by Christopher Zoukis
Founding Father George Mason once said, “When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.” Mason, along with many other founders of the United States of America, believed strongly in the separation of government powers. These ...
by Derek Gilna
The Chicago City Council approved yet another multi-million dollar settlement for excessive force on September 5, 2017, but this time, some members complained about the steep tab.
Jose Lopez was rendered permanently disabled after being Tased by a Chicago Police Officer. After a two-week trial, the jury ...
by Mark Wilson
"They just demonstrated they’re going to prosecute us, and the Supreme Court just demonstrated that they’re going to punish us,” said Michael Barrett, director of the Missouri public defender system, in response to the suspension of an overworked lawyer.
Karl William Hinkebein is a 21-year veteran of ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals concluded that a prosecutor’s criticism of defense counsel during closing argument “crossed the boundary of permissible argument and prejudiced defendant’s right to a fair trial.”
Doug Brunnemer was tried on several Oregon domestic violence offenses. The State’s case was based largely on ...
by Derek Gilna
The City of Los Angeles has beenhit with a $5.5 million jury verdict in November of 2017 for the death of a former Marine who was Tased six times in a row by the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) while they were attempting to restrain him. Michael ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined that James Michael Wells did not receive a fair trial, reversed his first-degree murder convictions, and remanded for a new trial after the case was reassigned to a different judge to preserve the appearance of justice.
On ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a post-conviction court’s judgment that a criminal defendant was denied effective assistance of trial counsel when his lawyer failed to object to an expert witness vouching for the credibility of the alleged victim’s sexual abuse claim. As such, the lower court ...
by Ken Abraham and Brenda Jones
Unjust Laws
Over the past 25 years, the U.S. has developed a pernicious system of sexual offense laws, including increased sentences and public registries of offenders. Based largely on unfounded hysteria surrounding a tiny fraction of high-profile cases, these laws today are a tangled ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from seizing cash intended for drug use unless some step was taken toward actually using the money for drugs.
The September 5, 2017 decision involved the unfortunate circumstances of ...
Loaded on
Feb. 16, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
March, 2018, page 16
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón is acting upon a provision of Proposition 64 that has received relatively little media attention but is nonetheless extremely significant for tens of thousands of individuals—reduction, dismissal, or expungement of certain previous marijuana convictions.
Most people are aware that Prop 64 legalizes the possession ...
by Dale Chappell
Because police are trained to shoot first and ask questions later, calling on them to defuse a situation involving someone with special needs should be a last resort. The problem is that when cops are trained to be military warriors instead of peace officers, we’re all viewed ...
by Richard Resch
Police obtained a search warrant for a residence. Jeffrey Sickles was identified as a person to be searched in the warrant. An attached police affidavit stated that his sister listed the residence as her home address. When police executed the search warrant, Danielle Brown was located in ...
by Dale Chappell
In 1995, Kristi Koe was convicted of rape and abuse of a child. The underlying acts occurred in 1990. The Sex Offender Registry Board (“SORB”) recommended she be classified as a level two sex offender, and she accepted. Her obligation to register commenced in 2003.
In 2013, ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Rhode Island Supreme Court has determined that a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle who lunges forward and jerks the steering wheel qualifies as an “operator” of the vehicle.
The November 14, 2017 opinion considered the criminal case against Luke Peters. On August 6, ...
by Dale Chappell
A jury’s multiple discussions about why a defendant chose not to testify, despite the court’s warnings not to consider them, were sufficient misconduct to presume prejudice, the Court of Appeal of California for the Fourth Appellate District held November 16, 2017.
Francisco Solorio was charged with first ...
Loaded on
Feb. 16, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
March, 2018, page 20
This is a model guidelines sentencing decision filled with nuggets of pure gold in which the district judge (Katherine Forrest of the S.D.N.Y.) was sharply rebuked for imposing an above-guidelines sentence in an illegal reentry case that was three times the top of the guidelines range—a sentence that the Court ...
by Derek Gilna
Proposition 64, which legalizes the sale of recreational marijuana in the state of California, also has a less publicized benefit for those with state marijuana felonies on their record. It allows them to petition to have their convictions reduced or dismissed.
This has the potential to be ...
by Matt Clarke
Statistically, U.S. law enforcement agencies are the worst crime solvers in the Western world. According to official data, there are arrests for about one-eighth of burglaries, about one-third of rapes, and about two-thirds of murders. But official methods of reporting can distort and exaggerate murder clearance rates, ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The power of government in everyday American life cannot be overstated. In the criminal justice setting, the government is essentially all-powerful. When accused of a crime, a citizen faces arrest at the hands of armed police, incarceration in government-owned jails (for the most part), and prosecution by ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit granted a state prisoner’s petition for habeas corpus relief because the prisoner was denied his right to proceed pro se at trial, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
The December 27, 2017 ruling ...
by Dale Chappell
There is a “strong presumption” a defendant held in custody beyond two days without a preliminary hearing (or other method to show probable cause), absent “compelling circumstances,” must be released, the Hawaii Supreme Court held on November 21, 2017.
When Si Ufaga Moana and Jayvan Curioso were ...
by Dale Chappell
The city of Syracuse, New York agreed to settle a lawsuit and pay $2 million to Brad Hulett, a disabled man Tased by city cops after he refused to sit down on a bus.
Video from the May 3, 2013 incident showed Hulett being ordered by two ...
by Dale Chappell
When counsel objects at trial to a particular issue—even if it had failed to raise it in a pre-trial written motion—that objection is enough to “preserve” the issue for review on appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas held.
During an armed robbery of a mobile ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction and death sentence of a man accused of the capital murder of a two-year-old child. The reversal resulted from several errors made at trial, as well as the taint of prosecutorial misconduct.
The November 9, 2017 opinion reversed the conviction ...
by Dale Chappell
The government must show that a defendant had the “express intent” in fleeing to avoid prosecution to prove he was a “prohibited person” under the “fugitive from justice” definition with respect to owning a semiautomatic firearm capable of accepting high capacity magazines, the United States Court of ...
by Mark Wilson
After spending 24 years behind bars for murder, Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee walked out of a New Jersey prison in November 2017. Weeks earlier, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael Portelli had vacated their convictions for the 1993 murder of a store clerk after new DNA ...
by Derek Gilna
According to the nonprofit National Registry of Exonerations, Cook County, Illinois has a false confession rate three times higher than the national average. In November 2017, Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx dropped criminal cases against 15 men because of police misconduct, a development the Chicago Tribune referred ...
by Derek Gilna
Defendants who plead guilty on both the state and federal level generally are interviewed by the sentencing jurisdiction’s probation department, which seeks background information regarding the criminal history, family history, and health history of the defendant in order to assist the judge in determining an appropriate sentence. ...
Loaded on
Feb. 16, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
March, 2018, page 30
New York Court of Appeals ruled that bail bondsmen may not retain the premium paid on a criminal defendant’s behalf when bail is denied and the defendant is not released from custody.
In 2011, Arthur Bogoraz was indicted on state fraud charges with bail set at $2 million. His wife ...
by Dale Chappell
The trial court’s repeated inclusion of an erroneous element in the jury instructions amounted to a “plain error,” which led the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to vacate the defendant’s conviction.
Jose Lattore-Cacho was convicted by a jury in U.S. District Court of one ...
by Christopher Zoukis
Fred Steese spent 21 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit. He was granted an Order of Actual Innocence in 2012, but was released from prison only upon entering an Alford plea—not admitting guilt but acknowledging that there is sufficient evidence to prove ...
by Richard Resch
On January 16, 2018, the Supreme Court of Georgia issued an instructive per curiam opinion in which it announced the need for it to explain its habeas application review process.
According to the Court, the explanatory opinion was necessitated because “there appears to be significant misunderstanding of ...
by Matthew Clarke
In the summer of 2017, the Houston Police Department announced that it was ending its longstanding practice of using $2 field test kits for drugs that had frequently been used to persuade defendants to plead guilty—even when they were innocent.
In December 2016, the Timothy Cole Exoneration ...
by David Reutter
The Idaho Supreme Court reversed a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence obtained in a suspicionless fishing expedition by the arresting officer.
Matthew Cohagan was on a street corner in Nampa, Idaho when Officers Curtis and Otto drove by. Curtis thought he resembled an ...
by Dale Chappell
The fact that a defendant admitted he had prior qualifying felonies for a Cal Pen Code § 665(a) enhancement does not convert his current “wobbler” into a felony, and the trial judge retained authority under section 17(b) to reduce the wobblers to misdemeanors, the Court of Appeal ...
by Richard Resch
The Court of Appeal of California, First Appellate District, ruled that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution should have been suppressed, and it reversed defendant’s conviction for possession of a baton in violation of Cal Pen Code § 22210.
On March ...
by Dale Chappell
The Massachusetts Supreme Court reversed convictions for involuntary manslaughter and assault and battery and ordered a new trial because the trial judge failed to conduct voir dire after the prosecutor advised that some jurors fell asleep during trial.
Anthony Villalobos took his murder and assault charges to ...
by Dale Chappell
A trial court may seal the records of a person whose case has been dismissed without prejudice before the statute of limitations for the offense expires, the Ohio Supreme Court held on September 27, 2017.
In March 2015, Colton Dye was charged by the State for arson ...
by Mark Wilson
"Giving defendants a lawyer, treating them with respect, and honoring the Constitution give them more confidence in what we’re trying to do,” observes Michigan District Court Judge Tom Boyd. “That starts with giving them the respect they deserve the minute they walk in the door.”
Sadly, that ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Georgia Supreme Court answered an unusual, yet significant, question on December 11, 2017. Can a conviction that requires proof that a rental car was stolen outside of the state coexist with a conviction that requires proof that the same car was stolen in the state? Both ...
Loaded on
Feb. 16, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
March, 2018, page 37
Sixty-one of 110 men arrested in an ambitious prostitution sting in Bellevue, Washington in August 2017 have had their cases dismissed. Police who made the arrests recorded audio of part of the operation in violation of Washington state law.
Bellevue Police Department and King County Sheriff’s personnel posted online sex-for-sale ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The indigent defense crisis in Louisiana continues, but it is now taking a new and more ominous direction. In order to fund local public defenders, the state has taken $3 million from capital defenders, leaving at least 11 Louisiana defendants who are facing the death penalty without ...
by Richard Resch
The Washington Court of Appeals, Division I determined that the use of specific PowerPoint slides intended to establish the characters of defendant and victim and their actions in conformity therewith amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. The misconduct was both improper and prejudicial. Therefore, it warranted the reversal of ...
by Dale Chappell
The right to appeal a judge’s improper questioning of a witness during trial was not forfeited by the defendant’s failure to object contemporaneously because such an error is not forfeitable and can be raised for the first time on appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The use of DNA evidence in criminal trials has become ubiquitous. Because DNA evidence is highly persuasive to judges and juries, several new tests purport to make positive DNA matches using minuscule amounts of matter, or even matter that has been polluted. As defense attorneys push back ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The use of drug detecting dogs in law enforcement is ubiquitous across the country. They are a popular tool among police agencies, because a drug dog’s “alert” provides the probable cause necessary to legally search a vehicle without warrant or permission. But are these alerts a response ...
by David Reutter
The Florida Supreme Court held that possession of a driver’s license is a prerequisite to a conviction as a habitual traffic offender under section 322.34(5), Florida Statutes.
Daryl Miller was charged with a third degree felony on May 21, 2014 for violating § 322.34(5) by driving with ...
by Dale Chappell
When Chantay Blankinship was killed in May 2016 in Brown County, Texas, the police had no leads other than DNA found at the crime scene. Her family isolated themselves out of fear the killer could be right next to them. Then they got a break in the ...
by Dale Chappell
The State carries the burden of proving that a probationer has violated his probation in order to support a revocation of probation, the Maine Supreme Court held on December 12, 2017.
Cory Kibbe was sentenced in 2004 to 20 years in prison, with all but four years ...
Loaded on
Feb. 16, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
March, 2018, page 42
California: In Sun Valley, Juan Catalan was nearly convicted of a murder he did not commit. After an eyewitness led police to Catalan, they arrested and interrogated him. Catalan is brothers with Mario Catalan and Jose Ledesma, who allegedly committed two murders. Police suspected Catalan of the May 12, 2003 ...
