by Benjamin Tschirhart
A medieval system: historical and modern coroners and death investigations
If there is one thing which most sets us apart as humans, it must be our answer to death. We are not the only creatures who mourn our dead, but we are among the only ones who ...
by Anthony W Accurso
THe Supreme Court of Wisconsin held that the information upon which an officer relied to conduct an investigatory stop was insufficiently particularized to constitute reasonable suspicion because it consisted only a vehicle’s make – a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
On a Saturday night in April, a sheriff’s deputy ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit joined four of its sister Circuits in holding that U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) does not apply in cases where the firearm in question never had a serial number.
A Houston Police Department officer conducted a traffic stop ...
by Benjamin Tschirhart
There were more police killings last year than any year before. Also, we’ve never had it so good. Different sources are claiming both of these things. Obviously, they can’t both be true. Or can they? The only certain (and least satisfying) answer seems to be this: the ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Over 50 years ago, fear of crime was even then associated in the minds of governing bodies with Black and brown communities. An effort to combat crime based on that fear spurred the creation of software that has since grown to become the predictive policing systems ...
By Eike Blohm, MD
The militarization of American police is based on decades-old flawed pseudoscientific studies. The consequences are the deaths of unarmed civilians like Tyre Nichols.
In 1989, a pivotal study entitled “Killed in the Line of Duty” was published and circulated widely among law enforcement professionals. It even ...
by Matthew Thomas Clarke
The Supreme Court of Ohio held termination of nonresidential community control (“NCC”) is a “final discharge” within the meaning of R.C. 2953.32, permitting eligibility to apply to seal the record of a conviction three years after a felon receives final discharge even if some of the ...
by Mark Wilson
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated a Minnesota man’s 12-month supervised release revocation sanction, finding that the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota improperly forced him to choose between inadequate counsel and no counsel during revocation proceedings.
Phillip Ivers was convicted ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated Jadnel Flores-Nater’s 30-year prison sentence containing a 20-year upward variance because the District Court failed to provide the required case-specific rationale to justify an upward variance of that magnitude.
On June 8, 2018, Flores-Nater together with four ...
by Richard Resch
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Idaho held that police conducted a warrantless search of a vehicle when a drug-detection dog trespassed against personal property by placing his paws on the exterior of the vehicle and performed a free-air sniff in order to ...
by Richard Resch
The Supreme Court of Vermont held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy under the state Constitution in their real-time cell site location information (“CSLI”), and obtaining this information by police requires a warrant, unless a recognized exception to the warrant requirement applies.
On December 28, ...
by Harold Hempstead
The Supreme Court of Georgia granted John A. Esposito’s application for discretionary appeal to answer in the affirmative the question of whether trial courts are bound to follow precedents of the Court of Appeals that have not been overturned.
On June 11, 2022, the trial court issued ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
The history of canine use in modern day policing began in the 1950s and ‘60s as a response to the “Negro problem” and has been used as a tool to “civilize the savagery of urban orders,” according to civil rights advocates of that time.
Societies began ...
by Dale Chappell
If you’re filing for post-convictionrelief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, getting the court to grant an evidentiary hearing is a big step toward getting that relief. Successful § 2255 motions are often based on claims asserting facts that are not in the record. Indeed, the primary purpose ...
by Ed Lyon
The U.S. has been involved in Middle Eastern wars since 1990’s Operation Desert Storm until the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Biden in 2020. Consequently, there are around 19 million veterans in the country today, many of them with combat experience, and many of those suffering ...
by Benjamin Tschirhart and Richard Resch
The tragic shootings of Black people by white police officers are a catalyst for national outrage. They are regular grist for the media mill across the country and rightly receive the attention of the public when they occur, as they do all too frequently. ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The State of Arizona’s Attorney General, together with the Phoenix Field Office of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, has collected more than 145 million records of private financial transactions — and that number is likely still growing. The transactions were collected from companies ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Through a series of public records requests to the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, Unicorn Riot (a non-profit, media-based organization of journalists) has obtained rare insight into how the police department responsible for George Floyd’s death uses technology to spy on its citizens. In all, they gathered ...
by Mark Wilson
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana committed plain error in accepting a guilty plea without ensuring that the defendant understood the nature of the charged drug conspiracy offense and that there was ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Court of Appeal of California, Sixth Appellate District, held that the trial court erred by denying recall of a prisoner’s sentence on the erroneous premise that Senate Bill 1393 (“SB 1393”) does not apply to cases already final on appeal, and the Court further held that ...
by Trevor Aaronson
The young woman with long pink hair claimed to be from Washington state. One day during the summer of 2020, she walked into the Chinook Center, a community space for left-wing activists in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and offered to volunteer.
“She dressed in a way that was ...
by Mark Wilson
The Supreme Court of Hawaii held that a trial court plainly erred in failing to instruct the jury that the “restraint” necessary for a kidnapping conviction is “restraint in excess of any restraint incidental to the infliction or intended infliction of bodily injury or subjection or intended ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Ohio clarified the meaning of “outcome determinative” in the context of a motion filed pursuant to R.C. 2953.73, seeking postconviction DNA testing.
Guy Billy Lee Scott was convicted by jury in 1992 for the assault, rape, and murder of Lesa Buckley and sentenced ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that when deciding a motion for a sentence reduction under § 404 of the First Step Act (“FSA”), a District Court must demonstrate it considered every nonfrivolous argument raised by the defendant.
In 2005, Jamell Newbern pleaded ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma erred by sentencing the defendant to the statutory maximum for violating the terms of his supervised release because the court based its decision, at least in ...
by Benjamin Tschirhart
There is an abundance of ways to become involved in the U.S. carceral state. Going in is very easy, but getting out, now, that’s a different story. In fact, for many people convicted of a crime, their involvement with the criminal justice system will be lifelong, even ...
by Jacob Barrett
Apparently “everything in Texas isbigger,” including the corruption and dirty tactics used by police and prosecutors to profit off cases compromised by police.
In 2019, the Houston Police Department was forced to dismiss dozens of criminal cases after it came to light they were tainted by Gerald ...
by Richard Resch
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of California announced the constitutional, ethical, and habeas procedural principles that govern postconviction proceedings in which a habeas petitioner claims that exculpatory evidence was available at the time of trial but suppressed by the government with the suppression ...
by Casey J. Bastian
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (“STOP”) released a review of smart devices entitled: “The Trojan House.” The revelations are concerning. If you like your privacy and don’t want strangers, hackers, and law enforcement surveilling you, especially in your home, “smart” devices are a dumb idea. Smart ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2023
published in Criminal Legal News
May, 2023, page 50
News in Brief
Alabama: It was announced by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 20, 2023, that a police officer in Madison was arrested, accused of sexual misconduct. AL.com and WHNT in northern Alabama reported that the officer, Kevin Walter, 35, was arrested on Feb. 8, 2023, and ...
by Anthony W Accurso
A California trial court held that a geofencewarrant obtained by the San Francisco PD violated the Fourth Amendment and the recently enacted California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“CalECPA”), requiring future warrants to be more narrowly tailored.
People v. Dawes, Court No. 19002022, SW# 42739, involved ...
