Press Releases

SACRAMENTO, Calif., – Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law Assembly Bill 2013, by Assembly Member Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., a measure that extends probable cause determination hearings to out-of-custody defendants charged with a misdemeanor.

Previously, a defendant charged with a misdemeanor could only challenge the probable cause of his/her arrest if that person is currently in custody. If an individual is arrested and released, they cannot challenge the probable cause of their arrest until trial, wasting scarce court, public defender and district attorney resources on a meaningless trial.

SACRAMENTO, Calif., – Assembly Bill 2385, by Assembly Member Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer Sr., has successfully passed out of both the California State Senate and State Assembly and is on its way to the Governor's desk.  If signed into law, the bill would approve the state licensure of various medical cannabis businesses in the City of Los Angeles. 

The City of Los Angeles failed multiple times to regulate medical cannabis, but finally in 2013 it passed Measure D-- a ballot measure that allowed 135 dispensaries, all of which had been in business since 2007, to remain open, while banning others.  This measure, however, did not actually permit those 135 dispensaries to operate — which legal experts said, at the time, the city could not do because cannabis remains illegal under federal law.  Measure D merely said the city would not prosecute those 135 dispensaries.

Sacramento, Calif., -- Assembly Bill 1012, authored by Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., has just gotten off the Assembly floor with a unanimous 79-0 vote.  This bill would prohibit any school district from assigning a pupil to a course period without educational content.  

The schools where this occurs are nearly exclusively in low-income communities of color.  Although this is not the norm across California, it is all too common in areas where students can least afford to lose learning time. This issue was been exemplified recently at Jefferson High School.  Students walked out in protest because their schedules contained the aforementioned “fake classes” as well as previously completed courses.