A man blows into a breathalizer during a field sobriety test after he was stopped by San Bruno Police officers at a DUI checkpoint in San Bruno, California.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A new bill has been introduced to address the problem of people driving while under the influence of drugs.

The bill SB 1462, introduced by Senator Bob Huff (R-San Dimas), would allow law enforcement officers to use oral swab tests to screen for drugs in a driver’s system, after he or she fails sobriety field tests.

Sponsors of the proposal include the California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotic Officers Association, which say drugged driving is an under-reported but growing public safety problem that needs to be addressed. Critics, however, question the scientific validity of the tests.

Guests:

Senator Bob Huff (R-San Dimas), who introduced Senate bill 1462 this week aiming to crack down on drugged driving

Jolene Forman, staff attorney at the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy organization working to reduce drug prohibition

An investigation by the Associate Press found that many small planes flying low over neighborhoods are part of an FBI civilian air patrol. The FBI created fake companies in order to obscure the true purpose of the aircraft and pilots, and to prevent suspects from being able to identify them.; Credit: Sherwood 411/KPCC

(BUZZFEED) Each weekday, dozens of U.S. government aircraft take to the skies and slowly circle over American cities.

Piloted by agents of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the planes are fitted with high-resolution video cameras, often working with “augmented reality” software that can superimpose onto the video images everything from street and business names to the owners of individual homes.

At least a few planes have carried devices that can track the cell phones of people below. Most of the aircraft are small, flying a mile or so above ground, and many use exhaust mufflers to mute their engines — making them hard to detect by the people they’re spying on.

Read the full story from BuzzFeed here.

Guest:

Charles Seife, author, journalist, and professor of journalism at New York University; he is also a BuzzFeed contributor and co-author of the article ‘Spies in the Skies’

The American College of Physicians has published a paper asking for government and industry regulation of prescription medication costs.
; Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The American College of Physicians has published a paper asking for government and industry regulation of prescription medication costs.

The ACP includes more than 140,000 internal medicine doctors. Its paper, published in the Annals of Internal medicine, asks pharmaceutical companies to disclose production and research costs, as well as recommendations that Medicare negotiate prices with drugmakers. The paper argues that transparency on how drugs are priced, especially those with research and development funded by the government, should be regulated. According to NPR, the ACP plans to bring its recommendations to Washington in May.

Opponents of the position paper argue that these recommendations would stifle competition and innovation among drug companies.

What do you think of government regulated prescription drug prices? Does this protect consumers or will it have a negative effect on competition between pharmaceutical companies?

Guests:

Dr. Wayne Riley, president of the American College of Physicians, which published the position paper, “Stemming the Escalating Cost of Prescription Drugs.”

Yevgeniy Feyman, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-author of the paper, “Issues 2016: Drug Price Controls Hurt Patients Most.”

Alternative Herbal Health Services worker Jason Beck packages medical marijuana in San Francisco, California.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Public Policy Institute of California is arguing that if the Golden State legalizes recreational marijuana use, the market should be highly regulated.

“Highly regulated” would include tracking sales and cultivation, limiting the number of business licenses issued, and developing a DUI-testing method that could yield results accurate enough to be permissible in court. The argument is backed by a recent study released by the PPIC.

The study focused on finding how to best regulate the drug while limiting the impact of the illegal market, reducing harm to public health and safety and raising revenue for the state. Suggested regulations were inspired by approaches adopted by Washington and Colorado.

The Adult Use of Marijuana Act is predicted to make the state’s November ballot; it would make recreational use legal for adults 21 years and older.

Would you like to see marijuana legalized? What are some of your concerns if the drug becomes legal? How much of an impact would it have on the illegal market?

Regulating Marijuana in California

Guests:

Patrick Murphy, Coauthor of the report and research director at the Public Policy Institute of California

Nate Bradley, Executive Director and cofounder of the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA)

Gabriel Fernandez, 8, of Palmdale, was tortured and murdered, allegedly by his mother and her boyfriend. Four county child services workers involved with his case have been charged with child abuse and falsifying public records.; Credit: NBC4

In what’s an extremely rare circumstance, the Los Angeles district attorney has charged four social workers at the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services with child abuse and falsifying records in the 2012 death of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.

Stefanie Rodriguez, 30, Patricia Clement, 65, and their respective supervisors Kevin Bom, 36, and Gregory Merritt, 60, have each been charged with one felony count of child abuse and one felony count of falsifying public records, the L.A. District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.

All four worked for the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services.

“We believe these social workers were criminally negligent and performed their legal duties with willful disregard for Gabriel’s well-being,” District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a prepared statement. “They should be held responsible for their actions.”

Gabriel’s mother and her boyfriend were arrested and charged in 2013. Four county workers were fired a few months later after an internal investigation, though their names were not released at the time.

Relatives of Gabriel have also sued the county’s child welfare system for wrongful death.

Gabriel’s case was originally opened by DCFS in October 2012. He was declared dead on May 24, 2013 from multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, broken ribs and burns over his body, prosecutors said.

“In the case of Gabriel, it was so horrendous, what, I guess you could say fell through the cracks, but I think what the DA is saying, it didn’t just fall through the cracks, because this crime has to be intentional," Supervisor Sheila Kuehl told KPCC.

The DA contends the four social workers had a legal duty to protect Gabriel.

Rodriguez and Clement are specifically accused of “falsifying reports that should have documented signs of Gabriel’s escalating physical abuse and the family’s lapsed participation in DCFS efforts to provide help to maintain the family.”

"One of the ways you can show intention that the negligence was so egregious that it must have been intended because no reasonable person would have been that negligent," Kuehl said. "Now that’s an uphill battle for the DA, because to say something is a crime is different from an offense for which I’d let you go from your job."

Bom and Merritt, as supervisors, should have been aware the reports conflicted with evidence from Gabriel’s case file that his physical well-being was deteriorating, and they shouldn’t have allowed him to remain at home, prosecutors contend.

Kuehl said that reforms have already been made to the Department of Children and Family Services in the three years since the crime was committed. 

She said that the agency hired 1,000 new social workers to help manage the 25,000 kids in the system. 

"They are underpaid and hardworking and we try to resource them as much as we can, but they really knock themselves out for the kids,” Kuehl said.

Since more social workers were hired Kuehl said that the caseload per person has decreased from about 40 to a new average of about 24. 

“Reform takes time, and this Board of Supervisors is very reform-minded about our children,” Kuehl said. 

In terms of funding for social issues, Kuehl said that it is not normally the highest priority for a state. 

“Poverty, homelessness, children’s issues, violence in the family — these things are under-resourced in the courts, and under-resourced by the state,” Kuehl said. “These kinds of squishy areas have never been seen as being as sharply important as protecting business, or economic growth or transportation, or things that people measure with numbers.”

All four defendants face up to 10 years in state prison. At their scheduled arraignment Thursday, prosecutors are expected to ask that bail be set at $155,000.

Read the charges below.

Guests: 

Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times reporter who covers Los Angeles County government with an emphasis on its child welfare system; he was at the social workers’ arraignment this morning

Eugenia Weiss, MSW, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Southern California

L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey was not available for an interview but released this statement.

Document: LA District Attorney charges 4 social workers in death of 8-year-old

This story has been updated.

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speak during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in Flint, Michigan.; Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Things are heating up on the Democratic campaign trail as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have put aside niceties and are exchanging punches over who is and is not qualified to be President of the United States.

It seemingly began during an interview with Secretary Clinton on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ during which she was asked if she thought Bernie Sanders was qualified to be president. She didn’t directly say she felt he was or wasn’t, but gave a hedging answer suggesting he hadn’t done his homework on some of his major campaign issues.

Senator Sanders responded by directly addressing the criticism and pointing out Hillary’s support of the Iraq War and Panama Free Trade Agreement, among other things, as reasons why she’s the unqualified one.

The bitterness comes after months of relatively polite exchanges between the two candidates, both of whom seemed more focused on beating Republicans than beating on each other. How do you think this tension will impact the race? What do you think about Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton’s respective qualifications for the presidency?

Guests:

Nomiki Konst, Sanders campaign surrogate, political analyst, and founder/executive director of The Accountability Project; she tweets from @NomikiKonst

Amanda Renteria, National Political Director for the Hillary Clinton campaign; she tweets from @AmandaRenteria

Pope Francis waves to thousands of followers as he arrives at the Manila Cathedral on January 16, 2015 in Manila, Philippines.; Credit: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Pope Francis issued a church document today that tells Catholics to look to their conscience on matters of love, marriage and family.

While the document entitled, “The Joy of Love,” didn’t change church doctrine, it does urge pastoral leaders not to judge Catholics who have divorced and civilly re-married. Church doctrine asks couples to annul their first marriage, as divorce and re-marriage is seen as adultery.

While many see this as a progressive move, members of the LGBT community were disappointed that same-sex marriage was not given more attention in the document.

The Joy of Love

​Guests:

Father Thomas Reese, senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter, and author of “Inside the Vatican: The politics and organization of the Catholic Church”

Christopher Kaczor, a professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, and a corresponding member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life

Faculty from campuses all over California, are joined by students, during a rally outside the California State University Board of Trustees meeting at the Chancellor's office in Long Beach, California.; Credit: Nick Ut/AP

California State University administration and its faculty union ended a year-long impasse over salary increases and averted a planned strike, the two sides announced Friday morning. 

The administration and faculty agreed to 10.5 percent raise over three years.

The deal gives faculty the raises they had demanded but manages to avoid cuts to other programs that university administrators had said were preventing them from granting salary increases.

Guest:

Kyle Stokes, KPCC education reporter; he tweets from @KyStokes

US Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton (R) and Bernie Sanders participate in the MSNBC Democratic Candidates Debate at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.; Credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

The continued competitiveness between Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton has inspired more participation among California Democrats vying to be pledged delegates.

Each congressional district needs a number of delegates chosen to represent their candidate - depending on the results of the June 7 primary - at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this July.

The deadline to apply to be a Democratic delegate is  coming up on Wednesday, April 13, then on May 1 are caucuses in each district to elect the delegates. (The deadline for Republican delegates is May 31.)

What are pledged delegates anticipating for the coming convention process? 

For a visual breakdown of California’s delegate counts, visit thisKQED story.

Guests:

Jessica Levinson, Professor of Law, at Loyola Law School. Her areas of specialty are election law and governance issues; she tweets from @LevinsonJessica

Ulisses Sanchez, Candidate to be a Pledged Delegate for the 34th Congressional District for Hillary Clinton; the 34th includes Boyle Heights, Downtown Los Angeles, Monterey Hills, and more (Representative Xavier Becerra - D)

Nathan Fisher, Candidate to be a Pledged Delegate for the 28th Congressional District for Bernie Sanders; the 28th includes Burbank, West Hollywood, Silver Lake, and more (Representative Adam Schiff - D)

A student registers at the Barnard College Career Fair on September 7, 2012 in New York City. ; Credit: John Moore/Getty Images

Parents who become too involved in their kids’ transition from college-to-career could be doing more harm than good.

“Helicopter parenting” has become a new way to describe well-meaning parents who interfere with many aspects of their children’s lives. It can mean anything from breaking up little ones’ disagreements during playdates to doing their homework for them well into high school and college. This type of parenting has become so popular, companies have even tried to accommodate their millennial employees, the generation this term was coined for, by hosting “Bring In Your Parents Day.”

“Helicopter parents” are usually described as those with the time and money to spend problem-solving for their kids. But raising children this way can hinder them from gaining skills to cope with life on their own, such as fighting their own battles or taking constructive criticism at school or work. For sheltered college students, it also means experiencing overwhelming anxiety over making a career choice.

While there are a number of reasons why college students have trouble deciding on a career, those that have been protected from the learning experiences of making their own mistakes have added pressure to succeed, fueling a fear of failure in the workplace that’s surpassed previous generations.

To squash the angst their kids may have over not getting the job, many of parents are turning to private career coaching companies with a hefty price tag. This will hopefully give their children an edge over the competition and a return on the investment in a university.

So when is it best to give kids guidance and when should parents let go? Does the best parenting happen from a distance?

Guests:

Lori Shreve Blake, Senior Director of Alumni and Student Career Services at USC

Laura Pappano, writer in residence at the Wellesley College Centers for Women and author of the New York Times article, “Career Coaching for the Playdate Generation.”

Jaden Painegua (2) rests on his mother's shoulder at the West Side Campaign Against Hunger food bank in New York City. ; Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association confirms what a lot of analyses have already shown: The wealthy live longer lives.

But the report also offers this twist: The life expectancy of the poor varies wildly depending on where they live.

Researchers at Harvard, MIT and other institutions pored over 1.4 billion records from the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service for the study.  They found that low-income people in certain parts of Nevada or Oklahoma live shorter lives than low-income people in wealthier states like California or New York.

The authors haven't come up with reasons to explain the link.

Guests:

Michael Stepner, co-author of the study published in JAMA, titled “The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014”. He is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael Cannon, director of healthcare policy studies at CATO Institute

The "Clean Up Green Up" initiative establishes improved development standards for new and expanding industrial operations that have the potential to increase pollution in local neighborhoods.; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

After years in the development, a new pilot program hopes to address the cumulative health impacts created by a community’s total exposure to industrial sources, but business feels it could place undue burdens on small business owners in the area.

Clean Up Green Up, an initiative recently approved by the Los Angeles City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee, has chosen for this pilot the low-income neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Pacoima and Wilmington, where residents suffer adverse health effects related to concentrations of industrial uses and freight traffic.

The model establishes improved development standards for new and expanding industrial operations that have the potential to increase pollution in local neighborhoods and includes a carrot-and-stick approach, offering support for local business owners who work hard to keep their businesses clean and green.

Policymakers believe Clean Up Green Up could work in other heavily-polluted Los Angeles communities. However the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce opposes the measure along with the Los Angeles County Business Federation and others. We talk with both sides about what the gains and unintended consequences of the program could be for these communities.

The City Council votes Wednesday.

Guests:

Ruben Gonzales, Senior Advisor. Strategic Affairs, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the crowd at a Pearl Harbor Day Rally at the U.S.S. Yorktown December 7, 2015 in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. ; Credit: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

It was a weekend for the underdogs as Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz both bolstered their delegate counts with victories out west.

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in Wyoming, splitting the delegates for that state. Meanwhile, Donald Trump came up short in Colorado’s Republican primary convention as Ted Cruz scooped up all 21 delegates in that race.

With the New York primary coming up next Tuesday and big implications for the frontrunners, both of whom call the Empire State home, we check in with a couple of political analysts for what to expect this week in politics.

Guests:

Paris Dennard, Republican political analyst and former staffer for President George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee; currently serving as the legislative director of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund; he tweets from @PARISDENNARD

Angela T. Rye, a democratic analysis and  CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a DC-based political consulting and government relations firm

A self-driving car traverses a parking lot at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California on January 8, 2016.; Credit: NOAH BERGER/AFP/Getty Images

The movement towards driverless cars is already in full swing in California as companies like Google and Tesla, to name a few, are at the forefront of the new technology.

But a new study out from the RAND Corporation says that the amount of miles it would take testing driverless vehicle technology would need to be in the millions and, in some cases, billions, in order to create enough data to demonstrate safety.

The report suggests that it’s designed not to ask whether it’s logical to test-drive autonomous vehicles in real-time traffic conditions in order to assess safety, but rather how practical it is. It also seeks to answer exactly how many miles a driverless car would need to be test-driven without failure to prove its safety.

It goes on to say that manufacturers and engineers will need to come up with alternative ways of testing that will better demonstrate reliability, and that laws and regulations for driverless cars must be designed to adapt as the technology changes so that risks can be recognized and mitigated. All that said, experts also say it’s important to remember that there are risks and uncertainty associated with any new technology.

Driving to Safety: How Many Miles of Driving Would It Take to Demonstrate Autonomous Vehicle Reliability

Guests:

Nidhi Kalra, senior information scientist and co-director of the Center for Decision Making under Uncertainty at RAND Corporation; she is a co-author of the report “Driving to Safety: How Many Miles of Driving Would It Take to Demonstrate Autonomous Vehicle Reliability?”

Jeffrey Miller, associate professor of engineering practice at the University of Southern California

Students sit on the stairs in a crowded lecture hall.; Credit: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

A new sensitivity on college campuses, epitomized by concepts like microaggression and trigger warnings, is causing some professors to cry foul.

A recent report released by the American Association of University Professors says that Title IX enforcement on college campuses insufficiently distinguishes between what constitutes sexual harassment and what constitutes academic speech. That gray area has caused many professors to claim that they’ve be unjustly disciplined.

As an example, the report cited students at several universities who objected to being assigned “Fun Home” – a memoir written by lesbian artist Alison Bechdel -- for class. The students characterized the text’s depiction of lesbian sex as “pornographic,” and called for trigger warnings to be included.

The report calls for the government to establish a clearer standard in evaluating the kind of speech that creates a hostile environment, versus speech used to talk about topics students might find controversial.

The History, Uses and Abuses of Title IX

Guests:

Risa L. Lieberwitz, general counsel of the  American Association of University Professors and chairwoman of the subcommittee that drafted the report, titled “The History, Uses and Abuses of Title IX”. She is also a professor of labor and employment law at Cornell University

Brett Sokolow, president and CEO of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management and Executive Director of The Association of Title IX Administrators 

People listen to speakers at a demonstration against racism and conservative presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent remarks concerning Muslims on December 10, 2015 in New York City. ; Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Race relations may still rank at the bottom of the list of Americans’ concerns, but a new Gallup poll shows that more Americans (35%) say they’re worried “a great deal” about race relations in the U.S. than at any point in the last 15 years that Gallup has been asking the question.

What’s more, concern about race relations has increased among Democrats, Republicans, Whites, Blacks, Asians and Latinos. We talk about the results with our roundtable.

35% of Americans are worried a great deal about race relations... https://t.co/apBs5LKEJB#GallupDailypic.twitter.com/VZChBPkTej

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) April 11, 2016

Guests:

Joe Hicks, vice president of the Los Angeles-based political think tank Community Advocates, Inc; former Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission, 1997 to 2001, and former Executive Director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (L) and Hillary Clinton participate in the PBS NewsHour Democratic presidential candidate debate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.; Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

"Rigged!" shouts MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. "Rigged," declares a New York Post headline. "Disenfranchised," blasts Donald Trump.

Some folks on the left and right are heaping scorn on the presidential primary systems.

For Democrats, Saturday's results from the Wyoming caucus offer a muddy illustration of how the system is structured to work. Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders each won 7 pledged delegates  - based on proportional winnings by county.

However, Clinton will take a total of 11 Wyoming delegates to the convention because the state's four superdelegates from Wyoming announced their support for her in January. (When they formally announced their support for Clinton, Wyoming Democratic Party's executive director, Aimee Van Cleave, gave a prescient comment, “The four of them do not by any means represent a majority, nor do they reflect the official stance of the Wyoming Democratic party.")

This despite the fact that Sanders won Saturday's popular vote in Wyoming by a convincing 12-point spread, 56 percent to 44 percent.

The Democratic Party’s superdelegate system was created in 1982 to reckon with the losses suffered by President Jimmy Carter and candidate George McGovern - seen by some as “insurgent” candidates who evidently had no chance to secure the Oval Office.

In 2016, is the superdelegate system still working as it’s intended?

If superdelegates were the decider of a nominee, would that change Democrats’ opinion of the role?

Guests:

Todd Donovan, Professor of Political Science, Western Washington University; Donovan specializes in the democratic process and electoral reform

Neil Sroka, Communications Director, Democracy for America - a political action committee described as focused on progressive grassroots movements

Recording Artist Blake Shelton performs at Warner Music Nashville's "Pickin' On The Patio" Series at Warner Music Nashville on September 23, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee.; Credit: Jason Davis/Getty Images

Country music star and ‘The Voice’ judge Blake Shelton will be allowed to move ahead with his lawsuit against the company that publishes InTouch Weekly, after a headline on the cover of the magazine’s September issue suggesting that Shelton had a drinking problem and had entered rehab.

Shelton he’s never been to rehab nor does he have a drinking problem, and claims the In Touch cover damaged his reputation by making false claims.

Attorneys for Bauer Publishing say they’ll appeal the tentative ruling by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, should it become official, and argue that there is plenty of evidence to support their claim of Shelton’s excessive drinking.

Judge Snyder has urged both sides to settle the case outside of court. The lawsuit raises questions of how far tabloids can go with the claims they make about celebrities, how often tabloids are sued in this manner, and at what point sensationalism turns into defamation.

Guest:

Michael Overing, principal of The Law Offices of Michael Overing and an adjunct professor of media law at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) announces that he will not seek the Republican presidential nomination during a news conference at the Republican Party headquarters.; Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

As Republican and Democratic presidential candidates compete amongst themselves for their parties’ nominations on the campaign stage, another person who is no stranger to a general election year has been quietly dancing around whether or not he’ll make a run.

And no, it’s not Michael Bloomberg.

Current Speaker of the House and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s name has been surfacing recently as a possible GOP presidential nominee if the party is unable to come to an agreement on one of the candidates currently in the running. Ryan said Tuesday in no uncertain terms that he neither wanted nor would accept the nomination, and urged delegates to choose a candidate who has participated in the primaries if no nominee emerges from the first ballot at the GOP convention.

Ryan is seen as a rising star within the GOP, a bright young politician with experience chairing House committees and the support of his state and the Republican party.

Still, there’s speculation that Ryan’s blunt refusal to accept a nomination is just a way of staying out of the fray for now. Many Republicans believe he stands a better chance of defeating the Democratic nominee and, if no nominee emerges, that he would reluctantly accept the nomination just as he did the Speakership when Ohio Congressman John Boehner stepped down.

Others have speculated that the real strategy behind Ryan dodging the nomination is to lay groundwork for a 2020 run.

Do you think Paul Ryan really wants himself removed from the conversation or is he biding his time? What do you think is behind Ryan’s strategy?

Guests:

Peter Dreier, Professor of Political Science, Occidental College

Lori Cox Han, Professor of Political Science, Chapman University; Author, "In It to Win: Electing Madam President" (Bloomsbury; 2015)

California State Capitol Building in Sacramento.; Credit: Photo by Jeff's Canon via Flickr Creative Commons

Five of the women have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault, but at least some of the alleged crimes are too old for prosecution.

A state bill, SB 813, authored by Senator Connie Leyva (D-Chino) would abolish all legal deadlines for rape, sodomy, lewd, or lascivious acts, continuous sexual abuse of a child, oral copulation and sexual penetration.

The bill was heard Tuesday by the Senate Public Safety Committee.

Read full story here.

During the conversation, our guests and callers weighed in with the pros and cons of extending the statute of limitations for sex crimes. Here are some highlights:

Co-chair of the legislative committee at the California Public Defenders Association, Margo George, is against extending the statute of limitations for sex crimes. As someone who has personal experience with sexual assault, she argued that the culture of silence around sexual abuse needs to change.

Margo George: I’m 66 years old. When I was 18. A friend of mine coerced me. At the time, I did not realize that I’d been raped. And it took me many years to come to grips that that was what actually what happened. But that’s because of the stigma, the confusion and, not in my case, but in other people’s cases, the power differential. But I think that’s the important part, for women and men to step up and say “this is what happened. It was not okay. We’re gonna change the culture.”

Charles in Menlo Park called in to give his case for lengthening the statute of limitations. He said that, as a rape survivor, he can attest to how difficult it is to talk about what happened, especially for men.

Charles: I, myself, was raped over 10 years ago. I had just turned 18 at the time and if this was law now, I would absolutely come forward about it and seek prosecution. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with it and to get myself to a place where, emotionally I can even talk about it. To be honest, there’s very few people I know that I’ve been able to tell. Before this point in my life, there’s no way I would have been able to go to the police about it and file a report and deal with all that. I think this law is absolutely important. Without it, it just emboldens sexual predators.

Jason in the Miracle Mile district said he was falsely accused of rape and is thankful the LAPD’s investigation found that he was innocent. As a person who works in the entertainment industry, he said the statute of limitations should not be lengthened because it would increase the number of false accusations.

Jason: After gaining some relative success in my industry. These women will come out of the woodwork at you when they realize that you’ve gained some financial success. So I feel for Bill Cosby. I think he’s been framed . . . If we didn’t have the statute of limitations, [these women] come at you like crazy.

Guests:

Joelle Casteix, Western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and the author of the book "The Well-Armored Child: A Parent's Guide to Preventing Sexual Abuse." [She lives in Newport Beach, CA]

Margo George, co-chair of the legislative committee at the California Public Defenders Association