Ars Technica: Here’s what a “digital Miranda warning” might look like by Cyrus Farivar: Smartphone owners need to know if—and when—they need to reveal their passcodes.
Ars Technica: Here’s what a “digital Miranda warning” might look like
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PA applies holds state constitution requires exclusionary rule apply to parole and probation revocation proceedings
PA applies holds state constitution requires exclusionary rule applies to parole and probation revocation proceedings. The court engages in a lengthy and sensitive analysis. Commonwealth v. Arter, 2016 Pa. LEXIS 2916 (Dec. 28, 2016): As we further explained in Edmunds, … Continue reading →
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"Clemency seeker to Obama: please don't forget us"
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Can My Doctor File a Medical Lien Against My Personal Injury Settlement?
Following a car accident, your first priority is seeking treatment for your injuries. As we all know, medical care is expensive, especially if you lack sufficient insurance. Even a simple accident can lead to thousands of dollars in unpaid bills. Additionally, Illinois hospitals are not shy about collecting on those bills, even if the injured victim has yet to receive any compensation from the parties responsible for his or her accident. Court Rules Hospital Did Not Have to Bill Victim's Insurer Illinois law permits all health care providers—hospitals, doctors, et cetera—to file a lien against “all claims and causes of action” held by an injured person who seeks treatment. In other words, if you are injured in a car accident, the hospital that treats you can legally claim part of any potential personal injury lawsuit that you file. The law limits such medical lien to “reasonable charges” for the care provided, which in no…
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Will Ohio get back in the business of state killing in 2017?
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Holland on Anticipatory Self-Defense and Bias
Brooks Holland (Gonzaga University School of Law) has posted Anticipatory Self-Defense Claims as a Lens for Reexamining Zealous Advocacy and Anti-Bias Disciplinary Norms (49 Texas Tech Law Review 1 (2016)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article examines aspects...
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INCOMING DISTRICT ATTORNEY MUST PROSECUTE CORRUPTION TO ACHIEVE REFORM
Newly-elected Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg was elected as a “reformer” with plans to clean up the local criminal justice system. Some of her stated goals are lofty indeed: Concentrate on the prosecution of violent offenders while diverting non-violent offenders away from incarceration. Treat people with respect. Make the community safer. Work to keep people in the work force. Change Harris County’s notoriously unfair and corrupt bail system. Kim Ogg Ready to Assume District Attorney’s Office with Priorities The former prosecutor and head of Houston’s crime stoppers program convincingly defeated Devon Anderson to capture the powerful District Attorney’s position in November. Ogg won the election with the campaign slogan that “it’s a new day for justice in Harris County.” She promised to accomplish this objective by creating two special divisions of prosecutors – one to go after gang…
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Owner Of Pennsylvania Medical Staffing Company Sentenced For Billing Medicaid for Services Not Provided, Provided by Others or Not Qualified to Provide Services
Medical staffing companies need to be careful when billing for services and for providers. One issue that arises is when a licensed provider is not available and the services are provided by a different person or someone who is not licensed yet. We have seen this with home health agencies as well. Companies must be very careful about controls on who performs services in staffing agencies. A recent staffing company case shows what can happen when there are shortcuts and false documentation. The case can go criminal.On December 21, 2016, Rose Umana, owner and operator of Vision Healthcare Services, Inc. (Vision) of Pennsylvania, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge Sylvia H. Rambo to 36 months in prison. Vision is a medical staffing company and home care services provider servicing several Pennsylvania counties and has been enrolled under Medicaid since 2006. This sentence was for making false statements relating to health care matters,…
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Assault and Battery on a Family Member in Massachusetts
In Commonwealth v. Jones, the appellate court considered a case in which the defendant was convicted of violating M.G.L. c. 265, § 13M, assault and battery on a family member. In 2015, the defendant and his wife were at home. The wife was using the husband’s cell phone to get some information for him, and she saw that he’d been texting with a woman. When she mentioned it to the husband, he got angry. They went to dinner for their anniversary and returned to their bedroom afterward. The husband lay down, but the wife watched television. She saw that the husband’s cell phone was receiving text messages and that it kept beeping. The text message said, “I made money.” She woke up her husband to ask about the text, and the defendant jumped up and grabbed her neck with his hands, squeezing. Later at trial, the wife testified that this was common for him—jumping out of bed and getting verbally abusive. She went to a dollar store nearby and…
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Starting A War On The Way Out The Door
When Bill Clinton’s staff left their desks for the final time, they’re reputed to have taken the “W”s off the keyboard. Childish, but funny. But childish. The agency put the cost at $13,000 to $14,000, including $4,850 to replace computer keyboards, many with damaged or missing W keys. Other “pranks” might sound more like what would be expected in this peaceful transition of power. Six White House employees told investigators that they had seen graffiti derogatory to Mr. Bush on the wall of a stall in a men’s room. Other White House employees saw a sticker in a filing cabinet that said, ”Jail to the thief,” implying that Mr. Bush had stolen the 2000 election. Vaguely familiar? But easily shrugged off. There was no bloodshed, just some hard feelings. The feelings are harder this cycle, and so too is the potential for harm. No one will ever know with certainty whether, and to what extent, Russian hacking influenced the 2016…
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COMMUNICATION
Where in the world was Rumpole on Thursday? If you said "The Constitution Cafe" located in the Ferguson Federal Courthouse (and there is no motto "abandon hope all ye who enter here" above the entrance- you just need the proper counsel) you would be correct. This is a story about communication. Or the lack thereof. The federal government can send a spacecraft to Mars which is approximately 249 million miles away. They can send messages to the spacecraft telling it to stop or turn or dig or tweet to president elect Trump.We've been to the moon. We saw Armstrong live as he stepped on the moon. Any grade school child can text, tweet, email, facebook, snap, or use any other method of communication on their $99 dollar cell phone to speak to anyone, or everyone, in the world. In short we live in the era of instantaneous digital communication. Some of it is truly miraculous. Doctors at John Hopkins can diagnose and treat a patient in…
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A possibly misidentified man is serving a 9-year Virginia robbery sentence
“I will never forget that face,” asserts the robbery victim. Hogwash! Violent crime victims repeatedly misidentify the perpetrator, as I illustrate in Underdog’s “Club Ah v. Club Blah” posting on my assault acquittal where the victim unlikely looked at my client’s face long and carefully enough to have been sure that my client was his assailant. Cross-racial identification exacerbates misidentification risks. Sadly, despite the case detective’s belief that the defendant had been truthful in denying any role in a Roanoke County, Virginia robbery, Deante Lamar Payne is serving a nine-year combined sentence for robbery (six years) and handgun use (mandatory consecutive three years). Payne v. Virginia, ___ Va. ___ (Dec. 29, 2016). Virginia’s Supreme Court this week affirmed Payne’s conviction despite the trial court’s refusal to provide the jury with more than a plain vanilla jury instruction about…
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Free Speech, ACLU Conditions Apply
ACLU lawyer Josh Block was having none of it. Eugene Volokh pondered the question of whether University of Oregon law professor Nancy Shurtz wearing blackface to a party was racist. This is mentioned not because of Eugene’s analysis or outcome, but because he deigned to ask the question. For this, Block attacked him because Eugene wasn’t black. Since blackface wasn’t something that, from Block’s perspective, a white person would find offensive, Eugene could not “persuasively”* parse the question, arrive at an answer. It wasn’t that he doubted Eugene’s bona fides as a First Amendment scholar, “There are 1A principles at stake but can’t just use examples of speech you don’t personally find offensive.” The reaction came from Josh Blackman, who has emerged as one of the boldest academics in law these days, Whether or not any argument is persuasive is always an open question. I didn’t find…
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Those Who Can, Do
Maybe the most meta-pedagogical post ever. At PrawfsBlawg, Toledo law prof Agnieszka McPeak teaches the other prawfs how to use twitter. I’ve put together some tips for tweeting, which may be useful for those who are new to Twitter or who don’t tweet much. And for more experienced users, I’ve included info on some of the 2016 changes to Twitter. Twitter’s most distinctive trait is its 140-character limit for all tweets. This format cuts down on text and allows for a quick view of a lot of content. But it’s not all fun and games. So Twitter, how does it work? Twitter can be an epic timesuck, but it doesn’t need to be. Here are some tips to make the most of it, for both creating content and consuming it. For creating content and tracking activity, consider these suggestions: Maybe she’ll write a law review article about it. One can only hope. Copyright © 2007-2016 Simple Justice NY, LLC This feed is for…
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Report: Drunk Driving Suspect Allegedly Tried to Cast Spell on Arresting Troopers in Framingham
A man in Framingham, Massachusetts was arrested for drunk driving, according to a recent news article from CBS Boston. While this happens all the time, especially around the winter holiday season, it is not every day that the man being arrested casts a spell on the arresting state police trooper, as this is what the prosecutors have alleged. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts State Police (MSP), has said that the troopers first found the 36-year-old defendant sitting in his car that was stopped in the shoulder of Interstate 495. This was around 3 a.m. when he was found in the breakdown lane of the Interstate. When troopers approached his vehicle, they quickly noticed there was an open bottle of liquor in the passenger compartment. Upon further search of the passenger compartment, they found a bottle of prescription muscle relaxers. One thing to keep in mind is that if the factory seal has been broken, it may be considered an open container even if the…
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Hatred of Police Becomes More Brazen
Fatal shootings of police officers increased in 2016 to the highest level since 2011. I don't know all the reasons for this. Certainly the overall murder increase and the surge in the deadly heroin trade are part of the mix.But there's another part: Hate. It's just that simple. When you breed hate, as the Black Lives Matter movement does, arm-in-arm with Obama's Justice Department and its allies in Congress, you get the outcroppings of hate.When Donald Trump won the election, 20 year-old's at prestigious colleges demanded "safe spaces," as if their whining consternation at the results amounted to a loss of "safety." When dozens of policemen get gunned down in the street, the problem we hear trumpeted is not a lack of safety, but -- ready now? -- that cops are pigs and have it coming.This kind of poisonous thinking gets displayed and honored in the Capitol building.Think that…
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Work With an Experienced Arson Defense Lawyer in Las Vegas
Like all the other states, Nevada considers arson a crime. It’s categorized under NRS 205.010, and the consequences of an arson conviction can be extremely serious. If you have been accused of arson, then it is vital that you contact a competent Las Vegas arson attorney as soon as possible. Many arson charges in Nevada are related to insurance claims. For instance, if someone’s house burns down and an investigation reveals that the blaze may have been intentionally set, then the authorities may choose to bring criminal charges. Insurance fraud charges may also be brought if the homeowner filed an insurance claim for losses sustained in the fire. Other people may be accused of using arson to exact revenge or to “get even” while others may be suspected of having set fire to a government or public building as a means of protest. Regardless of why the authorities believe the alleged arson occurred, this crime is nearly always pursued as a felony in Nevada.…
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DOJ Announces Massive Civil Settlements
While the U.S. Attorney’s Office is known for complex criminal prosecutions such as fraud, drug trafficking and gang activity, federal prosecutors also devote resources toward punishing corporations that stray from the law. Unlike a typical criminal prosecution where a defendant can end up in jail or on probation, when a corporation is being investigated for wrongdoing its employees and shareholders are not usually facing individual sentences. Rather, prosecutors use monetary punishments to reprimand companies and to send a message to other corporations contemplating similar wrongdoing. Any federal prosecutorial district could decide to go after a corporation conducting business in its district, and the District of Maryland recently closed up two massive investigations that resulted in fines as well as criminal sanctions for employees in one of the cases. The first settlement was announced about a week ago at the Baltimore office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of…
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What if I Get Arrested in Collin County on New Year’s Eve?
If you happen to find yourself arrested in Collin County on New Year’s Eve for a DWI call our on-call attorneys at Rosenthal & Wadas. Texas law states that those who are put in jail for a crime must see…Read more ›
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WaPo: The Watch Blog: DOJ report: Arrests without PC, held for days without a lawyer; here it’s a “CID hold”
WaPo: The Watch Blog by Radley Balko: Incredible Justice Department report finds brazen and systemic police abuse in Louisiana. Officers in two departments made hundreds of “secret” arrests without probable cause. The arrests typically included strip-searches, and arrestees could be … Continue reading →
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