by Douglas Ankney

In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of California clarified that proof of first-degree murder by means of poison requires the prosecution to show that the defendant deliberately gave the victim poison with the intent to kill the victim or to inflict injury likely to cause death.

Heather Rose Brown placed her sleeping five-day-old daughter, Dae-Lynn Rose, face down on the bed between her and Dae-Lynn’s father, Daylon Reed. While the three of them slept, Dae-Lynn stopped breathing. When Brown awoke and discovered her baby was warm but not breathing, she directed Reed to call 911. The 911 dispatcher instructed Brown in administering CPR until paramedics arrived. Unfortunately, Dae-Lynn was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

An autopsy report revealed that Dae-Lynn died from exposure to methamphetamine and heroin. Brown admitted that she and Reed smoked both heroin and methamphetamine but not in the same room as Dae-Lynn. However, she fed Dae-Lynn breast milk and baby formula shortly before she died.

Brown was prosecuted for first degree murder on the theory that Brown poisoned her newborn daughter by feeding her breast milk after smoking methamphetamine and heroin. The superior …

by Douglas Ankney

The continuous refrain of “police reform” touting “better training” and laws banning actions such as chokeholds seems to echo endlessly. In 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (“Act”), but it died in the Senate. However, even if the Act’s ban on chokeholds had become law, it would not have saved the life of Tyre Nichols.

Nichols was savagely beaten to death by Memphis police officers using every assault imaginable other than the chokehold. Amid the calls for “professionalizing the police” by raising the current 650 hours of training to match Finland’s 5,500 hours – or by requiring police officers to have a college degree – is Noah Smith. 

On his Substack, Smith admits that there are not “good causal studies on the impact of total hours of police training on police brutality” but argues there is some evidence suggesting particular subtypes of training are effective. Yet, one of those subtypes was the de-escalation training undergone by the officers who killed Nichols.

And while diversity in a police force is a politically correct move, it does little to prevent police brutality as shown by the …

by Douglas Ankney

The group “Voters for Oversight and Police Accountability” (VOPA) apparently amassed the 25,000 signatures needed in Austin, Texas, to have a referendum entitled “Austin Police Oversight Act” added to the ballot. But there was already an “Austin Police Oversight Act” on the ballot seeking to open police records to public access and to give the city’s office of police oversight an active role in the investigations of officer misconduct.

However, the VOPA version differed in two significant ways: (1) it was funded almost entirely by a police union – the Austin Police Association had contributed nearly every penny of the campaign’s $300,000 and (2) the VOPA version would keep particular misconduct records hidden from public eyes and give the board only a passive role in investigations.

Austin is not an outlier. In January 2023, a city councilor in Albuquerque, New Mexico, proposed abolishing the oversight board to replace it with a smaller, less powerful civilian panel. A state legislator told the Albuquerque Journal it was a “done deal.” Abigail Cerra, former chairperson of the Minneapolis Police Oversight Commission, acknowledged the importance of oversight groups as an important check on police authority: “Without any …

by Douglas Ankney 

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas held that the trial court erred when it prohibited William Rogers from presenting evidence to support his claim of self-defense and also when it refused to instruct the jury on self-defense.

Rogers was tried by jury on …

by Douglas Ankney

The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, ruled that assault with a firearm is not a violent felony for purposes of the state’s Three Strikes Law (Penal Code § 667); consequently, Rasheed Malcolm Jones was entitled to the amount of custody credits calculated …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Government’s inflammatory arguments in its sentencing memorandum and at the sentencing hearing implicitly breached the plea agreement because the sole effect of the arguments was to increase the defendant’s sentence beyond the low-end …

by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously held that courts maintain discretion to consider “hybrid motions,” i.e., motions filed pro se by defendants who are also represented by counsel, expressly overruling precedents that held to the contrary.

Garry Deyon Johnson was convicted of malice murder …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a District Court’s denial of a motion for compassionate release was an abuse of discretion where the District Court concluded that Lonnie Edward Malone’s numerous health conditions did not provide extraordinary and compelling reasons …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declined to enforce an appeal waiver where the defendant stood convicted and imprisoned for conduct that, due to developments in the law after he pleaded guilty, did not violate 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and was not …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found plain error where the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico based an upward variance from the Guidelines range on new information not already in the record at the time of sentencing.

…