by Dale Chappell
A GPS tracker illegally placed on a car by a Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (“MDENT”) agent was a “flagrant” constitutional violation that requires exclusion of the evidence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held.
Digging through Brian Terry’s trash, Charleston, West Virginia, ...
by Dale Chappell
The Government’s key expert’s false hair-comparison testimony that likely swayed a jury to convict was held to be “material” because it was the primary piece of evidence to contradict the defense theory of the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held, which ...
by Dale Chappell
A law enforcement expert on gangs testifying that a robbery committed by a lone gang member without any evidence tying the robbery to the gang was not enough to support the 19-year aggregate gang enhancement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held, reversing the ...
by Dale Chappell
Concluding that there is a difference between those in prison and those in pre-trial detention, the Supreme Court of New Jersey held that a six-month delay after a pre-trial detainee’s re-interrogation was not a “break in custody” to avoid the Miranda rights invoked at the initial interrogation. ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the Government’s inaccurate pre-trial disclosure under Rule 16(a)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to defense counsel, which prompted him not to move to suppress an inculpatory statement made prior to being given his ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where the same lawyer represented two codefendants and advised both to plead guilty, with one fingering the other, evidence showing a possible conflict of interest in counsel’s representation required an evidentiary hearing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held. ...
by Dale Chappell
The Maryland Court of Appeals held that evidence of a valid prescription constitutes non-hearsay and is admissible as a “verbal act” when being admitted into evidence as the basis of a statutory defense.
In a case where most of the drugs involved those that would be legal ...
by Dale Chappell
In a rare move, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found that a sentence imposed for a violation of probation in a child pornography case was “substantively unreasonable” and that the sentencing court failed to explain why it imposed such a heavy sentence. ...
by Dale Chappell
It took a jury just nine minutes to come back with a verdict of “not guilty” in the trial of a man charged with blaring the 1988 N.W.A. rap song in the direction of police performing a traffic stop at a gas station in Pontiac, Michigan. ...
by Dale Chappell
A Dallas County, Texas, judge who cops said would sign a blank warrant allowing them to do whatever they wanted was called into question by the District Attorney’s Office, which chose to drop the issue. But not before at least one case was dismissed because of ...
