by Douglas Ankney
In March 2004, four commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, were bombed. Spain’s National Police recovered a blue plastic bag filled with detonators and traces of explosives. Forensic experts used the standard practice of fumigating the bag with vaporized superglue and staining it with fluorescent dye to reveal ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that when police secretly make a warrantless audiovisual recording of a suspect’s oral communication in violation of the state wiretap act, G.L.c. 272, § 99 P, the video footage must also be suppressed, not just the audio component, because the remedy ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, vacated the sentence of Santiago Gonzalo Canales and remanded for resentencing because the trial court imposed an enhanced sentence under a “One Strike” law, § 667.61, that was enacted after the alleged crimes occurred.
Canales was charged by amended ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Nevada reaffirmed that theft offenses and possessing or receiving stolen property offenses are mutually exclusive, and double jeopardy protections precluded a defendant’s convictions for both offenses where charges stem from the same conduct.
Background
In February 2022, the home of Gavin Filarsky and ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Maryland held that when there is “some evidence” in the record to support a requested jury instruction on an evidentiary inference, the trial court is required to exercise its discretion to determine whether to give the instruction, and if the trial court refuses ...
by Douglas Ankney and James Mills
According to a 2023 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, about 1.9 million people are imprisoned in America. More than 500,000 people are released from prison each year in addition to the more than 10 million who cycle through the nation’s jails. Most of ...
by Douglas Ankney
In consolidated appeals, the Court of Appeal of California, Fourth Appellate District, held that the evidence was insufficient to show that a robbery victim was moved a “substantial distance” to support kidnapping convictions and further held that the amendments to California Penal Code § 186.22 enacted by Assembly ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Minnesota affirmed a Court of Appeals (“COA”) decision holding that a defendant has no duty to retreat when claiming that he used reasonable force in defense of another under Minnesota Statutes § 609.06(1)(3). The Court then announced the ...
by Douglas Ankney
The illicit drug market is ever evolving, with new drugs (called “novel psychoactive substances” or “NPS”) steadily appearing to avoid detection and legal consequences. Between January 2018 and December 2023, NPS Discovery from the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education identified over 250 NPS in forensic ...
by Douglas Ankney
In Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the reality that the amount of data people keep on their cellphones is almost beyond measure. The Riley Court ruled that police must comply with the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement—both the “probable cause” and ...
