by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that “art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights prohibits the police from executing an anticipatory search warrant absent compliance or equivalent compliance with the future triggering event, regardless of whether the factual allegations in the warrant affidavit …

by Douglas Ankney

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the untruthful responses of Namrata Patnaik and Kartiki Parekh on visa applications could still be found by a jury to be fraud if the government relied on those responses when deciding to issue …

In a case of first impression, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that, where a defendant’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition was not decided on the merits and the Court afterward recalled the mandate dismissing the direct appeal and affirmed the conviction, a subsequent …

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted Scott Lewis Rendelman’s motion for authorization to file a successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion based on the holding of the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) in Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), that …

The Supreme Court of Minnesota clarified the standard for determining whether a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on self-defense and defense of others. Applying the clarified standard, the Court held that the district court erred by not providing the requested jury instructions and that the defendant is …

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 …

by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Court of Connecticut held that the principles set forth in State v. Dickson, 141 A.3d 810 (Conn. 2016), cert. denied, 582 U.S. 922 (2017), regarding eyewitness identification apply retroactively on collateral review. In doing so, the Court also ruled that the “watershed rule” …

by Douglas Ankney

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina erred when it failed to make the requisite particularized findings required under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) before imposing the three-level …

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, …

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 …