by Douglas Ankney
Division Five of the Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal granted Mohammad Mohammad’s petition for writ of habeas corpus and ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) to treat as void and repeal the California Code of Regulations (“Cal. Code Regs.”), title ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that the State must raise in the trial court a claim that a defendant lacks standing to contest the admission of seized evidence. If the State fails to raise the claim in the trial court, the State is foreclosed on appeal ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Utah Cold Case Coalition (“Coalition”) announced in November 2019 that it is building Intermountain Forensics — the first nonprofit forensics lab in the United States. The Coalition is headed by Salt Lake attorney Karra Porter and was formed in 2017 to spotlight the 1995 unsolved case ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that selling body armor doesn’t meet the definition for “the use of body armor” as defined in § 3B1.5 of the Sentencing Guidelines.
Ronald John Bankston III pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful possession and one ...
by Douglas Ankney
On rehearing en banc, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the conviction of Jesmene Lockhart because the magistrate judge’s failure to warn Lockhart that his guilty plea exposed him to sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (“ACCA”), ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Hawai’i agreed with a circuit court’s finding that a search warrant failed to satisfy the particularity requirement of article I, § 7 of the Hawai’i Constitution and vacated the judgment of the Intermediate Court of Appeals (“ICA”) that had reversed the decision of ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that when officers unlawfully issue an order commanding a suspect to exit a vehicle, any evidence obtained from the subsequent search should be suppressed.
Boston police received information from an unidentified informant that a green Volvo station wagon containing a ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Alaska announced that when a trial court forces a defendant to testify at his or her trial, it is a structural error not subject to harmless error analysis but always requires reversal.
Paino Manuel Alvarez-Perdomo was tried ...
by Douglas Ankney
On December 16, 2019, the Supreme Court of Colorado clarified and modified the analytical framework courts are to follow when conducting proportionality reviews of sentences in general and habitual offender sentences in particular.
Belinda May Wells-Yates was found guilty of second-degree burglary, theft, possession with intent to ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Hawai’i held that the restraint necessary to support a kidnapping conviction under Hawai’i Revised Statutes (“HRS”) § 707-720(1)(d) must be restraint that is “in excess of any restraint incidental to the infliction or intended infliction of bodily injury or subjection or intended subjection ...
