DNA Evidence Is Not as Infallible in Identifying Perpetrator as Most Believe
by David M. Reutter
Deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) is regarded as the “gold standard” of forensic evidence. It is considered to be virtually indisputable evidence by juries and even judges when presented to identify an individual as having contact ...
by Jayson Hawkins
On April 20, 2022, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the formation of a Post-Conviction Justice Unit (“PCJU”) to review questionable convictions in Manhattan. The announcement included not only the parameters for filing a petition for review but also a clear statement of intention by the Manhattan ...
by Douglas Ankney
In consolidated cases presenting an issue of first impression, the Supreme Court of New Jersey announced the framework for determining the lawfulness of a warrantless protective sweep of a home where the arrest is made outside of the home.
In the first case, a superior court issued ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS” or “Court”) held that a federal court’s transportation order permitting a prisoner to seek out new evidence pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, which authorizes federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in ...
by Jayson Hawkins
According to reports in several media outlets, including the Washington Post, the FBI contracted in March 2022 with tech company Babel Street for 5,000 licenses to use Babel X software for searches of broad swaths of social media. The contract, reportedly worth $27 million dollars, could ...
by Dale Chappell
Federal law says that you have the “right” to appeal the denial of federal habeas corpus relief, but there’s a catch—only if the court says that you can. Congress limited the ability to appeal the denial of habeas relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine erred by instructing the jury that it could convict Willie Richard Minor of knowingly violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) without finding that he knew that his prior ...
Nobody Knows for Sure
by Casey J. Bastian
If you were asked to identify the exact number of acts that are considered a federal “crime” in the U.S., could you do it? The answer is almost certainly no. No one, not even the federal government itself, knows the answer. Shockingly, ...
by David M. Reutter
The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted the liberty of citizens worldwide when it was at its zenith in 2020. It continues to have ramifications, and its next assault may be upon your right to privacy if vaccine passports become the norm.
The initial government response to the ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated, on the basis of procedural reasonableness, the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico’s sentence imposed upon Jean C. Torres-Melendez because the District Court’s upward variance from the calculated advisory Guidelines range was based on ...
by Dale Chappell
In resolving a split among U.S. Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) held on June 21, 2022, that an attempted Hobbs Act robbery is not categorically a crime of violence to support a separate conviction for use of a firearm under federal ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
A just-unsealed government wiretap application from November 2021 shows that DEA agents in Ohio applied to force WhatsApp to provide metadata on seven users, and all the agency had to say was that “the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation ...
by Casey J. Bastian
In modern America, the idea of forensic “science” being infallible has nearly made it a form of religion to many. And our justice systems perpetuate the idea that “expert” witnesses use forensic “science” to “prove” a prosecutor’s criminal allegations. Law enforcement at all levels, including the ...
by David M. Reutter
The Court of Appeal of California, Fourth Appellate District, concluded that a trial court erred by excluding the defense’s only expert witness from testify in a civil commitment proceeding under the Sexually Violent Predator (“SVP”) Act, Welfare and Institutions Code § 6600, et seq., thereby denying ...
by Harold Hempstead
On April 8, 2022, the Court of Appeal of California, Fifth Appellate District, held that Assembly Bill No. 124 (2021-2022. Reg. Sess.) (Stats. 2021, ch. 695, §§ 5-6) (“AB-124”) applies retroactively to all judgments that were not yet final on the date that the law was passed, ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
In the first known public instance of such a warrant, a US District Court approved a warrant allowing the FBI to use a suspect’s face to unlock his secure messaging app in order to find evidence of a crime in his chat history.
The FBI was ...
by Harold Hempstead
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), does not bar a plaintiff who received a full, unconditional pardon from filing a § 1983 claim raising constitutional violations relating to their criminal conviction.
In 2008, Johnetta ...
by Harold Hempstead
In addressing an issue of first impression, the Supreme Court of Colorado en banc clarified its decision in People v. Brown, 322, P.3d 214 (Colo. 2014), by instructing that trial courts are not required to make explicit findings with respect to each and every one of ...
by David M. Reutter
The Court of Appeal of California, Sixth Appellate District, held that Assembly Bill No. 333, which changed the law on gang-related offenses, applies retroactively. The Court’s opinion reversed the judgments of convictions and remanded for new trials where the issue of guilt is bifurcated from the ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that police lacked reasonable suspicion of a window tint violation justifying a traffic stop in which a loaded handgun was recovered where police could see through the tinted rear windshield sufficiently to determine there was a single occupant attempting ...
by Dale Chappell
In a ruling that will likely change how petitioners in federal habeas corpus cases challenge “mistakes” in their cases, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) held that the term “mistake” in Rule 60(b)(1) includes judicial errors of law and that motions cognizable under that Rule ...
by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a plea agreement, as written, does not provide the basis for the Government to withdraw consent to a lesser included, but not indicted, offense where the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ...
by Richard Resch
The Supreme Court of New Jersey held that because detectives repeatedly contradicted and undermined the importance of the defendant’s Miranda rights prior to and during interrogation, the State failed to prove that the defendant voluntarily waived his Miranda rights and thus suppressed his statement.
A Bergen County ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
In an opinion issued on May 10, 2022, the Supreme Court of Connecticut ruled that defense counsel’s waiver of the defendant’s right to testify on the record in the defendant’s presence while the defendant remained silent constitutes a valid waiver of the defendant’s right to testify ...
by Harold Hempstead
The Supreme Court of Missouri en bancheld that “substantial evidence existed to support a castle doctrine instruction” and that Andrea S. Straughter was prejudiced by the Circuit Court’s failure to give said jury instruction.
On May 17, 2018, Straughter drove her acquaintance, Nicholas Ward, to the home ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impressions, the Supreme Court of Minnesota held that violation of a condition of pretrial release doesn’t constitute criminal activity, so police questioning of a passenger regarding his conditions of pretrial release during a traffic stop exceeds the permissible scope of the traffic ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee’s denial of Michael B. Johnson, II’s motion seeking a sentence reduction under § 404 of the First Step Act of 2018 (“FSA”) because the sentence imposed upon ...
by Jayson Hawkins
All the attention garnered by cops murdering unarmed Black men in America in recent years has led to widespread calls for “police reform,” a rather ambiguous term advocating changes in how police interact with communities of color and new policies to counteract decades of mass incarceration. Lost ...
by Keith Sanders
In April 2022, Joaquin Ciria was exonerated after being wrongfully convicted of killing Felix Bastarrica in 1991. The 61-year-old Ciria, who maintained his innocence from the beginning, became the first person exonerated by a new Innocence Commission under the aegis of now ex-San Francisco District Attorney, Chesa ...
by Casey J. Bastian
America is the world’s leader in rates of incarceration. This country consists of only 5% of the world’s total population, yet it houses about 25% of the world’s prisoners. As of 2021, there were actively more than 2.1 million people in jails and prisons in the ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 2022
published in Criminal Legal News
September, 2022, page 50
Canada: Techdirt reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”), a division of that country’s federal law enforcement akin to the FBI, used malware to spy on people’s personal communications. The report came after the RCMP admitted to doing so in the summer of 2022. The admission fits into ...
by Douglas Ankney
In 2021, 11 people in the U.S. were killed as punishment for their crimes. This was the fewest number of Americans in recent history to be subjected to state-sanctioned killing. And it was the seventh consecutive year that fewer than 30 people were executed in the name ...
by Jacob Barrett
The National Science Foundation (“NSF”) awarded University of Arkansas Professor James Lampinen, and a team of researchers, just under$670,000 to study the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy across a range of variables using virtual reality.
Professor Lampinen and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University ...
