The Beaux-Arts 1925 building was featured on television shows including Dragnet, Perry Mason and Get Smart.

[4] Notable residents of the Hall of Justice included Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Frances Farmer, Robert Mitchum and Shorty Rossi, star of the Animal Planet show Pit Boss, along with being the venue where the Supreme Court case Cohen v. California began, with the defendant wearing a coarse statement against the military draft on his blazer while walking its halls and being arrested for disturbing the peace.

Autopsies performed at the Hall of Justice include those of actress Marilyn Monroe and the assassinated presidential candidate and former United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

It was used as a filming location for the 1997 Clint Eastwood movie Absolute Power, as the Washington, D.C. police headquarters.

The offices of the Los Angeles County Sheriff and the District Attorney returned to the building with its reopening.