THE AUTHOR
Greg Hill
Ten New Laws to Know for 2012
It is January 1, 2012 and a host of new laws became effective today. While some of these laws may not affect you, others may, so it is good to be aware of how the laws have changed. BY GREG HILL
There are dozens of new laws, but our focus in this article is
limited to ten that involve possible criminal cases.
1. Testimony by a jailhouse informant is no longer enough to convict
a suspect. Supposed jailhouse confessions have long been suspicious
to us, as the informant may have significant credibility issues,
ulterior motives and always seemed inherently untrustworthy to us.
This is a good new law.
2. Juror texting, tweeting or research using smartphones. There will
now be a new jury instruction admonishing jurors not to text, tweet
or research cases at all. The jury will be told to only consider the
facts presented to them and the law told to them in court without
doing their own research or communicating outside the jury room.
3. Unpaid traffic ticket amnesty. Folks who
have traffic tickets with fines that were due by January 1, 2009,
will be allowed to pay just half the fine if they do so before June
30, 2012.
4. Booster seats. It is now the law that all children under eight or
four feet, nine inches tall must be buckled into a booster seat.
Previously, the law was that every kid had to use such a seat until
age six or reached sixty pounds. It merits mention that as a parent
of three kids around these ages and weights, I think this is a good
law. Booster seats allow the seatbelt to better fit to the child.
5. Carrying an unloaded firearm in public. If one is caught carrying
an unloaded handgun in a public place, a $1,000 fine or a year in
prison is possible. The law does not apply to rifles, curiously, so
it is likely gun-rights activists may protest this new law by
carrying their rifles in public in a very visible manner.
6. Dextromethorphan sales to minors. Certain cold medications that
contain dextromethorphan, if taken in high doses, can cause liver
failure, hallucinations, loss of motor control and even seizures.
For decades, kids have taken such over-the-counter medications to
have an “out of body” experience. Now, store clerks are required to
check ID’s of those who attempt to buy certain medications
containing dextromethorphan. California is the first law to impose
such a requirement.
7. Caffeinated beer banned. California has
become the seventh state to ban such products. Usually, such
products come in 24 ounce and even 32 ounce cans and were popular
with college age kids. There have been a few heavily reported
incidents where college kids drank too much of such drinks and were
hospitalized.
8. Tanning beds. It is illegal for anyone younger than eighteen to
use a tanning bed. Prior to today, anyone between the ages of
fifteen and seventeen could use a tanning bed with their parent’s
permission, while there was an absolute ban on any tanning bed use
by one fourteen and under. Now that ban extends to anyone under the
age of eighteen.
9. Police now cannot impound a vehicle at a DUI checkpoint if the
driver’s only offense is being an unlicensed driver. This may
eliminate what our office has suspected for some time – that certain
police departments have used DUI checkpoints as a net to impound
vehicles for almost any offense.
10. Employers cannot use credit reports when considering applicants
for most jobs. Certain exceptions still apply to use such reports,
i.e. employers searching for managers, financial jobs, law
enforcement.
About the Author
This article was written by Greg Hill. He has handled hundreds of DUI’s all over the state of California. He is an attorney in Torrance, California and a former Marine Officer. He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate (B.S., 1987), Boston University graduate (M.B.A., 1994) and Loyola Law School graduate (J.D., 1998).
