Tom Buonomo is a certified drug treatment expert who has reviewed Amendment 2. He notes that the amendment fixed a couple of problems that were in the Amendment the last time around. Tom says, "This years version has some significant revisions which were aimed at eliminating the main reasons for voter disapproval. " Check it out at his Pinellas County Florida Counseling Resource.Source: http://buonomocounseling.com/blog/constitutional-amendment-no-2Fighting for you or a friend. Law Office of W.F. ''Casey'' Ebsary Jr 2102 W Cleveland St Tampa, Florida 33606 (813) 222-2220
Expert Speaks on Amendment 2
↧
↧
Dempsey on Punishment and Coherence
Michelle Madden Dempsey (Villanova University School of Law) has posted Punishment and Coherence (Filosofia e Questioni Pubbliche (Philosophy and Public Issues (New Series)), Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 43-56, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article presents a...
↧
Drugged Driving Rates Skyrocket
New data shows that the number of traffic deaths in which at least one driver tested positive for drugs has nearly doubled over the past decade. The findings are even more concerning when you consider that five states will soon be voting on whether or not they should legalize recreational marijuana. As you’re probably aware, recreational marijuana use is already legal in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C., and five more states are considering legalizing marijuana. Those states are Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada, but the new drugged driving findings may impact those votes. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there has been a significant upswing in the number of drivers who have tested positive for illegal drugs and prescription medications. According to the NHTSA, 21 percent of the 31,166 fatal crashes in the United States last year involved at least one driver who tested positive for drugs, up from…
↧
Justice for the littlest victims
Cameron Morrison was only 19 months old, but had suffered more catastrophic injuries than any person should ever ensure in an entire lifetime. Cameron's mother's boyfriend, Darnell Deangelo Dorsey, was babysitting Cameron and his half-brother while their mother was at the gym. When she returned home and found Cameron unconscious, Dorsey claimed that Cameron had "possibly choked on some food" and he had "shook and slapped the boy in an attempt to revive him." Cameron died after being taken off of life support a few days later as a result of a severe traumatic brain injury due to blunt force trauma. At the time of his death, Cameron's brain was so swollen there was "virtually no space between the brain and the skull." Scans also showed Cameron had 18 rib fractures in various stages of healing, a lacerated liver, subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, lung contusions, and hemorrhaging to his adrenal…
↧
DO THE CHARGES AGAINST YOU COMPLY WITH ILLINOIS LAW?
In order to charge you with DUI or another offense, the prosecution must prepare written charges against you. Under Illinois law, the charges called the indictment, must contain certain elements. If the indictment is missing an important element, the charges could in limited cases be dismissed. Illinois statute 725/5-111-3 requires the indictment to contain: 1) the name of the offense, 2) the statute violated, 3) the nature and elements of the offense, 4) the date and county where the offense occurred where possible, and 5) your name as the accused, if known. If the state does not know your name, they may use any name or description that would be reasonably certain to identify you. If the state seeks an enhanced sentence based on a prior conviction, the indictment must provide that information. The state must also notify you, either through the indictment or other writing before trial, of any fact that would allow the state to obtain a greater than maximum sentence. If…
↧
↧
Foundations and Empire
Atlanta public radio had a story on Jason Clark’s and my triumph in the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday. They reached out to neither Jason nor me, but to a “Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. This “Georgia First Amendment Foundation” was nowhere to be seen when Jason and the Client and I were actually litigating the unconstitutionality of Georgia’s insulting-a-bus-driver statute. They didn’t write the brief, they didn’t argue it, and they don’t know squat about it. I think it’s fair to say that Ms. Mannheimer didn’t even read the opinion before commenting: The problem is that it’s so over broad. Who decides who’s offended? Who decides who’s disruptive? Yes and no. It is overbroad, but the problem is not who decides who is offended or disruptive. The problem is that the statute forbade critical speech even if it was not disruptive (another statute…
↧
How Is Car Accident Fault Determined?
At the current time, 12 of the 50 United States offer some form of no-fault auto insurance. Unfortunately for Las Vegas residents, Nevada is not one of them. Instead, it joins the rest of the pack in subscribing to the so-called fault system of assigning liability for a car accident. This means that the person responsible for having caused the automobile accident is also legally bound to compensate any victims for injuries and damages sustained. That’s why it is crucial to correctly identify the guilty party, and that may not always be easy and why you need a personal injury attorney on your side. The Facts of the Car Accident Following any car accident, determining blame will become much easier if the parties involved succeed in gathering every piece of evidence they possibly can. This will consist of such elements as: Police reports. Whether law enforcement has attended the scene of your accident or you’ve reported it in person at your local precinct, be sure to…
↧
2 Jacksonville Men Arrested On Meth Trafficking Charges
Two men were arrested Saturday night on charges of trafficking in methamphetamine, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. The men, 35 and 38, are also charged with possession of paraphernalia for the manufacturing or delivery of drugs. According to an arrest report, one of the men was pulled over just before 7 p.m. Saturday for driving his mother’s car without the lights on. Police allege he also had a suspended license. A narcotics K-9 was brought in. Police claim they found methamphetamine, a large number of prescription pills and two guns inside the car. One of the men also faces charges of carrying a concealed firearm. Both men were booked into the Duval County Jail. The state of Florida has taken a tough stance in regards to the growing number of methamphetamine trafficking cases. Prosecutors and law enforcement officials takes these crimes very seriously and will stop at nothing to obtain a conviction. If you have been arrested and charged with…
↧
GA: Being handcuffed did not preclude her from having consented to a breath test
Defendant’s being handcuffed did not preclude her from having consented to a breath test. State v. Young, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 615 (Nov. 2, 2016). Defendant’s stop was for speeding, and that’s not contested. The officer “testified that he found … Continue reading →
↧
↧
Larceny charges in Massachusetts – What you need to know
Larceny is the unlawful taking of another person’s property without their consent. For petty larceny of items valued at under $250, the offender will face a misdemeanor charge with up to one year in jail and fines of up to $300. Grand larceny, also known as grand theft, is a felony offense in Massachusetts. A charge of grand larceny could land you in state prison for up to five years, with fines of up to $25,000. If you’ve been charged with larceny, contact a Boston criminal defense lawyer today. Larceny charges are serious. But the good news is, if you’ve been accused of larceny, a Boston criminal defense attorney with extensive experience fighting larceny cases may help you walk away with reduced charges, or no charges at all. It is up to the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that your actions met all the elements required to be considered larceny. The elements of larceny are: Unlawful taking and carrying away of another person’s…
↧
Gershowitz on Consolidating Local Criminal Justice
Adam M. Gershowitz (William & Mary Law School) has posted Consolidating Local Criminal Justice: Should Prosecutors Control the Jails? (Wake Forest Law Review, Vol. 51, 2016) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Most observers agree that prosecutors hold too much...
↧
FL1: Law of the case doesn’t preclude state from another bite overcoming suppression when there’s a change in law
On remand post-Heien, the law of the case didn’t bar the state from approaching the suppression issue from a different tack because of a change in the law. State v. Thomas, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 16235 (Fla. 1st DCA Nov. … Continue reading →
↧
The Girlfriend, the Mobile Phone and the “Spying Application”
This post examines an opinion from the Court of Appeals ofWashington: State v. Novick, 2016 WL 6216209 (2016). The court begins the opinion by explaining that “David Novick appeals his convictions for eight counts of first degree computer trespass and eight counts of recording private communications after he installed a spying application on his girlfriend's mobile phone.” State v. Novick, supra. The opinion goes on to explain that David Novick and Lisa Maunu began dating in December 2013. At the beginning of their relationship, Maunu used an old mobile phone. When Maunu's phone started to malfunction, Novick bought her a new mobile phone on March 11, 2014, and set it up for her.Unbeknownst to Maunu, Novick had installed an application called Mobile Spy on Maunu's new phone. The application allowed a person to log onto the Mobile Spy website and monitor the phone on which the application was installed. From the Mobile Spy website, a user…
↧
↧
News Scan
OH Execution Law Upheld: A Cincinnati appeals court dismissed challenges to an Ohio law Wednesday that shields the identities of individuals involved in the execution process as well as the pharmacies that manufacture lethal injection drugs. Jim Provance of the Toledo Blade reports that the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, upheld a lower court's ruling which dismissed claims made by several death row inmates, who argued that being denied information regarding the execution process under House Bill 663 is harmful and violates their free-speech and public record rights. The appeals court determined that "[w]hile a deficient execution is a very serious matter, the existence of deficiencies in this case is only conjectural or hypothetical and is therefore not imminent for [legal standing] purposes." The state's last execution was of Dennis McGuire in January 2014, who was put to death using a two-drug process that…
↧
An EMP Solution to the Email Issue
For those who, like Bernie Sanders, are sick of hearing about Hillary Clinton's emails, the Onion reports that her campaign has come up with a solution:NEW YORK--In an effort to prepare for any new revelations that might emerge about her emails during her tenure as secretary of state, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told her staff Tuesday to ready the launch of several electromagnetic pulses to disable all of the nation's electronic devices. "If there are additional leaks, I'm going to need you to head directly to the command center in the basement of our headquarters, input your security authorization, and turn the EMP launch key," said Clinton to her top advisors, explaining that detonating the missile-mounted thermonuclear warheads in the mid-stratosphere above Kansas, New York, and Los Angeles would immediately wipe out all electronic communications within the continental United States and much of Canada. "Every hard…
↧
18 U.S.C. SECTION 1001, FALSE MATERIAL STATEMENTS.
18 U.S.C. SECTION 1001, FALSE MATERIAL STATEMENTS.Posted by: Edmund R. Folsom, Esq. November 3, 2016 [W]hoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully…makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation…shall be…imprisoned not more than 5 years. Title 18 United States Code, Section 1001.The above quoted language from the United States Code makes it a federal felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, to knowingly and on purpose make any materially false statement to a federal agent performing his or her duties. A statement may be “materially false” even if it doesn’t actually influence anyone. To be “material” the statement needs only to have a natural tendency to influence, or be capable of influencing, the decision of the decision-making body at issue. United States v.…
↧
What Our Courts Were Up to the Last Time the Cubs Won the World Series
I’m a big baseball fan. (A Pittsburgh Pirates fan, if you’re wondering.) And so of course I stayed up late last night to watch what turned out to be a thrilling end to an historic World Series. I hate to spoil things for those of you who get all your news—legal and otherwise—from this blog, but the Cubs won. It was, as many of you know, the Cubs’ first championship since 1908. That long title drought prompted lots of stories about what was going on the last time the Cubs could call themselves champs—like, Taft was elected president (by men alone, because women wouldn’t be allowed to vote for more than a decade). And there were only 46 states. And radio hadn’t yet been invented. As it happens, right outside my office is a hallway alcove that includes a set of the North Carolina Reports back to 1907. (Lesser known fact: the Cubs won that year, too.) So there it was: the assembled jurisprudence of our state high court since the North…
↧
↧
GA: Police entry onto the curtilage to look into the car windows for a plain view was unreasonable
Police entry onto the curtilage to look into the car windows for a plain view was unreasonable. State v. Vickers, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 610 (Nov. 1, 2016). While there may have been some remedy to the defendant Kentucky Open … Continue reading →
↧
Robinson on Democratizing Criminal Law
Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School) has posted Democratizing Criminal Law: Feasibility, Utility, and the Challenge of Social Change on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The notion of “democratizing criminal law” has an initial appeal because, after all,...
↧
Leaving The Scene Trial – Not Guilty
On St. Patrick’s Day of 2016 QN, a 20 year old laborer from Melrose, went into Cambridge with a friend to celebrate. The friend picked QN up at QN’s house and drove to the T station at Oak Grove in Melrose. The two men took the T into Boston and Cambridge and went to a club (that allows persons under 21 in). While waiting at a T stop to change from the orange line to the red line QN took a selfie of himself and the other fellow. In the selfie QN is wearing a bright Kelly green shirt and has a full beard. After the men were at the club for several hours they left and returned via the T to the Oak Grove Station in Melrose. They got in the other fellows car and they went to Kelly’s in Saugus and ate and then the other fellow drove to QN’s house. QN got out of the car and ran into his house to get the keys to his own car which had been parked on the street. Melrose has an ordinance banning overnight parking on the street. It was now about 1:15 AM. QN moved…
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
