by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania clarified the standard for admission of evidence of a third person’s crimes, wrongs, or other acts (“third person guilt”) offered by a criminal defendant seeking to raise reasonable doubt that he was not the perpetrator of the crime charged.

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by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the First Step Act’s (“FSA”) amendments to 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) are inapplicable to defendants who were sentenced on or before the enactment date of the FSA even when a defendant’s sentence is later …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Oregon’s Unauthorized Use of a Weapon, Or. Rev. Stat. § 166.220(1)(a) (“UUW”) was improperly assimilated under the Assimilative Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 13(a) (“ACA”) in the prosecution of Dat Quoc Do.

Do …

by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Court of Arizona held that when a defendant’s due process right to present a complete defense conflicts with a victim’s state constitutional or statutory rights governing privileged mental health records, the victim may be compelled to produce such documents for in-camera review if …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded defense counsel was ineffective when he failed to object to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s reliance upon the wrong provision of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines when imposing the sentence.

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by Douglas Ankney

In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a trial court’s failure to sentence an eligible offender pursuant to the Recidivism Risk Reduction Act, 61 Pa.C.S. §§ 4501-4512 (“RRRI Act”) implicated sentencing illegality and further held that a single prior …

by Douglas Ankney

In 1987, in Williamson County, Texas, 32-year-old Michael Morton was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his 31-year-old wife, Christine. The young mother of a three-year-old son had been bludgeoned to death in their bed.

Decades later, Morton’s attorneys would discover that district …

by Douglas Ankney

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“TCCA”) reversed Jesse Adrian Martinez’s conviction after determining that the Court of Appeals (“COA”) misapplied the factors of Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975) (announcing four-factor test to determine whether a confession is sufficiently attenuated from illegal …

by Douglas Ankney

On April 8, 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper announced the formation of the North Carolina Juvenile Sentence Review Board (“Review Board”). Governor Cooper referenced well-known facts, saying “[d]evelopments in science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For those who have …

by Doug Ankney

The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, held that Penal Code § 3051, subd. (h) violates the equal protection rights of Andre Lamont Woods. (All statutory references are to the California Penal Code.)

Woods was convicted by a jury of numerous offenses, …