by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the defendant was denied the effective assistance of counsel where a Spanish-language interpreter was not secured for the first day of trial and that counsel’s failure to do so triggered the application of the presumption of prejudice articulated by the ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that Glen E. Bates was deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel when his attorney failed to inquire into a juror’s expressed racial bias or strike the juror.
Bates was convicted by a jury of aggravated murder and other ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Utah held that there was no previous request for post-conviction relief to support dismissal of a second petition under Utah Code § 78B-9-106(1)(d) of the Post-Conviction Remedies Act (“PCRA”) where the first petition was voluntarily dismissed under Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Nevada ruled that bail determinations for pretrial detainees requires due process, announced the procedures to be followed, and severed unconstitutional language from NRS 178.4851(1).
The State obtained felony indictments against Aaron Frye and Jose Valdez-Jimenez, and the ...
by Douglas Ankney
Division One of the Fourth Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal ruled that an unoccupied vehicle left running in a driveway satisfied neither the “emergency aid exception” nor the “exigent circumstances exception” to justify the warrantless search of a residence. The Court further ruled that ...
by Douglas Ankney
Officers from an elite division within the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) are under investigation regarding allegations that they falsified reports and listed some innocent people as gang members.
LAPD Police Chief Michel Moore announced in January that he was seeking to fire one officer for his ...
by Douglas Ankney
According to St. Louis Public Radio, police in Missouri abused a civil asset forfeiture scheme to seize at least $2.6 million from motorists during traffic stops in 2018.
St. Charles County cops stopped people for minor traffic violations and directed the drivers to a private lot owned ...
by Douglas Ankney
While forensic scientists have, for more than a hundred years, been able to opine that a fingerprint came from a particular person, the limitations of science did not permit them to state when the fingerprint was left by that person.
But that limitation may have been recently ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a district court judge violated Ionel Muresanu’s Fifth Amendment right to be tried only on charges brought by indictment when the judge modified the jury instructions to permit conviction on offenses not charged in the indictment. ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) ruled that when a defendant argues before the trial court for a sentence shorter than that sought by the Government the defendant has preserved for appeal purposes his claim that the longer sentence ultimately imposed was greater than necessary ...
