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, …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the issue of whether an accused person’s waiver of his Miranda rights was knowing and intelligent is a separate and distinct inquiry from the issue of whether the statement was voluntary.
Jeremy Outland …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement in U.S. Sentencing Guidelines § 1B1.13 is inapplicable to a prisoner’s own motion for compassionate release filed under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).
Francesk Shkambi filed a motion in …
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed a decision of the appellate court that ruled a motion to suppress inculpatory statements should have been granted where statements were given after police prolonged a traffic stop to investigate offenses unrelated to the purpose of the traffic stop.
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