Gavel to Gavel

By TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 26, 2008 9:47 PM PDT ∞

Court agrees to rehear home schooling case

A California appellate court agreed Wednesday to rehear arguments in a controversial case that called into question the legality of home schooling, court documents show.

A statewide uproar began when a panel with the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled in last month that there is no constitutional right to home school children.

The ruling arose following an investigation into abuse inside a Los Angeles family that home schooled its children.

The court agreed to rehear the case based on a request from the father in the family at the center of the case. The father, identified only as Philip L., is represented by Ramona-based attorney Gary Kreep.

Kreep is allied with the Alliance Defense Fund, which announced on its Web site Wednesday the court's decision to rehear the case. The Christian organization takes cases related to religious freedoms.

The court said it would look at two issues: whether there is a constitutional right to home school, and whether California law provides for instruction at home by parents who don't have teaching credentials and are not affiliated with any public school program.

The court also said it would consider arguments from the state superintendent of education, the State Board of Education and the California Teachers Association.

The matter will be argued in June.

---- Teri Figueroa

Poway man charged with possessing child pornography

A 46-year-old Poway man was arraigned in U.S. District Court in San Diego Wednesday on a charge of possessing child pornography.

Lawrence Lester Nixon appeared before Magistrate William McCurine Jr., who ordered him held in custody pending a bail hearing on Friday.

The criminal complaint charges Nixon possessed images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct on a computer agents seized from him in August.

Federal agents became aware of Nixon after discovering he had purchased access to a child pornography Web site, the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego said in a news release.

The case stems from an investigation by a combined agency Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, part of a nationwide effort to reduce online exploitation and abuse of minors.

---- Mark Walker

Gang members get probation in bizarre case

VISTA ---- Two La Costa-area gang members who admitted their roles in a plot to kill a pair of Carlsbad bookies were sentenced Wednesday to five years probation, after a prosecutor applauded the changes they made in their lives.

Joseph Micah Shiller and Michael Galeski previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap in connection with the plot that unraveled in February 2006.

According to statements by lawyers in the case, the two were part of a circle of friends who met at La Costa Canyon High School and committed a series of robberies and drug crimes.

The man authorities said was the leader of that group, Scott Lee Sepulveda, lost a football bet and then informed the bookies he was not going to pay, the lawyers said.

Sepulveda pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to kidnap and statutory rape in a separate case and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Deputy District Attorney Thomas Manning said Shiller and Galeski had made significant changes in their lives, are working full-time and "doing very well right now."

---- City News Service

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