by Sam Rutherford
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Colorado held that the parole board is not statutorily required to consider a juvenile sex offender’s “maturity,” though is permitted to do so, but is required to consider the offender’s “rehabilitation” when making release decisions where the offender was sentenced as an adult to a maximum term of life in prison.
The Court made this pronouncement on certification of a question of state law from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in a case challenging the constitutionality of Colorado’s sentencing scheme for juvenile sex offenders sentenced as adults to indeterminate life sentences.
Background
In 2011, when Omar Ricardo Godinez was 15 years old, he and three accomplices kidnapped and raped two women within a week of each other. Godinez was charged, tried, and convicted as an adult of six offenses related to these crimes. He was sentenced under Colorado’s Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act (“SOLSA”), §§ 18-1.3-1001 to -1012, C.R.S. (2023). SOLSA requires courts to sentence convicted sex offenders to an indeterminate term of at least the minimum of the statutorily prescribed presumptive range for the level of offense committed and a maximum ...
by Samuel Rutherford
As reported by the Associated Press, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the creation of a database designed to track serious misconduct complaints against federal law enforcement officers. The purpose of the database is to ensure that other agencies do not unknowingly hire officers who have been fired or resigned in response to allegations of serious misconduct.
The database, known as the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, includes only former and current officers of federal law enforcement agencies with records of serious misconduct over the past seven years. The database is not publicly available and does not include misconduct reports against local or state law enforcement officers, as many police reform groups have advocated for, but it is a step in the right direction.
The database was created in response to an Executive Order issued by President Biden in May 2022, which included dozens of measures aimed at increasing accountability for federal law enforcement officers. “This database will ensure that records of serious misconduct by federal law enforcement officers are readily available to agencies considering hiring those officers,” Biden said in a statement.
Source: apnews.com
by Sam Rutherford
The Supreme Court of Idaho held that a trial court violated a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights by admitting video recorded interviews of a child witness at his trial on charges that he sexually assaulted the child where the child did not testify, thereby depriving the defendant of an opportunity to cross-examine the witness.
Background
William Parsons was charged with sexually abusing his live-in girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter. The child was taken to the hospital for a sexual assault examination on the day the allegations arose. Police subsequently scheduled an appointment to interview the child at a local hospital specializing in providing care to child victims and conducting forensic interviews. The interview was conducted by a medical social worker 24 days after the allegations arose. The purpose of the interview was to “fully understand” the child’s allegations. The interview was supervised by law enforcement via a closed-circuit TV. It was also recorded. A second recorded interview was conducted about three months later.
The child did not testify at trial because the State did not want to put her “through more trauma and mak[e] her recount sexual abuse in a room full of 12 strangers[.]” Instead, the State ...
by Sam Rutherford
On April 17, 2024, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to limit consideration of conduct for which a person was acquitted in federal court from being used in calculating the sentence range under the federal guidelines for a related conviction.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) does not specifically state whether a federal district court may consider conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted when sentencing on related offenses for which he or she has been convicted. However, in United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the USSG does “not prevent the sentencing court from considering conduct underlying the acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence.” This practice is known as acquitted-conduct sentencing.
The Court determined that acquitted-conduct sentencing is permitted under several sections of the USSG. Specifically, Section 1B1.3 instructs district courts to consider “all acts and omissions committed, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or willfully caused by the defendant” that “occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction, in preparation for that offense, or in the course of attempting to avoid ...
by Sam Rutherford
TheSupreme Court of Washington held that the terms “community custody” and “community supervision” are synonymous within the meaning of the second sentence of RCW 9.94A.589(5) for offenses that occurred after July 1, 2000, and that trial courts may not impose consecutive terms of community custody that exceed ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that a defendant’s statement in response to Miranda warnings that “I guess my best bet would probably be to not talk” until she had a lawyer was an unequivocal invocation of her right to counsel during custodial ...
by Sam Rutherford
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a defendant’s live-in girlfriend could not validly consent to police searching their shared residence where the defendant, who was detained nearby, yelled to her “Don’t let the cops in, and don’t talk to them.”
Background
One ...
