by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held on September 17, 2020, that the Supreme Court’s ruling adding a “knowing” element to a statute requires automatic dismissal of an indictment that lacked that element.
The case came before the Court after Omar Qazi was charged ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that defense counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) for failing to object to jury instructions that relieved the prosecution of its burden to prove that a defendant intended for his friend to kill someone in order ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the grant of habeas corpus relief on December 18, 2020, agreeing that the Arkansas Supreme Court wrongly denied a defendant’s right to represent himself at trial.
Elliott Finch repeatedly told the state trial court that he wanted ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where state prosecutors delayed retrying a defendant after his conviction was vacated, the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the State’s delay violated the speedy trial rules and vacated the murder conviction again.
After Nicholas Revish was convicted of second-degree murder and attempted murder ...
by Dale Chappell
Makers of the ground-breaking DNA analyzing program STRmix have announced an addition to that program that will allow more robust DNA searches and analysis in criminal cases.
It’s called DBLR (database likelihood ratios), and it’s used in conjunction with STRmix to calculate millions of DNA comparisons in ...
by Dale Chappell
The Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) denied for over a decade that it used facial recognition software. It even boldly said it never used facial recognition when responding to public records requests for data on facial recognition use. “We actually do not use facial recognition in the ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled on October 9, 2020, that the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming plainly erred by imposing a sexual material prohibition as a condition of defendant’s supervised release without analyzing or explaining how the condition would ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held on October 21, 2020, that there was no probable cause to search cellphones found on someone who was found in close proximity to drugs and guns found in a house where he was a guest.
This case of first impression came ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals held that a prosecutor’s repeated statements to a jury that a defendant wasn’t presumed innocent violated the Constitution’s Due Process Clause and granted habeas relief.
The case began in a California superior court in 2012, where Keith Ford stood trial for the ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that a district court’s “categorical” ban on using a witness’ recantation (and confession to the crime) as new evidence to show actual innocence was error and sent the case back for a hearing on whether that evidence ...
