by Douglas Ankney
Since the Supreme Court decided Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), the idea has been that death sentences are reserved for only those murders committed by the worst of the worst killers. But in August 1991, Charles Burton helped five other men rob an AutoZone ...
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute – Commentary
“If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t ...
by Casey J. Bastian
Federal and state law enforcement agencies have been increasingly using mobile device data warrants as a modern investigative tool. Authorities present technology service providers, such as Google, with “reverse location” warrants seeking electronic data information of all persons whose devices may have been at or near ...
by Dale Chappell
Some peaceful protestor may not mind the police having video of their protected right to assemble and push for change. But then there are some who would rather not have their face uploaded to a law enforcement facial-recognition database to be screened as a possible suspect in ...
by Casey J. Bastian
Eddie Lee Howard, now 67, is a Black man who spent more than a quarter-century fighting not only to prove his innocence, but for his very life. Howard has been on death row at Parchman Farm in Mississippi after being wrongfully convicted – twice. On August ...
by Dale Chappell
After more than two decades behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, Fred Steese walked into a Las Vegas courtroom on March 1, 2021, to be awarded $1.4 million by the state but no apology. In fact, Steese was forced in 2012 to accept a plea ...
by Kevin Bliss
Chokeholds are considered deadly and explicitly prohibited according to the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) patrol guide. Yet in practice, low-grade punishment does little to prevent the maneuver from being used in abundance by police.
ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom, and THE CITY teamed up to investigate ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2021
published in Criminal Legal News
June, 2021, page 18
by Jayson Hawkins
The protests in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd have succeeded in calling much of how American police operate into question. Though most of the focus has been on the use of deadly force, there have been a number of questions about how ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered a new trial and invoked its rarely used power to assign the case to a different judge where defendants were denied a meaningful opportunity to prove juror bias due to the district judge’s mishandling of the case. ...
by Matt Clarke
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that 120 Code Mass. Regs. § 200.08(3)(c) (2017), a regulation promulgated by the Massachusetts Parole Board, is invalid because it “is contrary to the plain terms of the statutory framework governing parole.” The regulation prohibits the aggregation of sentences that ...
by Anthony Accurso
Police generally need a warrant toconduct a search or seizure in the U.S., though this rule has garnered a few exceptions since being enshrined in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. One such exception is when a person “consents” to the search upon request. But is it true consent ...
by Ed Lyon
Despite being the capital of the nation’s largest Red state, Austin, Texas, is as liberally Blue as a city can be, proudly sporting the motto “KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD.” Whether weird or empathetic, Austin has made great strides toward diverting money from its police department to improve law ...
by Douglas Ankney
Larry Krasner is Philadelphia’s well-known progressive and reform-minded District Attorney. He was elected in 2017, promising he would work toward ending mass incarceration and radically change the way Philadelphia’s criminal justice system handles crime, substance abuse issues, and mental health. Since taking office, Krasner has pushed for ...
by Ed Lyon
There is evidence of legal systems, considered primitive by some, that have required a false accuser to face the same punishment the falsely accused would have had to suffer had the false accusations resulted in a conviction. What a completely different, fair, and equitable justice system the ...
by Casey Bastian
A Loyola University Chicago study, which was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, closely examined a 2017 Cook County, Illinois, bail reform initiative and its impact on public safety.
All too often, critics of bail reform assert a stale mantra that more pretrial ...
by Ed Lyon
There is a push throughout the world to equip police with body cams. It seems to be widely believed that this will reduce incidents of police brutality.
However, “[w]hen the police are given the discretion to publicly release favorable body camera footage but withhold negative footage, police ...
by Anthony Accurso
Angel Diaz, a staff expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, recently published a report on internet-connected devices titled “Law Enforcement Access to Smart Devices.”
This report is part of an ongoing project by Diaz, counsel with the Liberty & National Security Program, and the Brennan Center ...
by Anthony Accurso
Police in Beverly Hills have picked-up a new trick, seemingly intended to avoid accountability: playing copyrighted music when being filmed by citizens.
Sennett Devermont is a well-known, LA-area activist with over 300,000 followers in Instagram.
He went to the Beverly Hills PD office to file a request ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Minnesota clarified the meaning of “mentally incapacitated” as used in Minn. Stat. § 609.341, subdivision 7 (2020).
A jury convicted Francios Momolu Khalil of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a mentally incapacitated or physically helpless complainant in violation of § 609.344, subdivision 1(d) ...
by Jayson Hawkins
In the fast-paced digital world of ever-increasing convenience, few people can be bothered with reading the fine print. Yet the devil lurks in the details, and by clicking “I agree” to the terms of a phone app, an always-on device, or array of other tech, users potentially ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a second handshake that was “more deliberate” and longer in duration than an earlier handshake failed to provide officers reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop pursuant to Terry v Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (“ ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that a police officer’s seizure of a firearm from a vehicle was unreasonable because an inventory of the vehicle was abandoned, and the officer did not need to seize the firearm to protect the public.
On January ...
by David M. Reutter
A study into human tendencies concluded “that the risk of the innocent pleading guilty and falsely implicating others is real and that it is a global phenomenon – one that transcends borders and legal systems.”
The study included college students from the United States, South Korea, ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Washington reaffirmed that State v. Workman, 584 P.2d 382 (Wash. 1978), provides the appropriate test in determining whether a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction. The Court also addressed confusion with respect to the application of the Workman test and ...
by Kevin Bliss
New data collected this past spring show that police have been more likely to use force against leftwing protests than rightwing. Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) protests were three times more likely to see police violence than Stop The Steal rallies centered on ex-President Trump’s claim that the ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where habeas counsel purposely waited until it was too late to file a federal habeas corpus petition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held on March 31, 2021, that counsel’s actions amounted to “abandonment” and allowed equitable tolling to excuse the ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Washington held that the state’s strict-liability drug possession law, codified at RCW 69.50.4013(1), is unconstitutional.
Shannon Blake was arrested in connection with an investigation into stolen vehicles. A jail employee discovered a small baggy containing methamphetamine in ...
by Douglas Ankney
In landmark decision, the Supreme Court of California substantially limited conditions where trial courts may require money bail.
Kenneth Humphrey, 66, was accused of robbing his 79-year-old neighbor of seven dollars and a bottle of cologne. The trial court initially set bail at $600,000. Humphrey petitioned for ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impression for the Supreme Court of Ohio, it held that “driving on” or “touching” the single solid white longitudinal line on the right-hand edge of a roadway (aka “fog line”) doesn’t violate Ohio’s traffic laws; consequently, doing so doesn’t provide probable cause ...
by Douglas Ankney
A decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit followed a trend among the federal circuits in declaring it impermissible for the commentary to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to be applied in a manner that expands their actual meaning.
Former postal employee Jennifer Riccardi ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Nevada held that “the State properly charges a defendant with only a single violation of NRS 202.360(1)(b) when it alleges, without more, that the defendant is a felon who possessed ‘any firearm’ – that is, one or more firearms – at one time ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that a defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his apartment’s utility closet and that officers’ warrantless search of the closet was in violation of Part I, Article 19 of the New Hampshire Constitution.
On January 17, 2018, Kingston ...
by Anthony Accurso
A recent analysis, published in the Law & Social Inquiry Journal, demonstrates how the online availability of law enforcement and court databases amounts to “digital punishment,” including for many persons who were merely arrested for, but never convicted of, a crime.
Researchers Sarah Esther Lageson (Rutgers ...
by Jayson Hawkins
A study published in Nature Human Behavior found that the allocation of surplus military equipment (“SME”) to local police agencies had no effect on crime rates. Researchers also discovered that the Department of Defense records of the agencies that received SME, which included everything from office equipment ...
by Matt Clarke
The Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously held that the cumulative effect of several trial errors required the reversal of a murder conviction.
Benjamin Finney, a drug dealer in Macon, Georgia, was the victim of a home invasion during which he and his girlfriend were bound and held ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case that numerous federal habeas petitioners have been awaiting, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held on February 23, 2021, that the decision in United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), is a qualifying retroactive U.S. Supreme Court decision ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Political efforts have been underway to withdraw troops and bring an end to America’s military involvement in Afghanistan. While this two-decade old conflict is considered by many to be the longest war in U.S. history, that ignores a much costlier and deadlier battle that has been waged ...
by Anthony Accurso
In an opinion filed Feb. 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of Tennessee suppressed the evidence located during a sweep of defendant’s home because the search of the home was neither inevitable nor consented to by the homeowner due to duress.
The White County Sheriff’s Office asked neighboring ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Incidents of police brutality are nothing new in the U.S. They occur with such regularity that it is easy to be overwhelmed by the statistics and hard to recall the specifics surrounding each one on the ever-lengthening list of victims.
There are, of course, exceptions to the ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where the lower courts assumed a defendant prevented an alleged victim of domestic violence from appearing at trial as a witness to testify against him, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“TCCA”) held that the introduction of the alleged victim’s statements without her being ...
by Matt Clarke
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York’s denial of qualified immunity to police who stopped and frisked a man based solely on an officer’s unconfirmed hunch that there might be an outstanding warrant ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of Colorado denied the People’s appeal when it determined the prosecution failed to carry its burden in establishing the independent source doctrine applied where police obtained a second legitimate search warrant after the first was invalidated; the evidence in question obtained as a result ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2021
published in Criminal Legal News
June, 2021, page 50
California: On March 12, 2021, federal prosecutors in California unsealed indictments against a pair of policemen accused of pocketing cash and drugs confiscated from suspects they pulled over in traffic stops. According to a report by Law & Crime, former Rohnert Park Police Department officers Brendon Jacy Tatum, 38, and ...
