by Anthony W. Accurso
Transparency and accountability in law enforcement make for better relationships between police and the communities they serve, but a growing reliance on tech provided to police by private companies is reducing transparency.
An October 2021 report in the journal Science highlighted this trend of outsourcing police ...
Strategies for Pushing Back on Data-Driven Policing Trends
by Anthony W. Accurso
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (“NACDL”) released its Task Force report on data-driven predictive policing in September, 2021, highlighting the failures of predictive policing and making policy recommendations regarding its use.
In 2017, the NACDL created ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that a warrantless entry of an enclosed porch attached to a mobile home was constitutionally impermissible because the homeowner took steps to protect his privacy in that space.
Officers with the Conway Police Department received a tip on April ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Governor Ralph Northam (D-VA) signed posthumous pardons for seven Black men denied due process in a criminal case following a rape allegation involving a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia, in 1949.
On January 8, 1949, 32-year-old Ruby Stroud Floyd alleged she was raped by 13 Black ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The forensic science known as Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (“BPA”)—a.k.a. blood spatter analysis—is undergoing significant development after being the object of intense criticism regarding its reliability in the context of criminal prosecutions. Despite being practiced for over 150 years, this field has undergone two periods of dramatic ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Supreme Court of Kentucky upheld the decision of a trial court that found a single officer asking questions of the defendant in a public area amounted to an unlawful seizure because the defendant had a history of being arrested by that particular officer so he reasonably ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Arecently-obtained document sheds light on how an FBI special team obtains data from cellular providers to provide support for FBI, tribal, and local law enforcement investigations, including what data they can obtain and how long each provider stores that data.
Ryan N. Shapiro of the nonprofit ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Vermontruled that, given the totality of circumstances, a police interview with a defendant was custodial and thereby triggered the requirement for Miranda warnings where, among other factors, two police officers sought out the defendant, asked her to exit the store in which ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
One police tactic that is quickly gaining traction involves surveilling social media posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, but Facebook (now Meta) is reminding police that fake (or “dummy”) accounts are not allowed.
Police have always been allowed to view public posts by Facebook users, ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico’s denial of defendant’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion, ruling defendant’s appellate counsel was constitutionally ineffective under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), for failing ...
