by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed an order of a trial judge requiring a district attorney to disclose to defense attorneys details of misconduct by two police officers that were disclosed during the immunized testimony of the officers before a grand jury.
In July 2019, Fall ...
by Douglas Ankney
Division One of the Fourth Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal reversed Rene Quintanilla, Jr.’s murder conviction because the Superior Court allowed as evidence the deceased’s out-of-court statements under the hearsay exception in Evidence Code § 1390.
Quintanilla killed his live-in girlfriend (identified only as ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Hawai’i announced that the standard for admission of third-party culpability evidence is the same as the relevancy test that is applies to other types of evidence, superseding State v. Rabellizsa, 903 P.2d 43 (Haw. 1995).
Yoko Kato was arrested on charges ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire announced that it has adopted the approach of Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2016), in reviewing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel where the defendant rejected a plea offer and chose to go to trial based upon advice of ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Colorado held that Brandon Jackson’s convictions for both murder and attempted murder violate the protections against double jeopardy.
Jackson, along with other members of the gang known as “Sicc Made,” drove to an apartment complex to kill rival gang member “E.O.” One of ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Kansas reversed Michael Alan Keyes’ murder conviction because the district court refused to give his requested self-defense instruction.
Keyes was tried for the murder of Jimmy Martin. State’s witness Carlo Malone testified that Keyes ordered him to stand outside the backdoor of Martin’s ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan’s sentence where the sentence imposed was an upward variance from the Guidelines range based on the defendant’s criminal history, but that history had little bearing on ...
by Douglas Ankney
QAnon is a name associated with bizarre conspiracy theories. One is that a Satanic cabal of high-profile liberal pedophiles is running a worldwide sex ring. Another theory concerns a plot about kidnapped children held in underground tunnels so their blood can be harvested to keep wealthy people ...
by Douglas Ankney
This article examines how police unions have used their contracts or Collective Bargaining Agreements (“CBA”) and lobbied for special legislation known as the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (“LEOBR”) to create a system of special protections for police officers that are tantamount to an alternate, internal ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania concluded that Article I, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, prohibition against double jeopardy, bars retrial because the prosecutor’s misconduct that evinced a conscious disregard for a substantial risk of harm deprived the defendant of his right to a fair trial.
In ...
