The Brief

Over the last 25 years, Los Angeles County voters have elected just two people from the public defender's office to a Superior Court judge seat. But there’s a growing push toward getting more people with defense backgrounds on the bench.

This year, a slate of three defense attorneys calling themselves the “Defenders of Justice” is hoping to win seats on the bench. The candidates are: La Shae Henderson, George Turner and Ericka Wiley.

Historically, voters have overwhelmingly elected judges with prosecutorial experience. And although some California governors, including Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown, have made it a point to appoint defense lawyers to judicial seats, the L.A. County Superior Court bench is comprised of many more former prosecutors.

Criminal justice reform advocates say judges with defense backgrounds — either public or private — can balance out the tough-on-crime rhetoric that has led to mass incarceration. And they say former defense attorneys can bring diversity to a bench that now has a range of alternatives to incarceration at its disposal.

'Defenders of Justice' candidates

As a deputy public defender for 18 years, La Shae Henderson said she’s seen how the criminal justice system touches lives, not just for the defendants, judges and lawyers, but also the families.

It’s part of the reason Henderson tried to bring a client’s full story into the courtroom, she said.

“This is a human being. This is a life. This is a person ... they’re struggling right now, give them a second chance,” said Henderson, who is now an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University and teaches juvenile rights.

She remembered a client who had been charged with a municipal code violation for selling oranges in front of a business. The client couldn’t afford to pay the fine and slipped her a written prayer in court.

“And I just stood up and I said, ‘You know what, she’s not going to be convicted today … ’ and the case got dismissed,” she said. “Just seeing my client struggle and seeing what they go through has really touched my heart that we need more diversity on the bench.

“We need people that understand struggle and that will listen to the stories and care,” Henderson said.

Henderson is one of three current or former deputy public defenders running under the Defenders of Justice campaign, all of whom say they hope to transform the judiciary by getting more judges with defense backgrounds on the bench.

There are five candidates with public defender backgrounds running for judge seats this March. All of the candidates took part in L.A. Forward and La Defensa’s judicial academy, a month-long workshop that trains lawyers how to run judicial campaigns.

While more than a dozen judges with backgrounds as public and/or private defense attorneys have been appointed by governors in the past 25 years, L.A. County voters have elected just two from the public defender's office during that time.

Deputy Public Defender George Turner said he would like to add momentum to that movement. He’s in charge of a mobile unit that works to clear the criminal records of unhoused people who sometimes struggle to find housing because of minor convictions on their record.

“Literally, the overwhelming majority of my clients are people who suffer from diagnosed and undiagnosed mental health issues,” Turner told LAist.

Superior Court judge candidate George Turner speaks at a Defenders of Justice campaign event.

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Defenders of Justice

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Turner said he believes the court system is failing miserably at helping people with mental illness. He said his clients who may qualify for a diversion program because of a mental health issue often have to wait months for an evaluation to prove it.

If he’s elected to the bench, Turner said he’d like to see people get mental health treatment up front instead of having to spend months or longer in jail cells while their conditions deteriorate. He also said he thinks judges should have to see the conditions incarcerated people are subject to in L.A. County by visiting local jails once a quarter.

“The primary goal is not to cycle people in and out of Los Angeles County jail. But the primary goal is to make sure that people get access to resources,” Turner said.

Ericka Wiley agrees. A deputy public defender for 23 years, she said mental illness has been common among her clients. Historically, she said, “there was this strange idea that you could punish away behavior, even if that behavior was based on an uncontrollable mental illness.”

Wiley and her cohort said it’s important that judges take advantage of new laws and diversion programs that steer people living with mental illness and drug use issues into treatment instead of prison or jail. And sometimes, they see judges who are reluctant to employ those programs.

Wiley and others on the ticket say it’s those diversion programs and updated laws that changed their ideas about running.

“Certainly I did not see myself being a part of a system which made it difficult for me to help people in that condition, so the changes in the law are really the impetus for me,” Wiley said.

And while a substantial number of their clients deal with mental health and substance use issues, all candidates on the Defenders of Justice slate said they wanted to see a more involved and observant judiciary no matter what the defendant’s struggles are.

“If you come out of this robotic, we-punish-and-this-is-how-I’ve-been-doing-it-for-years, (mentality), you’re going to miss things,” Henderson said. “But if you come into it listening and being open and looking at everything you’re seeing, you’ll make a better decision.”

The Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Downtown L.A. is one of the nation’s busiest trial courts.

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David Wagner/LAist

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A turning point?

Some public defense lawyers are reluctant to run for judicial seats because they’ve seen the judiciary work against their clients. Dan Simon, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said the American public is pretty punitive and often likes to see pro-prosecution judges elected.

But there are signs that might be changing, according to Simon, both for the public and the judges they elected.

“There have been some interesting sort of retrospective realizations by judges about having sat on the bench throughout this era we call mass incarceration and feeling quite self-conscious about their contribution to it,” Simon said.

Wiley said she’s seen a growing desire in society to address underlying issues instead of leaning heavily into the tough-on-crime rhetoric that’s filled jails and prisons with people living with mental illness.

“I think that electing judges, appointing judges with the background, lived-experience and willingness to apply the law as it currently stands, which allows us to help people, that we’ll see a turning point,” Wiley said.

“I’m hoping I can be a part of that.”

There are 10 Superior Court offices up for election in the March 5 primary, which is the last day to vote in person, drop your mail-in ballot in a ballot box, or postmark your mail-in ballot.

In order to win, a candidate must receive more than 50% of votes in March. If no candidate gains a majority of votes, the two front-runners will compete again in November.

If you want to know more about all the candidates, check out our Voter Game Plan guide on L.A. Superior Court judges.

Newport Beach voters might get two separate ballots for the November election, which will determine whether they vote on one local ballot measure, or four.

In one of the weirdest cases to join Orange County’s substantial history of election oddities, Newport Beach is scrambling to comply with a court order by trying to stage its own election in conjunction with the regular, general election. This is highly unusual — the vast majority of cities in Orange County, and across California, rely on the county registrar of voters to administer their elections.

Lena Shumway, Newport Beach’s city clerk, has been tasked with pulling off the flash election, including putting together voter rolls, getting ballots and election guides printed and mailed (there will be no in-person voting), and, if the election happens, counting ballots and verifying voter signatures. She told LAist she’s running into multiple roadblocks, some of them seemingly insurmountable.

And yet, she said, “We’re going to hold the election because we have to comply.”

How we got here

Newport Beach is in this bind because it challenged the validity of three ballot measures in court and, in the meantime, missed the deadline to have the Orange County Registrar of Voters place them on the general election ballot. The three measures would:

• Limit City Council members to serving a total of eight years — currently, council members are barred from serving more than eight years consecutively, but can run again as long as they take a break.
• Establish by-district voting where residents in each of the city’s seven districts vote only for their district representative on council — currently, all residents vote for representatives of each district.
• Add a “sunshine provision” to the city’s charters that would, among other things, require the city to make advisory committee meetings accessible to the public, and establish a “Sunshine Task Force” to watchdog public records requests.   
  

The measures are sponsored by the Southern California Opportunity Group, a company owned by local real estate developer Ken Picerne and his Picerne Group.

According to campaign filings, Picerne has sunk more than $1 million into these and a fourth initiative, Measure H, which will be on the regular, general election ballot. Measure H would essentially redo the city’s state-approved housing development plan and substantially decrease the number of units that could be developed.

How did Measure H make it on the general election ballot while the other three did not?

Measure H actually qualified last year, and the city promptly asked the O.C. Registrar of Voters to put it on the November 2026 general election ballot.

That didn’t stop the city from trying to block Measure H in court this year, but the effort was unsuccessful.

What’s so hard about putting on an election?

Historically, many cities did put on their own separate elections for city leaders and city-specific ballot initiatives, said Fredric Woocher, a Southern California-based election attorney. Some cities held local elections in a totally different month and day than state and federal elections. And some held them on the same day, with separate ballots.

“It was always very confusing to voters,” Woocher said. Plus, turnout for municipal elections was often dismal, leading the state to pass a law in 2015 requiring most cities to align their local elections with the statewide dates.

These days, there aren’t many companies around that offer the kinds of services Newport Beach needs, Woocher said. The city is already on its second ballot printing company, after the first company bowed out because the time frame was too tight, according to Shumway.

To help coordinate the election, Newport Beach hired a fledgling consulting firm, Stellara Group, which opened for business last year, according to its filings with the Secretary of State.

Under the contract, the city could pay up to $495,000 to Stellara and subcontractors if the election actually happens. That is still unclear.

Is Newport Beach’s parallel election really going to happen?

Shumway said there are several major hurdles that could make it impossible to successfully put on the city’s special municipal election.

For one thing, the O.C. Registrar of Voters has said it can’t provide the complete files for Newport Beach voters. This includes the signatures on file, which are used to verify mail-in voters’ identity, and confidential voter files.

Without this information, Shumway said, carrying out the election is essentially impossible “because we’re disenfranchising people … and we can’t verify signatures,” she said.

Bob Page, the O.C. Registrar, said he “felt bad” for the city during a recent media call. “I just can't put the general statewide election at risk by dropping what we should be doing to create ways to help them when their request has come way too late,” he said.

Another major hurdle for Newport Beach — the California Secretary of State has thus far refused to provide the city with the required watermark and special ballot tint. Without those two things, the printing contractor says it won’t print the ballots for the city’s parallel election.

The company has given the city until Oct. 7 to get everything in place, or else look for a new, third printing company. “At this point, it’s a waiting game,” Shumway said.

On a September evening, Adam Johnson, 40, settled on his porch chair in Morgantown, West Virginia, to go over his ballot for the upcoming midterm election.

Chatting through all the races and the different candidates, he worked to figure out who best represented his values. But rather than discussing it with a friend or family member, he held an hours-long discussion with ChatGPT — a chatbot powered by a large language model (LLM) owned by OpenAI, an AI research company.

A graphic designer studying to be an illustrator, Johnson said ChatGPT is a significant part of his life. He uses it for meal planning, assistance in job hunting and various other tasks around the house.

After prompting the AI-powered chatbot to make a list of all the races on his ballot this year, Johnson dug deeper.

Johnson is one of a growing number of voters using chatbots to research their ballots for the first midterm election since AI has taken the country by storm. About half of American adults report using AI-powered chatbots and about 42 percent of users said they use it to search for information, according to the Pew Research Center.

Several voters NPR spoke with said they rely on chatbots for down-ballot races — with thinner news coverage, to make tables comparing candidates for governors' races and to verify or debunk viral claims. Some have been using it to create tools to help others look up their own ballots. Experts say the properties that make chatbots useful also make them subtly persuasive and eager to please.

"It might select some things that would reinforce and persuade you even more towards the way that you were leaning already," said Rafael Batista, a fellow at John Hopkins University, who studies how AI shapes the way people experience the world. "So you leave more confident, without necessarily learning more about the world."

Since AI companies don't disclose how their commercial models are trained or how they choose which sources to draw on, it's hard to know what biases might shape their answers, Batista said.

Anthropic, the company that owns Claude, a chatbot, and Gemini, a Google-owned chatbot, did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for OpenAI, directed NPR to its election information and safeguards page which notes that the company continues to "monitor bias in our models to keep ChatGPT's responses politically neutral."

Concerns about AI

Johnson in West Virginia continued his research by outlining his political beliefs for ChatGPT. He stated that he usually votes for Republicans, unless those candidates are part of the Make America Great Again movement, in which case he votes for Democrats or a third party.

While deciding between candidates for the Senate race, Johnson nudged the chatbot about other issues he found important.

Johnson recognizes that AI-powered chatbots have sycophantic qualities.

"ChatGPT is just kind of a people pleaser," he said. "Whatever you lean towards, it will speak positively about it."

Still, Batista from JHU said that knowing these models are agreeable and persuasive, is not enough to "protect our minds from these influences."

Voters use chatbots in a variety of ways

Lisa Veldran, 65, was a staffer in the City Council in Madison, Wisconsin for almost four decades before retiring. This summer, she used Gemini to answer very specific questions she had about the primary election for governor.

After Sara Rodriguez, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, dropped out of the race, Veldran needed to choose between two candidates: Francesca Hong and David Crowley. She prompted Gemini to make a comparative table of both candidates.

Veldran said the chatbot can be a research tool, but it's not something that determines her life.

"You also have to keep in mind what's running these chatbots and AI in general," she said. "Who's paying to build these bots and what is their ultimate goal."

Lakshmi Iyer, an author living in Exton, Pa., describes herself as a power user of chatbots and thinks "it is capable of a lot of things, but the human in the loop is absolutely essential."

Iyer, 50, is part of They See Blue, an Indian American grassroots Democratic organization to drive up voter registration.

She did not use a chatbot to research her ballot, she said, but she used Claude, to create Ballot Lookup — a website that can inform Pennsylvania's voters about who is on their ballot and their stance on certain issues.

The website is described as an "independent, volunteer-built, nonpartisan lookup," and Iyer built it to help voters who may not learn more about candidates by searching across various sources.

Like other users, Iyer is aware that if chatbots "can infer your political leanings, they will push you towards what you are leaning to." To keep her own bias in check, Iyer prompted Claude to pick statements from the candidates' own speeches or from their official websites.

Some users noted that the decimation of local media has left them with fewer options for learning about down-ballot races. Tyler Black from Nashville, Tennessee, said he didn't use chatbots for House or Senate but is using them to learn about local candidates.

Black, who is a vice president at a software development company, is aware that chatbots sometimes hallucinate — that's when chatbots respond to prompts with false, misleading or fabricated answers. To overcome that problem, he often checks the information one chatbot has provided him against another.

Batista from JHU said that method of fact-checking is better than using the same model twice, but he hasn't seen evidence that it is effective.

If users are using chatbots to research their vote, Batista said, they should frame their prompts in a way that their personal preferences are hidden, and they could use incognito mode so the chatbot doesn't have much prior information on them.

Adam Johnson in West Virginia is still researching and chatting with ChatGPT about his ballot. The county commission races are still on his list to look into. But he feels like AI helped him learn everything else he needed to know for November.

"I wouldn't feel too bad if I had to do the election today," Johnson said.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The FBI arrested a California real estate agent at the Los Angeles airport as she was leaving the country and accused her of spying for China on the president of Taiwan’s family, federal officials said.

Wanying Zhang, who went by the name Heather, surveilled the Taiwanese president’s son and his family last year for the Chinese government, according to the FBI.

Zhang, 34, who lives in Irvine, was arrested Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport on charges for working for China as an unregistered agent, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said. Zhang took photos and videos of her targets and sent license plate information to Chinese officials, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Zhang is a naturalized U.S. citizen, Essayli said on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show.” She was arrested as she was departing for a flight to China. It wasn’t immediately clear if she had an attorney who could speak on her behalf. She was due to appear Monday afternoon in federal court in Los Angeles.

The case is the latest in a series of Justice Department prosecutions aimed at rooting out alleged covert agents advancing Beijing’s interests on American soil.

Many of the cases have centered on what the Justice Department says is China’s aggressive effort to locate and harass pro-democracy activists living in the U.S. and suppress their speech. The Justice Department also says Beijing is determined to sway American public opinion in its favor by cultivating relationships with political figures seen as having access to the levers of power.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing was closed for holidays.

Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed President Lai Ching-te’s relatives were the targets, without specifying if it was the president’s son, saying that “this is a classic case of transnational repression.”

“Taiwan condemns in the strongest terms such barbaric acts — which disregard human rights and national sovereignty and aim to suppress, threaten, or even harm individuals advocating for freedom and democracy or their families — as such behavior should not be tolerated in the civilized world,” spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.

The criminal complaint does not name the alleged target, but the FBI’s rapid response account on the social media platform X said it was the president’s son. Ting-Yu Lai, the president’s elder son, lives and works in the Seattle area as an engineer.

At the direction of Chinese officials, Zhang and another person flew to Seattle on Sept. 1, 2025, and conducted surveillance outside the target’s home, according to the affidavit. A home security camera near the target’s home recorded the pair filming the target and their family from a vehicle, the affidavit said.

Zhang then allegedly sent a Chinese official information related to the surveillance, including photos, videos and license plate information from the target’s vehicles.

According to the affidavit, Zhang attended the University of International Relations in Beijing, which is affiliated closely with China’s intelligence apparatus. The affidavit said she and a classmate who became a Chinese government official had kept in contact since graduating around 2014, and he introduced her to another government official, and she was in contact with both in 2025.

Taiwan and China split after a civil war in 1949, but Beijing claims the island as part of its own territory. Lai, who was voted into office in 2024, has said that Taiwan and Beijing do not belong to each other and that the “People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan.”

China considers him a separatist and has called him a “destroyer of peace.”

While in office, Lai has stepped up spending on defense for Taiwan, notably pledging to increase defense spending from 3% to 5% of the GDP, and pushing through a special budget for the construction of a T-Dome air defense system.

In May, a Southern California mayor agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, and resigned from her city position. Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, had been charged with one count of acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the U.S. government as required by law.

When you buy a shirt, the tag tells you the price. Whether it’s clothing, food or rent, knowing how much you will spend is a pretty straightforward question … for most items.

But buying a car — new or used — has always been trickier. The number you may see in television ads or plastered on the car’s windshield at the dealership is not always what you end up paying.

That’s because the manufacturer’s suggested retail price — or MSRP — is, as the name suggests, just a suggestion. And it doesn’t include extra costs, like government fees or markups from the dealers for certain features.

But now, a new California law now limits how much dealers can add on and potentially make things clearer for consumers.

As of Thursday, the Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Act prohibits a dealer from misrepresenting the total cost of the vehicle they’re selling you. And if you’re planning to lease the car, a dealer cannot mislead you about the terms of the lease.

But what does this new law mean exactly making your next experience at a car dealership less stressful — and potentially cheaper? Here’s what to look for if you or someone you know is buying a car after Oct. 1, 2026:

The total price, with no surprises

Car sellers must now provide you with a “total price,” which has to include “any dealer price adjustment and the cost of any item installed on the vehicle.”

According to the DMV, the total price must show up in ads or in any initial written communication, which includes “email, text, document, or any form mentioning the vehicle or financing.”

Transparency about add-ons

As you’re choosing a car, the dealer now must tell you — at least once — which add-ons are not actually required. They also have to be transparent that you can purchase or lease the vehicle without that extra feature.

This disclosure, the law states, has to be “in writing and shall be clear and conspicuous.”

Frankness about financing

When you’re talking about financing, the seller has to confirm what the total cost will be after the financing term — how much will you have paid the dealer altogether, once you’re done with all the monthly payments?

If you’re leasing the car, the dealership also has to tell you the total cost after the leasing term ends.

More clarity on leasing vs. buying

Now that this new law has passed, there cannot be any confusion whether you are leasing or buying the car.

The seller must be straightforward with the consumer about the terms of the final agreement.

A right to change your mind

If you’re buying a used car, the law now gives you the right to a three-day “cool-down period” where the purchase can be cancelled — for any reason.

However, there are a few conditions:

• The vehicle must be valued at less than $50,000
• The seller is permitted to set mileage limits (the DMV estimates around 400 miles)
• The seller can charge you a restocking fee (the DMV estimates something between $200) 

The legislation has received the support of legal aid groups and bar associations.

“Car buyers will enjoy stronger consumer protections, including a clearer understanding of the total cost of the vehicle before signing the paperwork,” wrote attorney Stefan Lawrence in a bulletin for the California Lawyers’ Association.

However, Lawrence added that the CARS Act could add more work for car dealerships, as it “introduces a new layer of regulatory complexity with respect to advertising, sales practices, and add-on products.”

If you suspect a car dealership is not complying with the new law, the DMV recommends you file a complaint online or call (800) 777-0133.