Courts across CA aren’t telling the DMV about deadly drivers

California courts have failed to report hundreds of vehicular manslaughter convictions to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles over the past five years, allowing deadly drivers to improperly keep their licenses, a CalMatters investigation has found.

Drivers like Marvin Salazar.

Salazar was convicted in May 2023 for felony vehicular manslaughter after a crash that killed his friend, court records show. Under California law, that’s supposed to be an automatic three-year loss of driving privileges.

But the Los Angeles County Superior Court didn’t report the conviction to the DMV. Two months later, the agency issued Salazar his most recent license. Since then, he has received two speeding tickets and been in another collision, records show. 

• Gaudy Lemus, whose son, 18-year-old Joseph Ramirez, died in the crash: “How can he keep driving? We wanted consequences for him. Remove his driver’s license.”

Investigative reporters Lauren Hepler and Robert Lewis uncovered the error and others like it by cross-checking convictions in vehicular manslaughter cases against motorists’ DMV records, as part of an ongoing investigation. Earlier this year, CalMatters reported that the agency routinely allows people with horrifying histories of dangerous driving — including fatal crashes, DUIs and numerous tickets — to keep driving. 

When courts were alerted to the problem, officials at most county court systems responded quickly, thanked CalMatters’ reporters for telling them, acknowledged the mistake and indicated that they would report the convictions to the DMV.

• Tara Leal, the court executive officer in Kern County: “They were errors on our part. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.”

The reporting is already forcing change. So far, nearly 200 drivers who’ve killed have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked as a result of CalMatters’ story, updated DMV reports show. While some already had a separate license suspension, 70 appear to have had a valid license before the agency took action in response to the story.

Read more here. 

And if you haven’t yet, be sure to read the first installment of the series, License to Kill.

Amid reports of federal agents conducting immigration raids while driving unmarked vehicles, covering their faces and wearing vests emblazoned with the words “police,” another Democratic legislator is proposing a measure that would make it easier to identify California law enforcement officers.

On Monday Pasadena Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez introduced Senate Bill 805 to require local and state officers to “visibly display identification” when carrying out their duties. The measure would also prohibit bounty hunters from engaging in immigration enforcement.

Though California can’t compel the federal government to obey state laws, the bill would authorize local law enforcement to request identification from someone — such as federal immigration enforcement agents — if there is a reasonable suspicion they are impersonating a police officer.

Pérez’s proposal follows another bill unveiled last week by two Bay Area Democratic senators, which would prohibit local law enforcement officers from covering their faces. Peace Officers Research Association of California, a statewide law enforcement organization, came out against that bill, calling it “ill-conceived” and “unnecessary.”

From CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay:

Less than 2% of California’s 47,000 companies moved their headquarters out of state from 2011 to 2021, and the state only lost 3.9% of its jobs during that period.

That’s according to a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California. The report also found, as CalMatters wrote last year, that companies that relocated their headquarters retained many employees in the state. 

Still, there’s no denying that headquarters exits are trending upward, and that California taxes and regulations play a role, the report said.

About 150 headquarters left in 2011 compared with more than 200 in 2021. But also, over that decade, the report said about 7,250 headquarters opened in the state, and that “new headquarters tend to have many fewer jobs at the outset.” 

David Neumark, an economics professor and one of the report’s authors, said that while “high-profile events make the news,” smaller company openings barely make the news.

The most recent example: John Paul Mitchell Systems, the shampoo maker, is moving its headquarters from Beverly Hills to Texas.

The Sacramento Police Department released its first police record related to the May car crash involving Sen. Sabrina Cervantes. Officers accused the Riverside Democrat of driving under the influence, but Cervantes was exonerated after a blood test proved she had no drugs or alcohol in her system. Find out what the search warrant said from CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow.