by Iris Wagner

Introduction

Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend stopped at a traffic light. When the light turned green, the car in front of them stalled. Alverez-Tejeda suddenly stopped before hitting the car in front of him, but the pickup truck behind him struck his bumper. Police arrived on the ...

by Christopher Zoukis

The New York Court of Appeals made an important clarification to an exemption to the state’s Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”), which restricts access to records compiled for law enforcement purposes that identify confidential sources or information.

The November 21, 2017, opinion ruled that the exemption may ...

by Richard Resch

This marks our sixth issue of Criminal Legal News. The response has been a pleasant surprise. While we were confident that there was a pressing need for a publication of this type—and that the content of each issue of CLN would provide readers with relevant, actionable legal ...

by Matt Clarke

On September 27, 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas held that a judge must issue a jury charge on self-defense in a prosecution for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon even if the defendant’s version of events supporting self-defense is weak, contradicted, or not credible. ...

by Brandon Sample, Esq.

Rodney Class pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a firearm on the U.S. Capitol grounds. Notwithstanding his guilty plea, Class appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Class argued that his conviction was unconstitutional because the statute that criminalized gun possession ...

by Christopher Zoukis

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a conviction pursuant to a guilty plea that the district court accepted, but was not accompanied by a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 colloquy. The January 25, 2018, opinion remanded the case for entry of a ...

by Sandy Rozek 

“Texas sex offender added to 10 most wanted sex offenders list.” “Virginia man arrested for sex crimes after third victim comes forward.” “Arizona sex offender sentenced to 100 years for child porn.” 

These are the sorts of headlines that inundate the news and media outlets regarding those ...

by Dale Chappell

Deviations from statutory requirements are not jurisdictional and must be “properly preserved” for appellate review and not raised for the first time on appeal, the North Carolina Supreme Court held on November 3, 2017.

After Sandra Brice was found guilty by a jury in 2015 of habitual ...

by Steve Horn

Civil liberties advocates have decried a provision tucked into the budget bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, as an end-run around constitutional protections guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That provision was originally the stand-alone CLOUD (Clarifying ...

On October 15, 2015, Joshua Davis, who then worked as a Brink’s driver, allegedly stole about $170,000 in credit-union funds skimmed from the collections he picked up at eight ATMs that he and co-worker Naheem Carrington had serviced that day.

After completing his collections for the day, defendant Davis drove ...

An investigation by Newsday has uncovered records showing bonus payments to Suffolk County, New York district attorney employees that totaled $3.25 million since 2012. The source of those funds? Assets seized in criminal cases.

Deputy chief homicide prosecutor Robert Biancavilla received a total of $108,886 between 2012 and 2017, according ...

by Jay Schweikert

Our primary federal civil rights statute, colloquially called “Section 1983,” says that any state actor who violates someone’s constitutional rights may be sued in federal court. This remedy is crucial not just to secure relief for individuals whose rights are violated, but also to ensure accountability for government ...

by Dale Chappell

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas (“CCA”) held that “furtive gestures” alone did not give police probable cause to search a vehicle under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

When a marked police car pulled behind Andreas Marcopoulos’ truck, police said he made ...

by Matt Clarke

Wisconsin has a huge backlog of untested rape kits. In 2017, state Attorney General Brad Schimel estimated there were more than 6,300 untested rape kits. The number of rape kits involving allegations of child sexual abuse was 2,441 as of late 2017. A little under half of ...

by Matt Clarke

The family of an intoxicated man abandoned by Delaware County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputies at a Taco Bell before he wandered onto a highway and was fatally struck by a vehicle has settled a lawsuit against the county and several sheriff’s department officials for $300,000.

After several motorists ...

by Dale Chappell

A U.S. district court cannot, “of its own volition,” invoke a collateral attack waiver in a plea agreement to dismiss a § 2255 motion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held on November 6, 2017.

“Efficiency can be a virtue, particularly for a court. ...

by Edward B. Lyon

The Kansas Supreme Court held that under the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act (“KSGA”) probation cannot be imposed after the full sentence of confinement has already been served.

James Kinder served as the caretaker for Joyce Wilson. He failed to obtain necessary medical treatment for her, and ...

by Matt Clarke

With little opposition from either party, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3391, authorizing the creation of the nation’s first public safety employees treatment courts. The courts will allow police, firefighters, prison and jail guards, and emergency medical services employees facing charges to defer criminal prosecution by entering ...

by Richard Resch

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit modified its position on the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement by announcing: “officers seeking to justify their warrantless entry need only demonstrate ‘an objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that ‘a person within [the house] ...

Local governments in New Jersey have had to pay out more than $42 million over the last 10 years because of police criminality and abuse, according to a new series of investigative reports by the Asbury Park Press. The report found at least 19 deaths, 131 injuries, and seven sexual ...

by Matt Clarke

In 1931, a commission to investigate Prohibition-era corruption appointed by President Hoover issued the Wickersham Report. The report criticized the so-called Third Degree, which was the standard police interrogation technique of the time and involved beating a suspect until he or she confessed, then lying about the ...

by Richard Resch

The Supreme Court of California granted a death row prisoner’s petition for writ of habeas corpus based upon the introduction of false evidence at trial and vacated his convictions in their entirety.

On November 17, 1991, 21-month-old Consuelo Verdugo was rushed to the emergency room at Delano ...

by Christopher Zoukis

In a significant decision regarding Rule 804 of the Utah Rules of Evidence, the Utah Supreme Court reversed itself in a case involving the use of hearsay testimony from a preliminary hearing at trial in a criminal prosecution.

The September 6, 2017 opinion considered the criminal case ...

by David Reutter

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held a Nevada federal district court erred in its analysis under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) by deferring to a state court’s determination that a death-sentenced prisoner was not intellectually disabled. The Court further held the ruling in ...

by Derek Gilna

According to a December 2017 study by University of Chicago Law School researchers, data from Florida indicate that “shielding officers from the consequences of their actions ... result[s] in increased misconduct.” After Florida sheriffs’ deputies were allowed to unionize in 2003, such incidents of misconduct increased.

The ...

by Christopher Zoukis

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reversed a felony-murder conviction and sent the case back for a new trial because the trial court failed to suppress evidence obtained from an illegal search of the defendant’s cellphone.

The November 21, 2017, opinion overturned the conviction of Aaron Morin ...

by Richard Resch

Jose Delacruz, Anthony Waller, and three others participated in the robbery of Joshua Haines, who was murdered during the act. Delacruz was convicted of aggravated robbery, but he was acquitted of felony murder. He was sentenced to 83 months in prison. Both the conviction and sentence were ...

In 2017, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg changed an office policy by stopping the prosecution of thousands of trace drug cases from the Houston, Texas area. In doing so, Ogg fulfilled promises made during her unsuccessful 2014 campaign and her successful bid for the office in 2016.

Ogg already ...

by Derek Gilna

Trenton, New Jersey, police officers were captured on video making light of using flashlights to subdue suspects and ridiculing a critically injured gunshot victim suffering from a head wound.

All of the incriminating comments were captured on the body camera of supervisor and Trenton police Sgt. Charles ...

by Richard Resch

The Supreme Court of Illinois has taken the relatively rare step of striking language from two stalking statutes as facially unconstitutional because they violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In the November 30, 2017, opinion, the Supreme Court vacated Walter Relerford’s convictions for stalking and ...

by Christopher Zoukis

Judges in New York City courtrooms have an unusual option when it comes to the pre-trial release of a defendant charged with a minor crime: $1 bail. Hundreds of people accused of crimes such as theft of services, marijuana possession, and other minor offenses are required to ...

by Dale Chappell

The government’s “eleventh hour” motion to “correct” a sentence to remove credit for time served in a related case before federal sentencing was improperly granted by the district court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held November 16, 2017.

When Derrick Smothers, Terrell Smothers, ...

by Richard Resch

On October 29, 2014, at about 4 a.m., 13 Highland Park, New Jersey, police officers performed a no-knock entry into the Greer family home.

Without knocking or announcing their presence, the officers blasted the door open with a shotgun. All the officers were outfitted with SWAT gear ...

by Dale Chappell

The State failed to prove that packages of marijuana hidden in a car truck were in the “constructive possession” of a passenger, who was unaware they were there especially when the driver claimed ownership, the Supreme Court of Mississippi held October 12, 2017.

Marvin Carver and his ...

by Derek Gilna

For decades, politicians have won many elections by promising to be “tough on crime,” which translated into escalating prisoner counts, unbalanced budgets, and societal disintegration of the inner city. In contrast, former civil rights attorney Larry Krasner won election as Philadelphia’s District Attorney by promising just the ...

by Matt Clarke

An Ohio police officer who resigns under a cloud of pending disciplinary action or who is fired may not have reached the end of a law enforcement career. In some Ohio towns, employment as a police officer in another department is just down the road.

WCPO Cincinnati ...

by Christopher Zoukis

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), which bars retroactive application of new rules of criminal procedure on collateral review, applies to claims brought pursuant to Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), which ruled ...

by David M. Reutter

The death penalty is sold by its advocates as a crime deterrent or a penalty reserved for the most heinous of crimes. The reality is that the death penalty is often used as a political tool for prosecutors and judges to enhance their re-electability and to ...

by David M. Reutter

Philadelphia is using part of a $3.5 million grant to create a computerized bail-risk assessment tool. The effort is part of the city’s Reentry Project.

The MacArthur Foundation selected Philadelphia to take part in its Safety and Justice Challenge. According to Gabriel B. Roberts, spokesman for ...

by Derek Gilna

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office in Florida settled the case of a 19-year-old man who was fatally shot six seconds after being stopped for not wearing a seat belt. The victim, Henry Bennett III, was shot by Deputy Andrew Cano in January 2016 when he ran ...

by Derek Gilna

Tech behemoth Google has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) to apply its artificial intelligence technology (“AI”) to improve the recognition and targeting ability of its 1,100-strong drone fleet, raising concerns that the technology might be used domestically for surveillance of the U.S. ...

By Steve Horn

Investigative articles published on March 24 by the Seattle-based alt-weekly The Stranger and the online publication The Intercept reveal that prosecutors’ offices in King County, Washington and nationwide have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in private grant money which legal critics and defense attorneys have argued ...

by Christopher Zoukis

In a case involving a dispute between two prison guards, the Supreme Court of New Jersey clarified the kind of conduct necessary to expose an individual to criminal liability for verbally harassing someone else in the state.

William Burkert and Gerald Halton, both prison guards and members ...

by Christopher Zoukis

A lawsuit filed over a K-9 cop attack on two street artists who were spray-painting train cars in Broward County, Florida, has settled for $175,000. The men, Humberto Pellegrino and Pedro Claveria, alleged that Broward County Sheriff’s officers Davis Acevedo and Gerald Wengert literally tried to feed ...

by Richard Resch

The Supreme Court of Arizona announced that a defendant is entitled to a self-defense jury instruction while simultaneously claiming a misidentification defense (he or she did not, in fact, commit the offense).

In October 2013, Antajuan Carson fought with multiple people at a house party. At one ...

by Dale Chappell

Interpreting the word ‘exposes’ in Iowa’s indecent exposure statute, the Supreme Court of Iowa held on February 2, 2018 that texting an image of one’s genitals to another does not constitute “indecent exposure” and that counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence. ...

by Derek Gilna

Two new Washington state laws have removed a statutory impediment to state prosecutors holding police officers accountable for reckless or negligent conduct. The measures eliminate the barrier of having to prove “malice” or “evil intent” in bringing criminal actions against police officers accused of wrongdoing.

According to ...

by Derek Gilna

An extensive New York Times investigation of the New York Police Department has uncovered that “at least 25 instances were found where judges or prosecutors reportedly determined that a cop’s testimony was likely untrue or embellished” since January 2015. It’s what observers commonly refer to as “testilying.” ...

Arizona: An Arizona prosecutor, Juan Martinez, has a reputation for taking ethically questionable actions in his work. Most recently, in his prosecution on behalf of the state against Jodi Arias (convicted of murder), he engaged in sexual relations with two women covering the case in hopes that they would write ...