by Anthony Accurso
The Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice recently announced grants of more than $145 million being awarded through various programs it helps to fund. These grants will cover initiatives centered on forensic science.
Notable inclusions from this total are:
• $78 million to state ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in 2018, which has been slowly changing the way courts interpret the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in our era of mobile technology — and impacting the day-to-day investigative efforts of police.
In Carpenter v. United States, ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of California announced an extension of its prior rule of when to allow application of an amended sentencing statute, such that it may be applied to a defendant’s sentence still under appeal even though that sentence resulted when his probation was revoked.
In November ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a district court clearly erred in assigning a defendant a three-level enhancement for attempting to export ammunition when he had purchased the ammunition but was yet to take further steps toward its export.
Rodolfo Rodriguez-Leos was ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of the State of Illinois reversed a defendant’s conviction because his attorney failed to stipulate his felon status at trial, and the jury was likely prejudiced by knowing his previous conviction was for murder.
Leslie Moore was pulled over in Joliet, Illinois, because he ...
by Anthony Accurso
Emojis on cellphones and other digital devices have advanced their popularity as a way to express emotion. It should be no surprise then that their ubiquity has brought them into court cases. However, the accepted meanings of the emojis has not caught up to their ubiquity. Enter ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts affirmed the suppression of evidence resulting from a patfrisk that was conducted after the defendant had exited his vehicle unprompted by police, and twice looked back into it during his encounter with officers.
Manuel Torres-Pagan (“Torres”) was pulled ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying a defendant’s motion to suppress on the basis that exigent circumstances did not exist solely because officers wanted to secure the defendant’s service weapon, absent the weapon’s proximate use to the crime ...
by Anthony Accurso
The Supreme Court of California held that a defendant with alleged knowledge of a crime cannot be prosecuted under Penal Code § 32 as an accessory after the fact to the crime for refusing to testify when presented with a valid subpoena.
In 2006, Starletta Partee allowed ...
by Anthony Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence because the district court failed to explain its reasoning for a 160 percent upward departure on remand where the original sentence involved only a 10 percent upward departure.
Jesse J. Ballard pleaded guilty to ...
