by Anthony W. Accurso
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires that warrants be issued only “upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Minnesota ruled that the standard for probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle requires more than the mere odor of marijuana.
Adam Lloyd Torgerson was stopped by Litchfield Police on the evening of July 5, 2021, because his “vehicle’s ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Michigan held that Joshua Lamar-James Stewart’s age and his health, along with the timing of the police interrogation and the officers’ tactics that included promises of leniency, racial slurs, a combative tone, and misrepresentation of the evidence against Stewart rendered his statements involuntary ...
by Douglas Ankney
Protrusions that deviate from the boundaries of otherwise elliptical bloodstains—known as “tails”—may provide additional relevant crime-scene evidence, according to James Bird, scientist and co-author of a study appearing in the journal Physics of Fluids.
A group of scientists from Boston University and University of Utah demonstrated that ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of New Jersey held a lower court erred when it allowed an FBI agent to testify about cell site location information (“CSLI”) regarding defendant’s alleged location during the timeframe the charged offense occurred based on the agent’s personal “rule of thumb” approximation of ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Skydio, a popular drone manufacturer, released the new X10, whose main selling point is an infrared camera, which allows it to track people and fly autonomously in the dark.
The company began making hobby drones about a decade ago, selling them to athletes who wanted something ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of Missouri made permanent its grant of a temporary writ of prohibition and ordered dismissal of the charges pending against Steven Wishom after the Jefferson Circuit Court failed to bring Wishom to trial on those charges within the 180-day limitations period of the Interstate ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that a defendant who possessed the keys to a rental car that was rented by his girlfriend (who gave permission to him to possess the keys and operate the car) had a reasonable expectation of privacy ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
The New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) has spent millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money buying products from tech company Voyager Labs that claims it can analyze social media to track and even predict crimes. The NYPD’s 2018 contract with Voyager Labs, worth nearly $9 million, ...
by David M. Reutter
The New York Court of Appeals held a trial court erroneously applied New York’s Rape Shield Law to exclude forensic evidence proffered by the defendant to demonstrate that someone else caused the complainant’s injuries.
Sergio Cerda, who was 60 at the relevant time, was charged with ...
by David M. Reutter
False confessions are a problem as old as policing. The Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) promulgated rules in 1966 with its holding in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), that were designed to create a coercion-free interrogation room. SCOTUS rulings over the last ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a defendant’s revocation sentences were nullified after the underlying sentence of which they were a part was vacated.
Eddie Lipscomb was convicted in 2008 of being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The FBI’s effort to disable an army of zombie computers being used for cyber-crime is pretty mediagenic, but it is the latest step in the DOJ’s plan to render jurisdictional limits on law enforcement power obsolete.
For the last two decades or so, the internet has ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Ronald Rogers was denied effective assistance of counsel when his attorney sat silent after the trial judge admonished a prosecution witness that if he did not change his testimony to implicate Rogers, then the witness would ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
An October 2023 study from Iowa State University reveals a troubling trend among firearms experts reporting on cartridge-case comparisons. The authors of the study, Gary Wells and Andrew Smith, state that gun forensic examiners are improperly labeling mismatches as “inconclusive,” potentially concealing evidence that could convict ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that U.S. District Courts must either orally pronounce all discretionary conditions of supervised release, including those referred to as “standard” in U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) § 5D1.3(c), in the presence of the defendant at sentencing ...
by Carlos Difundo
By 2007, the incarceration rate in the U.S. had skyrocketed to about 767 per 100,000 people. That statistic leads the free world and compares unfavorably with Russia’s 450 to 600 per 100,000 people. Many people see the problem with incarcerating nearly 1% of the population at a ...
by Dale Chappell
When the remedy under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 cannot be used to correct a major defect that arises later on in a federal prisoner’s case, most federal courts have recognized the use of the “savings clause” to fix the problem. § 2255(e). But in order to use this remedy, ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
People have long looked to bodies of water as safe places to dispose of and forever hide evidence of their crimes. They believed that by tossing murder weapons or victims into the depths of rivers, lakes, and oceans, they could escape punishment. However, advancements in forensic ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
After months of debate, the Los Angeles City Council approved the donation of a $280,000 robotic police dog in late May of 2023 in a rowdy public meeting that saw disruptive protestors ejected and banners displayed that read “No Robot Dogs.”
The Boston Dynamics robotic canine ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Back on November 7, Ohio voters supported Issue 2, which legalized the sale, purchase and possession of cannabis for Ohioans 21 and older. However, it appeared on the ballot as an initiated statute, which means state lawmakers have the final say on what the recreational marijuana law ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
The Brennan Center for Justice, a civil rights non-profit law and public policy group, has learned that authorities in several Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) law enforcement agencies are using fake accounts on social media platforms to conduct investigations. Civil rights groups and some legislators criticize ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overruled the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia’s denial of a defendant’s suppression motion, ruling that police lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him based on the tip that he was acting suspiciously and ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
An ongoing investigation reveals that the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (“DEA”) involvement in domestic surveillance operations far exceeds its drug enforcement mandate.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Cato Institute in its litigation against the FBI and the Department of Justice show ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 19, 2023, the Harris County Texas Commissioners Court approved a $1.5 million settlement in Joshua Coucke’s case against Harris County, Texas. Coucke, 35, was an innocent bystander in his own home when he was shot five times by a Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputy. ...
by Douglas Ankney
The Supreme Court of New Mexico held that the holding of State v. Marquez, 376 P.3d 815 (N.M. 2016), wherein the Court ruled that “the crime of shooting at or from a motor vehicle may not serve as the predicate felony in support of a felony murder ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Police are increasingly looking to corporations for help solving crimes. Google is accustomed to providing lists of users who happened to be physically near a crime. In addition, it has provided the identities of people who had misfortune to search for certain keywords to law enforcement. ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed a defendant’s conviction in which his post-arrest silence was mentioned multiple times at trial, and it was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In doing so, the Court reiterated that there is a different harmless error standard for pre-arrest versus ...
by Douglas Ankney
Traditionally, police officers are taught to take control of a volatile encounter, ensuring the safety of all officers present by approaching an unstable situation with weapons drawn. The underlying message is: “Make sure that you and your partner go home safe tonight.”
De-escalation training, by contrast, teaches ...
by Douglas Ankney
According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, a company known as Near Intelligence purchases individuals’ private data from brokers who usually sell the data to advertisers, but Near Intelligence sells the data to government contractors who then pass the data along to federal military and ...
by Matt Clarke
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the policies and practices of Wayne County, Michigan, in pursuing the civil forfeiture of vehicles seized by police violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because prosecutors took months to decide whether to proceed with forfeiture ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Idaho overturned a district court’s denial of a defendant’s suppression motion, instructing on remand that the court determine whether the primary purpose for which the officers impounded the defendant’s vehicle was to conduct a search for contraband under the Court’s newly adopted ...
by Douglas Ankney
DNA, while remarkably resilient, may be degraded by exposure to ultraviolet radiation, extreme temperatures, humidity, and microbial activity. These exposures may result in “single-strand and double-strand breaks, depurination, deamination, and crosslinks.” Consequently, the DNA “becomes fragmented, diminishing its suitability for traditional forensic analysis methods that rely on ...
by Matt Clarke
The Supreme Court of Indiana held that civil forfeiture triggers the right to a jury trial.
As Alucious Kizer fled from a traffic stop, he discarded 74 grams of methamphetamine, 67 grams of fentanyl,12 grams of cocaine, and 10 grams of crack cocaine. Police recovered the drugs ...
by Douglas Ankney
The National Public Defense Workload Study (“Study”) examined the guidelines created by the National Advisory Committee in 1973 (“NAC Standards”) that determine the recommended number of cases annually that a public defender should handle. The Study was conducted by a team of attorneys and researchers from the ...
by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Court of Kentucky concluded a trial court abused its discretion by failing to find a juror had evinced “a reasonable ground to believe he or she will be partial.” The Court reversed the defendant’s conviction and remanded for a new trial.
Before the Court ...
by Douglas Ankney
Eyewitness identifications of possible perpetrators of crime are often unreliable. Scientific identifications by comparison of DNA profiles and fingerprint exemplars are, by far, more trustworthy. But coming soon may be identifications made by analysis of 3D-scanned footwear.
Analysis of footwear impressions left at crime scenes has long ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Cell-site simulators (“CSS”), also known by the brand name Stingray and more generically as IMSI Catchers, have permitted governments to spy on each other, hackers to install zero-click malware, and stalkers to track the location of their targets. They work by taking advantage of some of ...
by Matt Clarke
In the early 20th century, mass production of automobiles caused a fundamental shift in American culture. One aspect of the emergent Car Culture was an increased number of interactions between police and the public that was largely absent during the horse-and-buggy era. Many of the police interactions ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2024
published in Criminal Legal News
February, 2024, page 50
Arkansas: On November 15, 2023, Hot Spring County Sheriff Derek Scott Finkbeiner, 46, was indicted on obstruction of justice and concealing a crime. About two weeks before that, Finkbeiner was arrested by the FBI, according to an affidavit obtained by USA TODAY. The affidavit details that between April and May, ...
