It may seem nothing more than a stamp and a signature, but those responsible for notarizing documents must follow strict rules for using their notary seal as unlawful or improper use is punishable by law. Notary public A notary or notary public is a person who is licensed and commissioned to sign and seal official […] The post Unlawful Use of a Notary Seal appeared first on Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorney.
Unlawful Use of a Notary Seal
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LAPD Officers Charged in DUI Cover-Up
Usually when I write about officers falsifying DUI police reports, it’s because they’ve done so to create non-existent evidence to justify a DUI arrest and help secure a wrongful conviction. So when I see a story of officers falsifying evidence to hide a DUI, I take notice. According to the Los Angeles Times, two LAPD officers have been charged with attempting to cover up a DUI-related collision by driving the drunk driver home and falsifying the police report. Officers Rene Ponce and Irene Gomez were patrolling a neighborhood in Boyle Heights, California on October 26, 2014, when they responded to a crash involving a drunk driver. According to prosecutors, the drunk driver had collided into two parked cars. Prior to Ponce and Gomez’s arrival, a neighbor was awakened by the sound of the collision and observed the man who crashed into his neighbors’ vehicles attempt to flee the scene. The neighbor, Larry Chavez, 63, and two other neighbors gave chase and…
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NYT: The Undeserving Donald Trump
As promised, the New York Times editorial board today released its opinion on why Donald Trump doesn't deserve to be President. The ending is the best part. It sums up the qualities Trump exudes: ....bluster, savage mockery of those who... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Massachusetts Judges Must Now Consider “Ability to Pay” When Imposing Restitution
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. Henry imposed clearer defendant-friendly safeguards on judges when imposing restitution in a criminal matter. Additionally, the SJC also held that, in cases of theft from retail stores, the amount of actual restitution is the “replacement value” of the stolen goods; unless the government proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the stolen goods would have been sold, in which case the “retail sales value” should be the amount of restitution. It had been the longstanding practice to impose restitution in cases regardless of whether or not the defendant was employed or had any ability to pay it. Oftentimes, the defendant, by that time placed on probation, would be brought back before a judge on a probation violation hearing because he wasn’t able to pay per the court order. Way too often, the defendant had either his probation extended so he…
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How Common Is a Double-Digit, Single-Year Jump in the Murder Rate?
As Bill noted earlier, today's FBI statistics report, Crime in the United States -- 2015, reports an 11% increase in the number of murders. The murder rate (murders per 100,000 population), rose a slightly lower but still horrific 10%. See Table 1A.How unusual is this? I dove into the historical data to find out. The Bureau of Justice Statistics online data gives us murder rates back to 1960. The rates range from 4.4 to 10.2 murders per 100k and are expressed to only one decimal place, so there is some rounding error, but they are good enough for a quick take.Putting the rates in a spreadsheet and calculating the percent change for each year over the previous year, we see that only twice in over a half century has the rate jumped double digits in one year and once just a tad below that threshold. Those three years were 1966-1968, when crime was rising at a horrific rate.We have never had a double-digit drop, but several years come…
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How Minnesota’s DWI/DUI Laws Unfairly Target Drivers with Valid Prescriptions
Just when you think you have heard it all about DWI law-related topics, a story arises that makes everyone a bit concerned. Pursuant to Minnesota Statute, Sec. 169A.20, Subd. 1, it is illegal for an individual to drive a motor vehicle with any Schedule I or Schedule II controlled substance or a metabolite in his/her […] The post How Minnesota’s DWI/DUI Laws Unfairly Target Drivers with Valid Prescriptions appeared first on Minneapolis DWI Lawyer Douglas T. Kans.
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World-Wide Pariahs
In this post, I’m going to talk a little bit about sex offenders. I’m not going to ask you to like them. I’m not going to ask you to feel sorry for them. You can continue to think of them as the vilest forms of human beings on the face of this earth. But you might want to know what “sex offender” actually means, and maybe realize that by doing much of what we do with sex offenders, we actually create the potential for more crimes, and more victims—not necessarily just of sex crimes—by what we do. And now our federal government is trying to enhance the harm to everyone—sex offender, and non-sex-offender, alike. Just today, I was going to get myself some lunch, when I passed a homeless man who looked familiar to me. Shortly after I passed him, he also realized that he recognized me, as he apparently turned around, and entered the food place in which I was about to order. Now, I’m not going to go into any identifiable details,…
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Buell on Business Crimes and Punishment
Samuel W. Buell (Duke University School of Law) has posted Capital Offenses: Business Crime and Punishment in America's Corporate Age (W.W. Norton & Co. (2016)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Capital Offenses is a book-length treatment of the phenomenon...
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The Candidates Debate - Live Thread
Update: The audience has had enough. They are laughing at Trump and cheering Hillary. She even got his sexism in. What a dismal performance by Trump, even worse than I expected. He even blew his attempt to criticize her stamina. No closing... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Woods on Assessing Time Served
Patrick Arthur Woods has posted Assessing Time Served (Cardozo Public Law, Policy and Ethics Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article examines the utility of a new way of determining when increased punishment...
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Tecate Beer Wall Ad Debuts on Debate Night
It's gonna be huuuuge. Great timing for the Tecate beer wall ad mocking Donald Trump's border wall. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Sex Offenders International
It would have taken enormous courage to say no because it was a shockingly awful idea that played well to the simplistic and ignorant. President Obama lacked that courage. Perhaps he’s too busy with his lame duck session. Perhaps he feared that a courageous move would have affected the chances of the Democratic candidate for president. Perhaps his talk of reform was just talk, and he’s every bit as good with bad criminal law policy as everyone else. No matter. He signed it. It’s now law. After months of hype about the historic bipartisan consensus that we must make the American criminal justice system less harsh, President Obama finally signed a justice reform bill into law Monday. There’s only one problem: Instead of making the justice system more fair and less punitive, the new law will make it more vindictive and petty. Specifically, it will require people who have been convicted of sex crimes against minors to carry special passports in which…
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Harmon on Legal Control of the Police
Rachel Harmon (University of Virginia School of Law) has posted Legal Control of the Police (in 6 Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice 2898 (Gerben Bruinsma & David Weisburd eds., 2014)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This encyclopedia entry...
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House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly still eager to push for federal criminal justice reform
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Effects of Embezzlement Justification for Serious Penalties
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is an independent agency in federal judicial branch of government. Established by Congress in 1984, the Commission’s primary purpose is “to establish sentencing policies and practices for the federal courts, including guidelines prescribing the appropriate form and severity of punishment for offenders convicted of federal crimes.” One of those offenses is embezzlement which essentially targets theft from the government, such as the theft of funds or building materials from a construction site where a federal building is being constructed. Besides the theft of money and property, embezzlement can entail the theft of records or other things that have a specific value to the federal government. Embezzlement is consider a white collar offense that comes with especially harsh penalties at ether the federal or state level. While embezzlement is a form of theft, it is considered more serious than theft per se because…
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W.D.N.C.: Franks does include a right to a hearing without making a prima facie showing
Defendant doesn’t get an opportunity to test the truth of the affidavit under Franks in a hearing without making a prima facie case of materiality and wilful falsity. United States v. Payne, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127287 (W.D.N.C. Aug. 9, … Continue reading →
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Latest polling suggests Florida voters will approve medical marijuana constitutional amendment by needed super-majority this November
This local article from Florida, headlined "Poll: 73% of voters support medical marijuana ballot initiative," suggests that a needed super-majority of voters in the largest and most important state considering a medical marijuana initiative are supportive of reform. Here are the basics (with links from the original): The 2016 medical...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/Pjti9TRBeGU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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An Officer’s Reasonable Mistake of Law and Recent Court of Appeals Ruling
The United States Supreme Court in 2014 ruled in Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530 (affirming State v. Heien, 366 N.C. 271 (2012)), that an officer’s objectively reasonable mistake of law in making a stop or arrest is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in State v. Eldridge (September 20, 2016), that officer’s mistake of law when making a stop of a vehicle was not objectively reasonable based on the facts in that case. The Eldridge ruling is the subject of this post. Reasonable mistake of fact and reasonable mistake of law. Reasonable mistake of law and reasonable mistake of fact are two separate legal theories. The United States Supreme Court and North Carolina appellate courts have long recognized that an officer’s objectively reasonable mistake of fact when deciding to make an investigative stop or an arrest may still allow a court to determine that the investigative stop or arrest was reasonable…
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Staying Informed: Legislature Passes Bills Affecting California Criminal Laws
The California legislature passed over 700 bills during its most recent term. Governor Jerry Brown has until September 30, 2016 to decide which bills will be enacted into law. The Sacramento Bee published a great, in-depth article breaking down many of these bills, including those that will have an effect on criminal laws and criminal procedure. Here are some highlights: Senate Bill 1322 Prohibits Arresting or Charging People Under the Age of 18 for Prostitution. There appears to be a subtle change in how lawmakers view prostitution and the punishments that accompany partaking in this activity. Sponsors of the bill argue that minors engaging in prostitution should offered assistance via public services to extricate them from that environment rather than simply being arrested. The bill narrowly passed in the Legislature, so it is unclear whether Governor Brown will sign it into law. A related piece of legislation, Senate Bill 1129, removes mandatory minimum jail…
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HuffPo: Blog: Police Body Cameras Are OK, But How To Protect Innocent Prisoners?
HuffPo: Blog: Police Body Cameras Are OK, But How To Protect Innocent Prisoners? by Lorenzo Johnson: It’s time to think about what measures can be put in place to hold all law enforcement accountable.
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