By Peter Scheer

The courts in California are often criticized for being out of step with the rest of the country. A willingness among judges to deviate from national orthodoxy is not necessarily a bad thing, however.

Just this week the administrative arm of the California Supreme Court adopted a...

By Peter Scheer

Attorney General Jerry Brown has taken the first formal steps toward declaring himself a candidate for Governor of California. He is, or soon will be, the deja vu candidate in a race to become the deja vu governor.

What kind of governor would Brown be? While...

As I read about the latest contractions in the newsroom of the New York Times (100 reporters and editors) and the San Francisco Chronicle (investigative reporting staff–gone), the question occurs: Why are universities across the country continuing to churn out journalism graduates? Do they know something that the rest of...

On Monday, Washington Post investigative reporter nonpareil Bob Woodward caused a tremor inside the Beltway with an exclusive account of  Gen. Stanley McChrystal's 66-page report to President Barack Obama, warning that without the deployment of more US troops, the administration's Afghanistan policy will fail.

There has followed the...

All public officials favor open government in principle. Who would dare say otherwise? In reality, however, they are in a perpetual search, guided by clever lawyers, for new ways to circumvent disclosure requirements--at best, because they view requests for records as a nuisance, and at worst, because they have something...

As Iran has its Tianenman moment, no other government is watching events there with more anxiety than China--and with good reason. Both Iran and China are modernizing autocracies committed by a combination of ideology and fear to maintaining control over their peoples' access to information. And, to a remarkable degree,...

With one unforgettable gesture--the uncrossing and crossing of her legs--actress Sharon Stone famously demonstrated that, physically speaking, she has nothing to hide. Her legal affairs, however, are another matter.

Despite court rules mandating openness in judicial proceedings, Stone was recently allowed to file a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court...

A debate rages in what remains of the newspaper industry over the question of whether papers should charge for their content online or, as most papers now do, give it away for free in hopes of reaping faster overall revenue growth through internet advertising. As more and more publications contemplate...

The California Supreme Court's hearing last week in the Prop 8 case -- broadcast live over the internet via streaming video -- erased any doubt about the wisdom of allowing cameras into the nation's courts.

Let's hope US Supreme Court Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia...

The California Supreme Court, in one of its most important cases in years, is considering a challenge to Prop 8, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If the Court upholds Prop 8, one of the people you can blame is Attorney General Jerry Brown.

But wait a minute. Didn't...

Of his two known vices -- cigarettes and a Blackberry -- Barack Obama is reported to have given up only one since he became President-elect. And it's not cigarettes.

Like most chief executives his age, Obama during the presidential campaign was visibly tethered to his cell phone, its text and...

Although its name did not even appear on the ballot, the California Supreme Court was perhaps the state's biggest loser in Tuesday's historic elections. The voters' narrow approval of Proposition 8 effectively reverses the high Court's controversial decision, earlier this year, extending the right to marry to same-sex couples.

The...

Economists and historians will be debating for years the causes of the financial crisis that, like a global array of dominoes, now threatens to take down the "real" economies of countries big and small, both "developed" and "emerging," in a massive flight from investment risk unlike anything experienced since 1929.

You know summer is here when hordes of paparazzi descend, locust-like, on southern California beaches, angering locals as they pursue money-shots of sun-tanning celebrities -- while politicians, seeing an opportunity for self-promotion, promise new laws to tame the unruly photogs.

It has become a political rite of summer: Paparazzi behave...

As the world now knows, federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski has looked at pornography and has stored some pornographic files on a personal, nonpublic website. This revelation, and the invasion of privacy that it entails, are apparently justified by the fact that Kozinski is currently presiding, as a temporary...

All newspapers from time to time should publish articles that give offense to a sizable segment of their readers. Such provocations -- challenging readers to think differently about an issue -- are part of the editorial independence that is the right and obligation of all credible news organizations.

Subscriber response...

The city of Vallejo, California has taken the extraordinary step of filing for federal bankruptcy protection. While the financial distress of this San Francisco suburb (population 117,000) is especially acute, its fiscal problems are fundamentally the same as those facing many California cities and counties--and, indeed, the state itself.

To...

A milestone of sorts was passed in the first quarter of this year when China blew past the United States to become the biggest internet market in the world. At 225 million users, and still growing at double-digit rates, China's internet is a business opportunity so grand and irresistible that...