by Rick Anderson
It’s the ultimate crime-solving tool, enabling prosecutors to bring seemingly rock-solid charges against accused murderers and rapists while also using it to re-open and solve dust-collecting cold cases. Victims and their families consider it a godsend and television watchers marvel at its consistency in bringing happy endings ...
by Ed Lyon
Since 1976, arrests in New York that do not result in convictions are supposed to be sealed. Sealed meaning inaccessible through any background checks or public records, anywhere. This is meant to ensure that citizens acquitted of a charged offense will not endure any future hardship simply ...
by Matt Clarke
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the granting of habeas relief to an Arizona death row prisoner based on ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) at resentencing.
Michael Ray White was manipulated by a woman he was having an affair with into shooting her ...
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 Matt Clarke
The Supreme Court of Kansas held that a police officer unconstitutionally extended the traffic stop he had made for following too closely when he asked questions about the driver’s travel plans for four-and-a-half minutes before requesting warrant information and criminal history checks. This required the suppression of ...
by David Reutter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that an Indiana federal district court committed a procedural error in selecting a sentence based on a miscounting of the defendant’s prior felony conviction.
Before the Court was the appeal of Tyrone Miller. He was arrested after ...
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 Derek Gilna
The New Jersey Supreme Court has issued a report and order that could result in the invalidation of at least 20,667 drunk driving convictions in the state, after a state police officer was charged with criminal misconduct that cast serious doubt on the accuracy of blood-alcohol testing ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reached a decision in the Amherst lab scandal, where disgraced lab technician Sonja Farak tampered with and stole drugs from thousands of drug samples to be tested in criminal cases, by vacating and dismissing thousands of drug cases that were tied ...
by Derek Gilna
The testimony of county scientist Fessessework Guale, who was employed by the Harris County medical examiner’s office for 10 years, has been called into question by the very criminal justice offices who relied on that testimony to obtain convictions in criminal DWI prosecutions.
The Texas Forensic Science ...
Loaded on
Dec. 28, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
January, 2019, page 18
In Reyes, District Judge John Bates of the D.D.C. appears to have become the first Federal jurist to hold that some white-collar felons can lawfully possess firearms, notwithstanding the fact that they have been convicted of a crime “punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” While Federal law ...
by Dale Chappell
A prosecutor’s false statements in her closing argument in an attempt to corroborate a witness’ testimony was fatal to her case, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held, vacating the convictions for rape of a child and indecent assault and battery upon a child.
Angel Alvarez was ...
by Mark Wilson
The Supreme Court of Oregon held that expert testimony about “grooming” children for subsequent sexual abuse is “scientific” evidence that may not be admitted without a foundational showing of scientific validity under Or. Evid. Code 702.
Robert Lewis Henley’s 11-year-old stepdaughter, identified as M, accused him of ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit took the federal Bureau of Prisons to task for using its statutory authority to improperly prolong a prisoner’s sentence. The opinion vacated a district court opinion denying the prisoner habeas corpus relief and remanded for further proceedings. ...
by Ed Lyon
On August 16, 2018, a new era of transparency in Chicago police misconduct dawned. An updated version of a public database called the Citizens Police Data Project 2.0 (“CPDP”) makes available disciplinary records of Chicago police officers.
Similar to the nationwide Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database ...
10 million children will lose a parent to incarceration. Judges must consider individual cases, not be forced to unnecessarily separate families
by Kevin Ring, Opinion contributor, USA TODAY, published October 16, 2018
Three months into my federal prison sentence, my cellmate Santos saw that I was struggling. I couldn’t stop ...
by Matt Clarke
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated three of the four conditions of supervised release (“CSR”) challenged by a man who had been convicted of possessing child pornography.
Joseph Canfield pleaded guilty to possessing digital images of child pornography in Illinois federal court. He ...
Loaded on
Dec. 28, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
January, 2019, page 23
For decades, the citizens of Georgia were not able to see the laws governing them without paying a fee.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on October 19, 2018, that the state can no longer do this.
“For decades, Georgia ignored this reality. Rather than ...
by Steve Horn
A draft copy of an academic article set to be published in 2019 in the Vanderbilt Law Review calls for a novel approach to chipping away at the nagging issue of Brady violations that occur during criminal cases.
That paper, titled “Disclosing Prosecutorial Misconduct” by University of ...
by Kevin Bliss
California became the first state to completely do away with cash bail, making international headlines. The new system uses algorithms to weigh factors to determine a person’s risk assessment with preventive detention for more serious crimes. Critics are concerned that the algorithms are based on data from ...
by David Reutter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held a defendant was entitled to withdraw his guilty plea to a charge of illegally reentering the United States in light of the decision in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S.Ct. 1204 (2018), together with its own recent case ...
by David Reutter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that an undisclosed connection between an FBI agent and a judge entitled a death row prisoner to the grant of habeas corpus relief. The Court found there was a constitutionally intolerable risk of judicial bias.
Jose Echavarria ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where the defendant’s alibi was his only defense, the Supreme Court of Connecticut held that counsel’s failure to investigate a key witness who could have supported the defense and changed the outcome of the case constituted ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) and affirmed the ...
by Steve Horn
More than 100 civil rights organizations have signed a statement to denounce the use of pretrial bail risk assessment algorithm tools meant to determine conditions of bail and, in many cases, jail.
The 10-page document titled, “The Use of Pretrial ‘Risk Assessment’ Instruments: A Shared Statement of ...
by Kevin Bliss
The families of six of 11 victims raped and killed by convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell due to a botched 2008 rape accusation reached a settlement with the city of Cleveland. The loved ones of Nancy Cobbs, Telesia Fortson, Amelda Hunter, Le’Shanda Long, Diane Turner, and Janice ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Supreme Court of Minnesota ruled that Birchfield v. North Dakota, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state cannot use criminal sanctions to compel a DWI blood test absent a search warrant, applies retroactively to final convictions on collateral ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of South Carolina held that a state law requiring mandatory electronic monitoring of sex offenders must meet the “reasonableness” standard under the U.S. and South Carolina Constitutions, which requires an examination of the totality of the circumstances before such a condition may be imposed. ...
by Kevin Bliss
IBM and the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) collaborated on the development of the computer giant’s facial recognition technology, The Intercept has revealed. The program began in 2008 when IBM used the threat of possible terrorist activity post-9/11 to sell the program to the NYPD, and for ...
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 Dale Chappell
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that when a sex offender required to register requests to be reclassified at a lower risk level, or to terminate his obligation to register, the burden is on the Sex Offender Registry Board (“SORB”)—and not the offender—to prove he still ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Denver Post reported that it had found a cache of suppressed court cases in Colorado. More than 6,700 cases, mostly criminal (including some involving violent felonies), had been restricted from public access since 2013.
Many courthouse employees and law enforcement officials would not even acknowledge that ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(5), does not qualify as a crime of violence for purposes of a United States Sentencing Guidelines § 2K2.1 enhancement.
The ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled against a Martin County, Florida, deputy sheriff who seized an iPhone used by a bystander to take pictures and video of an accident scene. The opinion denied the deputy qualified immunity from suit over the illegal seizure ...
by Ed Lyon
Whenever most people hear about DNA testing in criminal cases, they invariably envision well-equipped, sterile labs like the ones depicted in television dramas such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or Bones. However, a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) that was finished in ...
by Dale Chappell
New Hampshire’s secret list of corrupt and problem cops just got worse. On April 30, Governor Chris Sununu and Attorney General Gordon MacDonald announced that individual cops won’t be placed on the list prior to an investigation into potential credibility problems is completed.
Meanwhile, officers are expected ...
by Steve Horn
A cardinal rule of defense lawyering – or any lawyering, for that matter – is to zealously advocate on behalf of your client. Yet in many states, incentive systems exist for criminal defense attorneys to do the opposite and collaborate directly with prosecutors.
These dynamics are spelled ...
by Christopher Zoukis
A report from The Guardian reveals that the United States government paid out more than $60 million over a 12-year period to settle claims of violence by Customs and Border Patrol (“CBP”) agents.
Adding in settlements related to employment and property claims raises the total to more ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, ruled that a statute granting prisoners who were convicted as youth offenders improved parole eligibility possibilities supersedes a different statute that requires prisoners convicted and sentenced for in-prison crimes to serve their new sentence consecutively. The June 6, ...
by Ed Lyon
Some of the lines to one of late country music singer Merle Haggard’s famous hit songs were about a “branded man, out in the cold.” He was lamenting that no one would hire him because he had done time in prison.
This is all too familiar a ...
by Dale Chappell
A woman in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to stealing $25 in merchandise in 2016. It cost her almost $600 to plead guilty. A man in Fairview Township, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to possession of a small amount of marijuana in 2017. It cost him $1,000 in fines ...
by Christopher Zoukis
The United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has taken a giant leap toward achieving its apparent goal of knowing everything about everyone: the development and launch of the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (“HART”) database. The database allows DHS to organize and correlate multiple biometric identifiers, including ...
by Ed Lyon
It is an unfortunate byproduct in the age of mass incarceration in the United States that there are a great many wrongful convictions. Despite its negative reputation in the criminal justice area, Texas has been slowly reversing this disturbing trend. Dallas County was among the very first ...
by Kevin Bliss
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has a list of 28 of the city’s police department officers whose cases her office will no longer accept, citing credibility issues. Already Gardner’s office has refused the prosecution of several cases, effectively preventing 2.5 percent of the police department’s workforce ...
by Ed Lyon
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Supposedly the “city of brotherly love.” The sentiment expressed in the moniker is apparently not shared, observed, or even practiced by some members of the city’s police department.
During an August 2012 traffic stop, police officer Cyrus Mann shot 28-year-old Hassan Pratt to death. This ...
by Kevin Bliss
Human rights watchdog organizations are alarmed over the new Speaker Identification Integrated Project (“SiiP”), a voice biometric database utilized by Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, for law enforcement purposes.
Created by Verint, a multinational biometrics company, SiiP is the result of a four-year project that marks ...
by Derek Gilna
Dr. Faye Skelton of Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, has published a report detailing the tendency of some individuals to confess to crimes they did not commit. She noted that research from the United States shows that, “over 25% of people later exonerated by DNA evidence made ...
Loaded on
Dec. 21, 2018
published in Criminal Legal News
January, 2019, page 42
Arkansas: Police officer Josh Hastings shot and killed 15-year-old burglary suspect Bobby Moore III in August 2012 while investigating car break-ins at an apartment complex. Although the now-former officer was criminally charged, two trials closed with hung juries. After that, a wrongful death lawsuit in which Moore’s family was awarded ...
