Suspect in Murder of Law Prof’s Daughter Could Have Been in Jail, Absent Error
A clerical error may have led to the early release of a repeat offender suspected of killing 17-year-old Lily Burk, the daughter of an adjunct professor at Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles.
Charles Samuel is accused of kidnapping Burk on Friday near the law school before killing her and leaving her body in her Volvo, the Los Angeles Times reports. Her head was beaten and her neck slashed.
Burk’s mother, Deborah Drooz, is a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. She taught a summer course at Southwestern as an adjunct professor.
In 1997 Samuel was arrested and convicted of burglary, the Times says. Samuel was not prosecuted under the state’s tough three-strikes law, despite a 1987 guilty plea for residential burglary and robbery in connection with a home invasion, which could have counted as two strikes. The problem: The residential burglary was listed as simply burglary, which does not count as a strike under the law.
“Samuel’s repeated brushes with the criminal justice system underscore the complexity of the three-strikes law and raise the possibility that Burk’s slaying could have been averted,” the story says.
Topics: Career & Practice
Artificial intelligence tools for brief writing and analysis are a small firm litigator's new best friend
Your Voice
What's the key to community lawyering? Less lawyering and more community
Podcasts
