by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that police unlawfully prolonged a traffic stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment by repeatedly demanding that a passenger identify himself, absent reasonable suspicion that he committed a criminal offense, and he refused to do so.
In ...
by Richard Resch
Welcome to Criminal Legal News (“CLN”). We’ve been publishing CLN now for a little over a year, and the response has been tremendous. The number of people who’ve subscribed and provided positive feedback have exceeded our most optimistic projections when we first launched CLN. ...
by Richard Resch
Unreliable bitemark identification evidence used in criminal cases has led to 31 exonerations, forensicmag.com reports.
“The unsupported comparison of such bite marks left in human skin during rapes, murders and other violent attacks should be totally thrown out of forensic science,” says the magazine, citing a scholarly ...
by Richard Resch
The Supreme Court of Kansas held the warrantless search of defendant’s purse and wallet following a traffic accident violated her Fourth Amendment rights because the search wasn’t performed in accordance with an established departmental policy governing inventory searches and thus that exception to the warrant requirement is ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that police violated the Fourth Amendment by unreasonably seizing the home of a man whose wife died of an apparent overdose on prescription medication where police had no reason to suspect that the home contained evidence of ...
by Richard Resch
The Nevada Court of Appeals ruled that law enforcement officers cannot conduct a warrantless search of a bedroom inside a shared residence by obtaining the consent of a third party without first asking about the living arrangements within the residence. The specific question at issue had not ...
by Richard Resch
In its opinion issued on May 9, 2018, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a prisoner has a First Amendment right not to serve as a prison informant. However, since that right was not clearly established at the time the prisoner was ...
by Richard Resch
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a California prisoner convicted of murder is entitled to habeas relief because a detective continued to interrogate him even after he clearly and repeatedly invoked his right to counsel, and the detective’s persistent unlawful badgering eventually ...
by Richard Resch
On October 11, 2018, the Supreme Court of Washington issued an opinion in which the Court struck down the state’s death penalty, announcing: “we hold that Washington’s death penalty is unconstitutional, as administered, because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.” The Court continued ...
by Richard Resch
The Supreme Court of Idaho held that prosecution of the defendant under a state statute that imposes a duty on anyone who discovers or has custody of a body to promptly notify authorities, based on the facts of this case, would violate the defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege ...
