The judge ran through 17 other misdemeanor crimes before he got to the crash on Sheldon Road, and some of the allegations sounded serious: Embezzlement, violating a restraining order, child molestation. But the 18th case, the one about the tricky left turn — that one stood out because a man was dead.
The driver who hit him and then sat in her car while bystanders rushed to his side — “in shock,” her attorney would later explain, though the man’s family would use the word “remorseless” — wasn’t under the harsh lights of Department 1. Under California law, Harjit Kaur didn’t have to attend her arraignment.
On the right side of the courtroom that day in December, however, about 30 people crowded in, most of them wearing T-shirts, sweatshirts or buttons with the smiling face of the victim: Connor Lopez, 23. The family had the memorial gear made up not long after the April 2025 crash. “JUSTICE FOR CONNOR,” the shirts and the buttons all said…