by Anthony Accurso
On Election Night, November 3, 2020, Michigan voters approved a ballot measure amending the state constitution to add electronic data and communications to the category of items protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.
After all the wrangling over the Office of the President and control of Congress ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of Montana ruled that the district court abused its discretion and denied defendant a fair trial by allowing expert witness testimony on statistics about false reports of sexual abuse.
Philip Bryson Grimshaw was charged with sexual intercourse without consent, in violation of § 45-5-503, ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of Nevada held that the district court properly suppressed evidence that resulted from an inventory search because police failed to properly inventory the defendant’s bag.
Kimberly Marie Nye was arrested after refusing to leave a casino in Elko County. She was secured in a ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona failed in its gatekeeping function when it allowed an ICE agent to testify on the probability of a Mexican drug cartel using a coerced truck driver ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that subject matter expertise alone is insufficient to establish the purity of methamphetamines accurately to support a Guidelines enhancement.
Scott Carnell pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of meth under 21 U.S.C. ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of New Mexico consolidated two cases on appeal to clarify the meaning of the terms “uniformed law enforcement officer” and “appropriately marked law enforcement vehicle” under N.M. Stat. Ann. 1978, § 30-22-1.1(A) (2003).
Roy D. Montano and William Daniel Martinez both were charged with ...
by Anthony Accurso
Disturbing images were coming out of Portland, Oregon, where protesters were being arrested by camouflaged federal agents in unmarked vans and taken to undisclosed locations for “processing.” Lawmakers rightfully called this behavior reprehensible for its utter lack of transparency and similarity to tactics used by authoritarian dictators. ...
by Anthony Accurso
Twitter-oriented startup Dataminr markets itself as offering an AI-enabled tool designed to identify “threats” in real-time by scanning Twitter posts. Reporting by The Intercept shows, however, that humans are scanning Twitter feeds and creating “alerts” based largely on racial stereotypes.
Dataminr’s early backers included Twitter and the ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (“EFF”) Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass has posted a 25-minute video titled “How To Observe Police Surveillance at Protests.” In it, Maass explains the visible and non-visible tools deployed against protesters.
First and foremost, anything with a camera can be used by police ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of Mississippi held that a district court erred when it ordered a mistrial on all three counts of an indictment after the jury had returned an acquittal on two of the counts.
Johnathan Nickson was tried in mid-2018 on two counts of first-degree murder for killing Nedra Johnson and Bradley Adams and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
During the trial, the court instructed the jury that it could find Nickson guilty or not guilty on each count of first-degree murder, but if the jury found him not guilty, it must then consider whether he was guilty of second-degree murder.
The jury was sent out for deliberations and sent a note back that it was deadlocked. The court recalled the foreperson and instructed the jury to “return the verdict on whatever counts you’ve decided on and then come back.” The jury returned and advised that it had unanimously agreed to acquit Nickson for first-degree murder on counts one and two, but it remained deadlocked as to second-degree murder on those counts and the possession count.
The court impressed upon the jury the necessity of returning a verdict and ordered ...
