Welcome


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John Burton. Photo: Michael Becker


The Law Offices of John Burton specialize in representing people who have been injured by law enforcement officers, including deaths and serious injuries attributed to Electrical Control Devices (ECDs). We have the only plaintiff's verdicts to date against TASER International, Inc., the principal manufacturer of ECDs. We also represent people seriously injured by the negligence of others, including automobile accidents.

Mr. Burton is President of the Board of Directors of the National Police Accountability Project, an organization representing more than 600 police misconduct lawyers and other professionals throughout the United States.

Our current and recent cases have involved death and serious injuries to jail inmates; the use of ECDs on children and severely mentally challenged adults; positional asphyxiation; police shooting cases; wrongful convictions of innocent people; police wrongful arrest and imprisonment; and class actions for relief for people overdetained and strip searched in the county jail system.

Admitted May 1979, John Burton established his own law offices in 1984 to provide specialized, high power legal services to persons whose civil rights have been violated by law enforcement officers, who have suffered serious injury, or who have lost loved ones.

Mr. Burton is known nationally for representing victims of police misconduct, and in June 2008, with co-counsel Peter Williamson, obtained the first ever wrongful death verdict against TASER International, Inc., the leading manufacturer of Electrical Control Devices (ECDs). Mr. Burton and Mr. Williamson co-authored the definitive guide to civil rights litigation involving ECDs. In July, 2011, they obtained the second verdict against Taser International, Inc. for $10M for products liability in the death of Darryl Turner (verdict). More information about that case is in this Boston Herald article. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury's finding that the death was caused by TASER International negligently failing to warn about the cardiac effects of its products but sent the case back to the trial court for a recalculation of the family's financial damages. The opinion can be read here.

Mr. Burton has represented plaintiffs in a number of high-profile matters, leading to profiles in California Lawyer (cover story), Los Angeles Magazine and The Los Angeles Times. He has been quoted on numerous occasions in The New York Times and local newspapers, particularly The Los Angeles Daily Journal. Mr. Burton has appeared on national and local television to address issues relating to police misconduct litigation.

Mr. Burton is admitted to all California state and federal courts, the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Circuits Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He appears pro haec vice on matters throughout the United States.