C.A. Accords Anonymity to Woman Who Was Publicly Charged With Felonies

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Page 8

Perspectives

C.A. Accords Anonymity to Woman Who Was Publicly Charged With Felonies

By Roger M. Grace

Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal has determined that a woman in Lancaster who was twice charged with felonies in recent years is entitled to anonymity, with the justices identifying her in an opinion as “D.M.”

While victims are routinely spared identification by their full names, extending that courtesy to criminal defendants is exceedingly rare.

Justice Carl Moor authored the unpublished opinion, filed Friday, in which Presiding Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt and Justice Lamar Baker joined. Moor, in a footnote, explained:

“Rule 8.90(b)(10) of the California Rules of Court permits us to refer to ‘[p]ersons in...circumstances in which personal privacy interests support not using the person’s name....’ by their initials or, where the person’s first name is not unusual, by first name and last initial.”

Moor did not set forth the basis upon which he discerns a privacy interest to exist where “D.M.” had been publicly prosecuted in the Los Angeles Superior Court as Donise Robin Miller.

An irony is that although the opinion bears the caption, People v. D.M., and Miller is identified in the text as “D.M.,” Moor refers to her in two footnotes as “Miller.”

★

Actually, Miller has no conceivable privacy interest at stake. As the 2009 Fifth District Court of Appeal opinion in Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel, Inc puts it:

“A matter that is already public or that has previously become part of the public domain is not private.”

Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal in 1984 observed in Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co. that “there can be no privacy with respect to a matter which is already public….”

In 1956, Div. Two of the Court of Appeal for this district declared in Smith v. National Broadcasting Co.:

“When the incidents of a life are so public as to be spread upon a public record they come within the knowledge and into the possession of the public and cease to be private.”

It refers to information “which was already in the public domain” as being “public property.”

As the Fourth District Court of Appeal phased it in its 1931 decision in Melvin v. Reid (quoted, with approval, by the California Supreme Court in the 1953 case of Gill v. Hearst Publishing Co. and in 1994 in Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn.):

“There can be no privacy in that which is already public.”

While these cases—and others to like effect—involved allegations of invasion of privacy, not the exercise of discretion by an appellate court in according anonymity to a party, there emerges from the cases a truism:

“Personal privacy interests” are not implicated by the disclosure of public information. Absent the existence of such interests, Rule 8.90, on its face, does not apply in Miller’s case.

★

That rule says, in subd. (b) (with emphasis added):

“To protect personal privacy interests, in all opinions, the reviewing court should consider referring to the following people by first name and last initial or, if the first name is unusual or other circumstances would defeat the objective of anonymity, by initials only:”

Eleven instances are enumerated following the colon where anonymity might be warranted. Para. 10 is the catchall provision, reading:

“Persons in other circumstances in which personal privacy interests support not using the person’s name….” (Again, emphasis is added.)

Case law recognizes no privacy interest—whether personal or corporate or of some other variety—in connection with public records.

There are instances where the public’s right to know is balanced against an individual’s right to privacy. But Moor could not possibly have engaged in a weighing process given that Miller’s interest is weightless.

Div. Five’s “secretizing” of Miller’s identity is unsupported by the rule Moor cites or otherwise. Its action was irresponsible.

★

It is understandable that Miller—who, in the end, winds up with no conviction—would prefer that her name not appear in the Court of Appeal opinion. If given a choice, just about anyone who was charged with a public offense, whatever the outcome, would opt for anonymity. But criminal proceedings are not secret events.

In last year’s decision in Roe v. Superior Court, Justice Anne Richardson of this district’s Div. Two said:

“A recurring theme in the case law is that a party’s possible personal embarrassment, standing alone, does not justify concealing their identity from the public.”

Div. Five, Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal failed to keep that in mind when, on April 9, it issued a decision in Y.P. v. Wells Fargo Co. in which it referred to a San Francisco attorney by his initials simply because the man had demonstrated some foolishness in falling prey to a scam. The name of the lawyer, Yosef Peretz, was in the public record; the bank he was suing had used his real name in its filings both in the trial court and on appeal.

★

Aside from Rule 8.90 not supporting the action by Moor and his colleagues, they acted in contravention of the public’s interest. As Richardson’s opinion—joined in by Presiding Justice Elwood Lui and Justice Victoria M. Chavez—observes:

“The public has a fundamental interest in knowing the identities of parties to litigation in public fora. Such information is essential to monitoring public proceedings for a host of evils, including corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, prejudice, and favoritism.”

In Roe, where the issue of identity-concealment arose in a defamation action, Richardson declared that “the use of pseudonyms, absent a specific statutory authorization, should be a limited and rare exception to the general rule of public access to courts.”

The justice cited with approval the 2022 Sixth District Court of Appeal opinion in Department of Fair Employment & Housing v. Superior Court which concerns an employment discrimination suit. Acting Presiding Justice Adrienne Grover wrote:

“Much like closing the courtroom or sealing a court record, allowing a party to litigate anonymously impacts the First Amendment public access right….Outside of cases where anonymity is expressly permitted by statute, litigating by pseudonym should occur ‘only in the rarest of circumstances.’ ”

Grover was quoting language from the California Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in NBC Subsidiary (KNBC-TV), Inc. v. Superior Court. There, then-Chief Justice Ronald George said that trial judges should propose “to close proceedings only in the rarest of circumstances.”

NBC Subsidiary, like Roe and Department of Fair Employment & Housing, deals with a trial judge’s duty to uphold the public’s right to know. An appellate justice’s devotion to that cause should be no less ardent.

★

George’s opinion in NBC Subsidiary affirms the 1996 action by the Court of Appeal in issuing a writ of mandate directing the Los Angeles Superior Court to vacate an order by Judge David M. Schacter, now deceased, closing proceedings in litigation brought by actress Sondra Locke, also now deceased, against actor Clint Eastwood. She alleged, under various theories, that he sabotaged her career as a director.

The Court of Appeal’s opinion emanated from this district’s Div. Five, the division that shielded the identity of Miller. Authoring that opinion—written over a weekend to speedily countermand Schacter’s order—was Presiding Justice Paul Arthur Turner, who died in 2017.

Turner began his opinion by quoting the California Supreme Court’s 1893 opinion in In re Shortridge as saying that “[i]n this country it is a first principle that the people have the right to know what is done in their courts.”

When Turner was at the helm in Div. Five, an opinion would not have been issued using initials in place of the name of a woman who had been criminally charged.

★

Miller, now 33, was arrested on June 15, 2017, in connection with an incident occurring the previous day. On Sept. 6, 2017, a preliminary hearing was conducted at the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse and Miller was held to answer in People of the State of California v. Miller, Donise Robinon, on Count 2. That count, like one that was dumped, involved an assault with deadly weapon, in violation of a provision in Penal Code §245. Bail was set at $60,000.

She was then charged on Sept. 20, 2017, under §245, by an information filed in People v. Miller, MA071684. On Feb. 28, 2018, Miller entered a conditional plea of no contest before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Shannon Knight.

Under a plea bargain, sentencing and probation were put off for two years; if she fulfilled all the terms imposed on her—including 30 days of community service and attending anger management classes for 26 weeks—she would be allowed to withdraw the plea and the charge would be dismissed, pursuant to Penal Code §1203.4.

Then on May 30, 2018, Miller was charged, in MA073917, with a new offense.

Knight, on July 31, 2018, held a hearing in both cases. In the first case, she ordered a delay in sentencing for three years, placed Miller on probation, then immediately terminated probation in that case. She granted probation in the new case, shifting any unfulfilled obligations of community service or attending classes to that case.

Then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Blanchard, now retired, on Aug. 8, 2024, dismissed the charges in the second case, in response to a §1203.4 motion. Miller petitioned on April 9, 2025, for dismissal of the first case, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa M. Strassner on April 29, 2025, denied relief.

All of these proceedings were held in open court. All of the filings were public. Miller was identified as Miller.

The granting of the petition that Strassner denied was mandatory, Moor said, but noted that, from the record, it is not clear that she was fully informed as to what had transpired earlier.

He pointed out that where the defendant has fulfilled the conditions laid down and is “not then serving a sentence for an offense, on probation for an offense, or charged with the commission of an offense,” §1203.4(a)(1) requires that the person be allowed to change the plea to not guilty, with the conviction vacated and the information dismissed. All requirements of the statute were met, Moor said, and Strassner’s order was reversed.

With obvious justification, the opinion was not certified for publication. Without a smidgen of justification, Div. Five defied the concept of openness of government proceedings, displaying a woeful lapse of judgment on the part of Moor, Hoffstadt, and Baker.