and lesbians, for instance, are almost as prone to call the police for help as non-LGBTQ people. Black, poor, or otherwise marginalized LGBTQ people, then again, have more problematic relationships with the police than their more privileged peers in almost every category.

Likewise, LGBTQ people of all races fare worse in almost every way than their non-LGBTQ counterparts of the identical race. Even white lesbians and gay men proceed to face significant mistreatment by the hands of police.

Our study highlights that gender and sexuality are extremely essential considerations in national discussions about policing.

The LGBTQ community has won essential legal rights over the past 30 years, but official violence and oppression proceed. And with More and more anti-LGBTQ bills are popping up across the countryFrom laws banning gender-affirming care to those prohibiting teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues, it's no wonder LGBTQ people remain distrustful of the police.

“When the police are called upon to enforce a law and that law is fundamentally directed against you as a person,” One of our interviewees told us“They will not support the police.”

BERKELEY – A Bay Area swim instructor was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing several young children, police said.

According to a Berkeley Police Department press release, detectives launched an investigation last week after parents raised concerns about 25-year-old Tyler Livingston's interactions with their children.

On Thursday, detectives executed search and arrest warrants at an address related to Livingston, who was eventually taken into custody in Emeryville without further incident.

Livingston has worked as a swimming instructor within the Bay Area for the past few years and could have also worked instead teacher for a time, in keeping with police.

“While investigations into these cases are ongoing, we are aware that there may be additional victims who have not yet come forward,” police said.

Police urged potential victims to contact the police department's child welfare unit at 510-981-5715.

MARTINEZ – A Contra Costa County Superior Court judge on Thursday sentenced an Antioch woman to fifteen years to life in prison for sexually abusing a young child, authorities said.

Judge David Goldstein imposed the sentence after Michelle Nicole Hidalgo, 29, admitted to engaging in sexual conduct with a baby 10 years or younger, in response to a press release from Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office spokesman Ted Asregadoo.

According to Asregadoo, Hidaldo was working as a part-time nanny for a family when the attacks occurred. The Contra Costa County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force became aware of sexually explicit images of a young child shared on the social media site X on September 21, 2023, and executed a search warrant for an Antioch residence the subsequent day.

Asregadoo said Hidalgo admitted to the abuse in her confession. Evidence showed Hidalgo created images of the abuse and shared them with other X users. Asregadoo said authorities also found text messages from Hidalgo to others that showed her intent to do much more.

Investigators worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to make sure the victim's images were labeled in the event that they were ever shared online.

She was charged last September and initially faced a jail sentence of as much as 60 years to life.

In 2019 and 2020, three black men were charged and jailed for crimes they didn’t commit after police used facial recognition to falsely discover them. Their wrongful arrest lawsuits are still pending, but their cases display how AI-powered tools can result in civil rights violations and lasting consequences for the families of the accused.

Now all three men are speaking out against a pending bill in California that might prohibit police from using facial recognition technology as the only real reason for a search or arrest, requiring corroborative evidence as an alternative.

The problem, critics say, is that a possible “match” in facial recognition isn’t evidence – and that it could possibly result in misguided investigations, even when police are on the lookout for corroborating evidence.

After a controversial hearing, the Senate Committee on Public Safety today voted unanimously to proceed Bill of the Assembly of 1814It was passed by the Assembly last month without opposition.

Such a law “would not have stopped the police from falsely arresting me in front of my wife and daughters,” Robert Williams told CalMatters. In 2020, Detroit police charged Williams with stealing hundreds of dollars value of watches – the primary known case of False arrest through facial recognition within the US – after facial recognition matched surveillance video with a photograph of Williams in a government database. Investigators placed his photo in a “six-pack lineup” with five others, and he was singled out by a security guard who had seen a surveillance image but not the theft itself.

“In my case, as in others, the police did exactly what AB 1814 required them to do, but it didn't help,” said Williams, who’s black. “When the facial recognition software told them I was the suspect, it poisoned the investigation. This technology is racially biased and unreliable and should be banned.”

“I implore California lawmakers not to settle for half measures that do not truly protect people like me.”

However, the bill's creator, Democratic Representative Phil Ting of San Francisco, stressed that facial recognition technology should now not be the only real criterion for a warrant, search or arrest. This could prevent illegal arrests like those in Detroit.

And he emphasized that this might improve the established order for Californians.

“The state's law enforcement agencies do not currently need permission from anyone to do anything in the area of ​​facial recognition,” Ting said. “None of the state's laws provide any guidance in this particular area.”

“This is actually a good first step to really provide some security, provide some protection of civil liberties and make sure that we take the first step towards regulating facial recognition technology.”

The first facial recognition searches within the United States occurred greater than twenty years ago. It's a process that begins with a photograph of a suspect, often taken from security camera footage. The facial recognition in your iPhone is trained to match your photo, but the sort utilized by law enforcement searches databases of mugshots or driver's license photos, which may contain tens of millions of photos, and may fail in quite a few ways. Tests by researchers have shown that the technology is less accurate when attempting to People with dark skinPeople who’re AsianNative Americans, individuals who discover as Transgenderif an examination image of a suspect is of poor quality or if the image in a database is outdated.

After a pc compiles an inventory of possible matches from a picture database, police select a suspect from quite a few candidates after which show that photo to an eyewitness. Although people think they’re good at it, eyewitness testimony is a Main reason for miscarriages of justice within the USA.

Because prosecutors use facial recognition to discover potential suspects but ultimately depend on eyewitness accounts, the technology can play a job in criminal investigations but stays hidden from the accused and defense attorneys.

Instructions not to contemplate a possible match with a facial recognition system as the only real reason for an arrest sometimes make no difference. This was the case, for instance, of Alonzo Sawyer, a person who was wrongfully arrested near Baltimore and spent nine days in prison.

Njeer Parks, who spent nearly a 12 months battling allegations that he stole items from a New Jersey hotel gift shop after which nearly hit a police officer with a stolen vehicle, spoke out against the California bill in a video. posted on Instagram last week. The police “won't do their job if the AI ​​already says, 'It's him.' That's what happened to me.”

“I was lucky,” he told CalMatters in a phone interview a couple of receipt that exonerated him and kept him out of jail. “I don't want anyone to go to jail for something they didn't do.”

At today's hearing, the attorney for Michael Oliver, a 3rd Black man falsely accused of attacking a Detroit highschool teacher in 2020, testified. “The warrant application in Michael's case was based solely on a supposed match (with facial recognition technology) and a photo lineup,” said attorney David Robinson. “Other than the photo lineup, the detective did not do any further investigation. So it's easy to say it's the officer's fault for doing a poor job or not investigating. But he relied on (the facial recognition) and believed it must be right. That's the automation bias that was referenced in these sessions.”

“Despite the warning to the officer – 'investigative leads only' – that advice was trumped by the hypnotic effect of this machine, which the officer saw as faster and more intelligent than himself, and that must be right.”

Supporters of Ting's bill include the California Faculty Association and the League of California Cities. The California Police Chief Association argues that facial recognition can reduce crime and supply police with actionable leads. The technology can also be necessary because California desires to host international events akin to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“Across the country, real-world examples of how law enforcement agencies are using (facial recognition technology) to solve serious crimes demonstrate how important this new technology can be in protecting our communities,” argued the California Police Chiefs Association, citing cases wherein it said facial recognition played a job in identifying the culprits, including a newspaper seat Shooting in Maryland and a rape in New York.

Facial recognition alone should never result in false arrests, Jake Parker of the Security Industry Association told members of the California Assembly just a few weeks ago. That's why AB 1814 is meant to support investigative approaches with evidence, not only a possible match in facial recognition.

But greater than 50 advocacy organizations – including the ACLU, Access Reproductive Justice and the Electronic Frontier Foundation signed a letter against the law last weekThey called facial recognition unreliable, a proven threat to black men, and a possible danger to protesters, abortion seekers, and the immigrant and LGBTQ communities.

“By allowing police to scan and identify people without restriction, AB 1814 will also increase unnecessary police calls that all too often have the potential to escalate into deadly encounters. This will continue regardless of how accurate facial recognition technology becomes,” the organizations said in a letter. “There is no way for people to know if facial recognition is being used against them and no mechanism to ensure police are complying with the law.”

Ting also drafted a bill in 2019 that First, a everlasting ban on the usage of police of bodycam recordings with facial recognition. This was modified to a brief ban that resulted in January 2023.

He told CalMatters that he’s uncomfortable with the proven fact that California currently has no restrictions on the usage of facial recognition by law enforcement.

In an announcement, he said his bill “simply requires officers to have additional evidence before proceeding with a search, arrest, or warrant affidavit. I believe a precautionary measure can help protect people's privacy and due process rights while still allowing local governments to go further and enforce their own facial recognition bans.”

Ting’s city of San Francisco was the primary major city within the country to ban facial recognition in 2019, but a evaluation by City Attorney David Chiu stated that the town Passing Proposition E in March enables the police to acknowledge faces in images taken with cameras and drones. The Washington Post last month reported that San Francisco police are circumventing restrictions by asking law enforcement in neighboring cities to conduct the manhunt for them.

Re-elected San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin says false arrests related to facial recognition have almost definitely occurred in California, but they continue to be unknown to the general public unless prosecutors file charges and the defendants are later tried in a civil suit for damages. Often such cases could be settled out of court.

“We absolutely need a legal and regulatory framework for these technologies, but I do not believe AB 1814 is sufficient to protect civil liberties or provide meaningful safeguards for the use of these new and powerful technologies,” said Boudin, who now directs UC Berkeley's Criminal Law & Justice Center.

Lawmakers have until the top of the legislative session in August to make your mind up whether to pass AB 1814.