Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American trans teenager who was murdered in Newark, California at the age of 17. She was murdered by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed.
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catch-all term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression, a symptom of which was a change in diet from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary foods. Contrary to common belief, White's attorneys did not argue that the Twinkies were the cause of White's actions, but that their consumption was symptomatic of his underlying depression. The product itself was only mentioned in passing during the trial. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, and served five years in prison.
KPFA is an American listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on the air April 15, 1949, as the first Pacifica Radio station and remains the flagship station of the Pacifica Radio Network.
Kimberly Ann Guilfoyle is an American television news personality and former prosecuting attorney in San Francisco. A Republican, she became an advisor to the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump.
Gerald Leonard Spence is a semi-retired American trial lawyer. He is a member of the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. Spence has never lost a criminal case before a jury either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney, and has not lost a civil case since 1969.
William Tang Sharon was a United States senator, banker, and business owner from Nevada who profited from the Comstock Lode.
Junípero Serra High School is a Catholic college preparatory high school in San Mateo, California, United States, serving students in grades 9–12. A part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, this school provides education for young men. The school has an academic focus with a college preparatory curriculum.
Joseph Tony Serra is an American civil rights attorney, activist and tax resister from San Francisco.
Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the attorney general (AG) of California from 2011 to 2017 and as a U.S. senator representing California from 2017 to 2021.
True Believer is a 1989 American courtroom drama written by Wesley Strick, directed by Joseph Ruben, and starring James Woods, Robert Downey Jr., Yuji Okumoto, Margaret Colin, and Kurtwood Smith.
Melvin Mouron Belli was a United States lawyer and writer known as "The King of Torts" and by insurance companies as "Melvin Bellicose". He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Maureen Connolly, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. During his legal career, he won over $600 million in damages for his clients. He was also the attorney for Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
William Marx Mandel was an American broadcast journalist, left-wing political activist, and author, best known as a Soviet affairs analyst. He was born in New York City.
Paulette Frankl is an American courtroom artist and author.
Stuart Hanlon is an attorney based in San Francisco, California who represented San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr, Geronimo Pratt and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Jody Weiner is an American novelist, non-fiction author, film producer and lawyer.
Raymond Kwok-Cheung Chow, nicknamed "Shrimp Boy", is a Hong Kong-born felon with ties to a San Francisco Chinatown street gang and an organized crime syndicate, including the American branch of the Hong Kong-based triad Wo Hop To and the Hop Sing Boys.
Chol Soo Lee was a Korean American immigrant who was wrongfully convicted for the 1973 murder of Yip Yee Tak, a San Francisco Chinatown gang leader, and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, he was sentenced to death for the killing of another prisoner, Morrison Needham, though Chol Soo claimed self-defense. Chol Soo served ten years of his sentence for the killing of Yip Yee Tak of which he was later acquitted, eight of those on death row. Investigative reporting by K. W. Lee sparked the formation of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee, which spurred a national pan-Asian movement. Chol Soo finally won his freedom in 1983 through the help of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee and Tony Serra.
Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old African-American man who was killed in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid Transit train returning from San Francisco, BART Police officers detained Grant and several other passengers on the platform at the Fruitvale BART Station. BART officer Anthony Pirone kneed Grant in the head and forced Grant to lie face down on the platform. Mehserle drew his pistol and shot Grant. Grant was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland and pronounced dead later that day. The events were captured on bystanders’ mobile phones. Owners disseminated their footage to media outlets and to various websites where it went viral. Both peaceful and violent protests took place in the following days.
Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye is an American lawyer and jurist who was the 28th Chief Justice of California and is the president/CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. Nominated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for California's highest judicial office on July 22, 2010, and retained in office by California voters on November 2, 2010, she was sworn in on January 3, 2011 as California's first Filipino and first Woman of Color to serve as California's Chief Justice. Prior to her appointment as chief justice, Cantil-Sakauye had served in judicial offices on California's appellate and trial courts. On July 27, 2022, she announced she would retire and not run for another 12 year term on the court in November and step down on January 1, 2023, leaving Governor Newsom to appoint her replacement. On September 28, 2022, the Public Policy Institute of California announced that Cantil-Sakauye would become its president and chief executive officer, effective January 1, 2023.
Derek Anthony West is an American attorney and former government official, and the current Senior Vice President and chief legal officer of Uber. Before Uber, West was Associate Attorney General of the United States and general counsel of PepsiCo. West previously served as the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division, the largest litigating division in the Department of Justice.
