by Sam Rutherford
The Supreme Court of Oregon clarified the “Guilty Except for Insanity” (“GEI”) defense, holding that the defendant’s mental disease or defect may combine with another condition to cause the lack of capacity to form the requisite criminal intent and the mental disease or defect need not be ...
by Sam Rutherford
The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the trial court erred in refusing to give the jury a lesser included offense instruction of voluntary manslaughter in a prosecution for malice murder where the evidence showed that the killing was in response to the defendant discovering his common-law ...
by Sam Rutherford
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin held that a police officer exceeded the proper bounds of the community caretaking function exception to the Fourth Amendment during the course of a traffic stop. The officer stopped the driver to perform a welfare check after the driver had fallen asleep ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that Application Notes to provisions of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual are still entitled to deference, even after a Supreme Court case questioned the continued applicability of such deference.
Christopher Johnson was indicted for and pleaded guilty ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment because they constitute a “general warrant.” However, the evidence acquired in the case as a result of the unlawful geofence warrant was nonetheless admissible under the good-faith exception to the ...
by Sam Rutherford
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, that state’s highest court of review in criminal cases, held that a trial court violated a defendant’s right to be present at a probation revocation hearing conducted via Zoom by muting the defendant during the hearing. This case challenges yet ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, enjoining enforcement of Tennessee’s 2004 Sexual Offender and Violent Sexual Offender Registration, Verification, and Tracking Act (“Act”) in its entirety. Instead, the Court held ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed a sentence imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania because the district judge erroneously concluded he could not consider evidence offered by the defendant in support of a downward variance under 18 ...
by Sam Rutherford
The Supreme Court of Virginia held that a trial court erred by enforcing a plea agreement after the parties had negotiated a new agreement because the first plea was neither accepted nor rejected by the trial court. This case presented yet another legal issue stemming from delays ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, clarified when the Government breaches its promise in a plea agreement not to recommend a sentence in excess of the low-end of the Sentencing Guidelines range when responding to the defendant’s request for a downward ...
