by Dale Chappell
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held in a collateral proceeding on January 2, 2019, that McQuiggin’s actual innocence exception applies to a legal claim that was procedurally defaulted, vacating a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) that carries a mandatory 30-year ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a search in connection with a traffic stop that was performed 40 minutes after consent was given, because there was no K-9 unit on scene so police made the motorist wait until its ...
by Dale Chappell
Green Island, New York, taxpayers will pay $375,000 to settle a federal lawsuit after police there beat a man so badly his leg had to be amputated when jail medical staff ignored his injury.
According to the lawsuit, Kevin Kavanaugh surrendered to police after a high-speed chase ...
by Dale Chappell
The FBI admitted that its hair-sample analysts were wrong 95 percent of the time when comparing hair samples in approximately 3,000 cases. This included 32 death penalty cases.
A 2012 study by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers found that analysts ...
by Dale Chappell
An antiquated Virginia law that allows courts to label someone a “habitual drunkard,” permitting police to throw someone in jail for simply being near alcohol, was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as constitutional, though not without criticism from the court, saying ...
by Dale Chappell
When Cook County, Illinois, Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans issued an administrative order in July 2017 telling judges they had to seriously consider whether someone could afford bail, things got better. A lot better. The number of individuals held in jail who couldn’t afford bail dropped by ...
by Dale Chappell
A GPS tracker illegally placed on a car by a Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (“MDENT”) agent was a “flagrant” constitutional violation that requires exclusion of the evidence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held.
Digging through Brian Terry’s trash, Charleston, West Virginia, ...
by Dale Chappell
The Government’s key expert’s false hair-comparison testimony that likely swayed a jury to convict was held to be “material” because it was the primary piece of evidence to contradict the defense theory of the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held, which ...
by Dale Chappell
A law enforcement expert on gangs testifying that a robbery committed by a lone gang member without any evidence tying the robbery to the gang was not enough to support the 19-year aggregate gang enhancement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held, reversing the ...
by Dale Chappell
Concluding that there is a difference between those in prison and those in pre-trial detention, the Supreme Court of New Jersey held that a six-month delay after a pre-trial detainee’s re-interrogation was not a “break in custody” to avoid the Miranda rights invoked at the initial interrogation. ...
