by David M. Reutter
While a conversation on police brutality and misconduct can evolve into a heated debate, one thing no one argues about is whether or not it occurs, for there is general acceptance that it does. Scholars have produced literature that contributes to the conversation of whether financial ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Andrew Damarr Morris’ sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan failed to adequately explain its decision to impose consecutive sentences, and the sentence was substantively unreasonable because the ...
by Benjamin Tschirhart
The camera is the ultimate symbol of faithful and accurate recording in the public consciousness. Photographs and camera footage command overwhelming respect and deference from candid, everyday selfies all the way to court proceedings. “The camera doesn’t lie,” as the saying goes. Or so popular wisdom would ...
by Douglas Ankney
In June 2023, the Legal Aid Society made available to the public a new database with over 450,000 searchable records of New York Police Department (“NYPD”) and Department of Corrections (“DOC”) officers with the goal of shining a light on the actions of the NYPD and the ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit joined the First, Second, and Fourth Circuits in holding that when deciding motions filed by defendants seeking a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), U.S. District Courts may consider non-retroactive changes in post-sentencing decisional law affecting the applicable ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Assistant professor of Psychology at Northumbria University, Newcastle, Dr. Laura Farrugia, created the Forensic Interview Trace (“FIT”) as a way to record the content, components, and flow of a forensic interview. The app was developed by the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group and is being used by ...
by Richard Resch
The Court of Appeals of New York ruled that the defendant (1) moving from the driver’s seat to the passenger’s seat, (2) positioning upper torso toward driver’s seat, (3) pulling pants up upon exiting vehicle, and (4) appearing nervous when questioned by police were insufficient to establish ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Kansas held that Kansas law permits a defendant to file a motion to correct an illegal sentence in appellate court on direct appeal; the legal standard for remand on the motion is K.S.A. 2022 Supp. 21-6814(d); and the 2022 amendment to K.S.A. 6814 ...
by Casey J. Bastian
In September 2022, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (“USSC”) published its Compassionate Release Datafile (“Datafile”). The Datafile reported the statistics concerning motions for compassionate release filed between October 1, 2019, through March 31, 2022. In that 30-month period, 26,212 filed cases were reported to the USSC. A ...
by Douglas Ankney
Resolving a conflict among the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) held that a pending investigation or proceeding is not required for an offense to be “relat[ed] to the obstruction of justice” and considered “an aggravated felony” for the purposes of ...
By John & Nisha Whitehead
August 21, 2023
“Make no mistake about it … your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of California vacated Tyree Ferrell’s second degree murder conviction because his jury was instructed on a now invalid theory of felony-murder and the jury’s finding of an enhancement that he intentionally discharged a firearm that caused a death in committing his offense when coupled ...
by Douglas Ankney
Resolving a split among the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) held that “§ 2255(e)’s saving clause does not permit a prisoner asserting an intervening change in statutory interpretation to circumvent AEDPA’s restrictions on second or successive § 2255 motions by filing a ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
A new open access database called “Data for Defenders,” a project of MDefenders program at the University of Michigan Law School, is a valuable tool for defenders. The resources available in the database – including briefs, motions, and transcripts – will instantly broaden the tools for defenders ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Maryland (formerly known as the Court of Appeals of Maryland) held that the methodology of firearms identification presented to the trial court did not provide a reliable basis for the expert witness’ unqualified opinion that four bullets and one bullet fragment found at ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Court of Appeal of California, Sixth Appellate District, held that the Monterey County Superior Court plainly abused its discretion when it refused to recall the sentence of terminally ill prisoner Adnan Judeh Nijmeddin following the recommendation of the Health Care Services Director (“Director”) of the California ...
by Carlos DiFundo
Trial by jury is thought by some to be a pivotal part of democracy, yet it is disappearing. For example, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania have trial rates below 3%. Similarly, in the federal courts in 2018, some 2% went to trial while 90% pled out, and ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a District Court’s dismissal of Larone F. Elijah’s 28 U.S.C. § 2241 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (“habeas petition”) where the District Court characterized Elijah’s objections to the magistrate’s report and recommendation (“R&R”) as an attempt to ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the prosecution violated its Brady disclosure obligations by withholding multiple law enforcement reports from the defendant, even though most of the information within the reports was available to the defendant from other sources, because the reports ...
by Matt Clarke
In a case of first impression, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas held that granting a motion for new trial based solely on the ground that the “verdict is contrary to the law and evidence” is a finding of legal insufficiency of the evidence so that a ...
by David M. Reutter
On July 7, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a precedential ruling, ordered a defendant to be resentenced after it found there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction for possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (“FAA”) Section 702 (codified as 50 U.S.C. § 1881A) exists to facilitate the capture of the communications of foreign actors as they pass through American facilities and hardware. However, in the process, the communications of American citizens are being captured ...
by Douglas Ankney
In deepening an already wide Circuit split, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit announced that the Court cannot defer to Application Note 1 to U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) § 4B1.2(b) because the Guideline is unambiguous and does not include inchoate offenses for purposes of career ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s denial of Darryl E. Coleman’s motion for a sentence reduction under § 404(b) of the First Step Act of 2018 (“FSA”) because the District Court’s failure to expressly ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
New techniques using artificial intelligence to analyze voices fall short of meeting the standard for court admissibility, but that hasn’t stopped police from coercing plea deals out of defendants while claiming the “evidence” against them is sound.
For over a 100 years, the ability to identify ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Oregon clarified the procedure, flowing from its previous doctrine on cellphone searches, for reviewing search conditions for reasonableness and announced the framework for suppression where a warrant contains both constitutional and unconstitutional search categories.
Detective Opitz of the Beaverton Police Department obtained ...
Loaded on
Oct. 1, 2023
published in Criminal Legal News
October, 2023, page 50
Arizona: According to information attained by Hatewatch, the leader of the extremist Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association emailed a video regarding an investigation into his son which could potentially cause the father to be prosecuted. Richard Mack sent a video of his son’s alleged child abuse to Pinal County ...
