A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Stanford University study suggesting that granting driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants improves overall traffic safety. That approach is not an option in North Carolina, where unauthorized immigrants have been ineligible to obtain a driver’s license, learner’s permit or identification card since 2006. Recognizing that many unauthorized immigrants drive regardless of whether they are licensed, the district attorney in Orange and Chatham Counties announced this week a new policy for disposing of no operator’s license charges against such drivers, provided they meet certain conditions. The News and Observer reports that the district attorney’s office in Orange and Chatham Counties will dismiss charges of no operator’s license, a Class 3 misdemeanor, if the person charged is ineligible to be licensed for immigration-related reasons and he or she provides an identification card and completes a…
New Deferral Program for Unauthorized Immigrants Charged with NOL
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How Do I Choose the Right California DUI Attorney?
It goes without saying that the day a person is arrested on suspicion of a California DUI is very often the worst day of that person’s life. As the handcuffs are being slapped around the wrists, thoughts flood the mind of the person who has just been arrested for a California DUI: How long will I be under arrest? What will happen in court? What am I facing? Fortunately, people don’t have to do it on their own. The legal system is complex to say the least and should never be tackled by the person facing the charges. Most lawyers have spent at least four years at an undergraduate university then three years at law school. Then, lawyers must pass the scrutiny of the bar exam, which in California is the most difficult in the country, before they can actually practice law. Ok, so lawyers have a lot of education under their belt. How does a person tell if a lawyer is qualified and right for their case? The first step is research. You don’t buy the first car you see…
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Coulter Speaking at Berkeley
Kent has noted that Ann Coulter will be speaking at Berkeley after all, the University's Chancellor now saying that he has found a "protectable venue."I write to comment on this as a separate entry because of the enormous importance I see in this issue. My perception was only heightened when I attended the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program's "Disinvitation Dinner" this week in New York City, keynoted by the infamously disinvited Peter Thiel. http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-chased-off-stage-by-angry-protestors-at-uc-berkeley-2014-12The blindness and cowardice in so many of our universities is a big part of the problem, but not the main part. That would be the fascist bullying the universities are called upon to confront -- but find the task so vexing because of the very ideologically-rooted, hard-edged intolerance they have bred.The resulting thugs have a name: Brownshirts. We have seen them before,…
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No, not all evictions go quickly
Typically, it takes a landlord less than a month to evict a tenant for violating his or her lease but that is not always the case. In Arkansas, the eviction process is very straightforward. The landlord serves the tenant a three-day notice to quit which states, essentially, to get out or risk being sued. If the tenant refuses to leave, the landlord typically hires an attorney to start an eviction proceeding. The tenant is served with a complaint and a notice that the court will issue a writ of possession within five days unless the tenant files an answer. Usually, the tenant fails to file an answer and the landlord can ask the court to issue a writ of possession. That writ of possession, once served, gives the tenant 24 hours to pack up and leave or risk being escorted from the property by the local sheriff’s office. That entire process can take as little as two weeks but can take as long as three weeks or a month if the tenant is good at dodging process servers. If the…
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Brewster & Buell on Global Anticorruption Enforcement
Rachel Brewster and Samuel W. Buell (Duke University School of Law and Duke University School of Law) have posted The Market for Global Anticorruption Enforcement (Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 80, No. 193, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
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Poll: GOP primary voters support raise-the-age, decarceration bills
Republican pollster Mike Baselice has released a memo with opinion poll results on several important criminal justice topics (poll here, coverage here), focusing especially on the views of Republican primary voters. For example, a whopping 86 percent of GOP primary voters reacted positively to this position on "raise the age" legislation approved on second reading yesterday by the Texas House:Currently, 17-year-olds in Texas who are convicted of a crime are automatically placed in the adult justice system. Texas is one of only seven states to do this, even though 95% of 17 year-olds are arrested for nonviolent offenses. Hearing this, do you favor or oppose starting 17-year-olds in the juvenile justice system while giving a judge the discretion to move them to an adult system on a case-by-case basis?On drug penalties, wrote Baselice, "Large majorities of respondents from the all voter (82%) and Republican primary voter (75%) samples favor making possession of a…
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Killing suspect shouldn't justify secrecy about police actions
At the Statesman, Eric Dexheimer has a story on a young man repeatedly tazed by police while he was high on LSD - including a sustained zap to the crotch, at one point in the video - but because the boy died and so was never convicted of anything, the family couldn't access any information about the case under the Public Information Act.Dexheimer offered this little-recalled history of how these records - which would have been open a quarter century ago in Texas - became closed:At one time, most police records in Texas were considered open to public inspection. Between the writing of the state’s open records act, in 1973, and the mid-1990s, the attorney general issued a string of opinions concluding that, except for an ongoing prosecution in which releasing details might compromise a case, most law enforcement documents were considered public. In 1994, however, the Harris County district attorney’s office sued the state to keep private its closed…
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DWLS and Foreign Driver’s Licenses
In Michigan, individuals must have proof of legal citizenship or legal presence in the United States in order to obtain a valid driver’s license. Undocumented and illegal aliens at the present time are not eligible to obtain a Michigan driver’s license. Most aliens (including undocumented aliens) and most other non-residents of Michigan can protect themselves from accusations of Driving Without a License by taking the steps outlined by Michigan Compiled Law 257.302a. This law states that non-residents are not required to obtain a Michigan driver’s license to drive in Michigan. In order to drive legally the non-resident must do the following: Make sure that your home country is part of an international treaty or other agreement that is recognized by Michigan. The following countries are treaty countries: Continue reading
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Reliability of Forensic Hair Analysis Questioned in Study
Over the last several decades, the American criminal justice system has relied increasingly on forensic testing to definitively identify suspects, nail down timelines and prove or disprove theories about what happened and who was involved. However, there is an increasing amount of data showing that some of these methods are not as bullet-proof as they were previously held out by prosecutors and the scientific community to be. In 2015, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalists at ProPublica detailed the great deal of faulty forensics that had been reported in previous years. On one hand, the emergence of DNA analysis became a powerful prosectuorial tool – but also one that was valuable for defendants, resulting in the revelation of scores of wrongful convictions. Recently, the Washington Post reported on a substantial study by the National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers that found 26 out of 28 examiners in the FBI’s forensic hair comparison…
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The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas: A Look at House Bill 122
The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas In Texas, 17-year-olds can’t vote, serve on a jury, play lotto, or buy beer and cigarettes – but they are considered adults when they get in trouble with the law. Some Texas lawmakers are hoping to change that. House Bill 122, which would raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from age 17 to 18, was approved by the Texas House this week on a vote of 92-52, moving it another step forward in the legislative process. The bill now goes to a Senate committee, where a companion bill already sits, and then possibly on to the full Senate. While there are still big hurdles to cross, raise-the-age reform remains a top issue for juvenile justice advocates and criminal justice experts who want to bring Texas in line with most other states. Currently, Texas is only one of seven states that regularly prosecutes17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. Raising the Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas Many…
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The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas: A Look at House Bill 122
The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas In Texas, 17-year-olds can’t vote, serve on a jury, play lotto, or buy beer and cigarettes – but they are considered adults when they get in trouble with the law. Some Texas lawmakers are hoping to change that. House Bill 122, which would raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from age 17 to 18, was approved by the Texas House this week on a vote of 92-52, moving it another step forward in the legislative process. The bill now goes to a Senate committee, where a companion bill already sits, and then possibly on to the full Senate. While there are still big hurdles to cross, raise-the-age reform remains a top issue for juvenile justice advocates and criminal justice experts who want to bring Texas in line with most other states. Currently, Texas is only one of seven states that regularly prosecutes17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. Raising the Age of Criminal Responsibility in Texas Many…
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Selective Reporting?
A man was arrested in Florida Wednesday for the rape and murder of a 33-year-old Chicago woman last Sunday. Elizabeth Owens-Schiele of The Chicago Tribune reported that the suspect, Bulmaro Mejia-Maya, is a construction worker who lived near the victim, Tiffany Thrasher. No mention of the suspect's immigration status in the Trib. But fortunately, in their story for Chicago's ABC7 John Garcia and Stacy Baca added that Mejia-Maya was a Mexican citizen and that ICE had issued a detainer on him, but that his immigration status was unclear. They noted that he was wanted on drug charges in Utah and that he had pled guilty in 2013 to a battery in Florida. Probably just a pot bust in Utah and a Florida bar fight right? You have to go to the Daily Caller to learn that the drug charge against Mejia-Maya was for cocaine and that in Florida he was initially charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon after he stabbed a man. Instead of…
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Midazolam
One of the many controversies in the flurry of activity over the Arkansas execution of Ledell Lee was whether midazolam is a sufficient anesthetic for this purpose. There is surprisingly little in the media reports this morning about whether it worked as intended in this case. This story in USA Today does not mention the actual result, but the web page does have video of a television report by Marine Glisovic of KATV, a media witness to the execution. From her report, it appears that the drugs worked as intended.In my view, the States and the Federal Government should work to restore the supply of thiopental or pentobarbital as quickly as possible and eliminate the need for these more debatable alternatives. Until that channel is open, though, midazolam appears to be effective when used correctly.
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California DMV’s Physical and Mental Evaluation or P & M Hearings
My criminal defense practice is almost exclusively in the area of drunk driving. However, I have had a few DUI cases were my client was able to prevail at the DMV APS Hearing, just to receive another notice of suspension from the DMV because of a medical issue such as diabetes, seizures, loss of consciousness or memory issues. My clients have then retained me to also defend them at the P & M Hearing in hopes of maintaining their driving privileges. Since I handle these hearings for my clients, I am now getting retained by people just to handle these DMV matters. What triggers this action by the DMV is either: 1.) The “Confidential Morbidity Report” which is filled out by a treating physician; or, 2.) A “Request for Driver Reexamination” which can be filed by any person who knows of a reason why someone is unable to drive safely. Under Health & Safety Code Section 103900, a doctor is required by law to report any condition that is believed to…
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New Rules for Conditions of Bond in Montgomery County
Facing felony criminal charges in Montgomery County has been increasingly difficult for defendants who have to deal with both the underlying charges and onerous conditions of bond. But things have recently gotten worse. The Montgomery County Adult Probation Office has decided to implement a new random drug and alcohol test policy. Under this new policy (it’s been around for a few months now), Defendants must call in to the probation department EVERY DAY and enter in a unique pin number. An automated system will then inform them whether or not they have to submit to a urine analysis that day. Because the system is randomized, you could be tested once a week, twice a week, or have no tests for two months. There’s no way to predict the frequency of tests for any one client. Continue reading
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Crash blocking a lane on Flying Wye in Boise
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: 4/21/17 - 2:00 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office At this time, the Idaho State Police, Boise Police, Boise Fire Department and Ada County Paramedics are on the scene of a vehicle that crashed into the pond in the middle of the Flying Wye at I-84 / I-184. One lane of travel is blocked by emergency vehicles on the westbound on ramp from Cole Road to inbound I-184. More information will be relayed as it becomes available. 3318 / 3413 -------------
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Under Trump, 160 People Arrested in L.A. Immigration Crackdown
After Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration came out, fears have been running high among immigrant and migrant communities throughout the nation. After the highly publicized deportation of an undocumented Arizona mother of two, Guadelupe Garcia, after a routine visit with immigration officials, reports have been spreading of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doing massive immigration sweeps throughout the southwestern U.S. and California. Garcia had a prior conviction from eight years ago for using a fake social security number. It is reported that ICE in Los Angeles conducted a five-day operation targeting criminals and fugitives in which 160 people were arrested. The arrests took place in six counties. Of the 160 arrested, it is reported that approximately 150 had criminal histories. The immigration sweeps are the first concerted effort by ICE under the Trump administration to arrest targeted undocumented immigrants for deportation proceedings.…
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Slobogin on Policing and the Cloud
Christopher Slobogin (Vanderbilt University - Law School) has posted Policing and the Cloud (Academy for Justice: A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice (Erik Luna ed., 2017, Forthcoming)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Databases are full of personal information...
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Fatality crash W. Homedale rd and Farmway rd, near Caldwell
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: 04/21/2017 2:31 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office On Friday, April 21, 2017, at approximately 7:08 a.m., Idaho State Police investigated a two-vehicle fatality crash at W. Homedale rd and Farmway rd, near Caldwell. Eyan Huebner, 15, of Caldwell, in a 2000 Ford Expedition was westbound on Homedale and failed to stop at a stop sign. Angel Camacho-Gonzalez, 29, of Caldwell, in a 2001 Pontiac Sunfire was southbound on Farmway. Camacho-Gonzalez collided with Huebner and both vehicles went off the roadway onto the shoulder. Camacho-Gonzalez succumbed to his injuries at the scene of the crash. Huebner was transported by ground ambulance to West Valley Medical…
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Why Now?
In his opinion dissenting from denial of a stay in the Arkansas execution case, McGehee v. Hutchison, No. 16-8770, Justice Breyer asked rhetorically, "Why now?" He surely meant why not later, but I think the more pertinent question is why not earlier.Let us begin in 2012 with a bizarre opinion by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Ten murderers on the state's death row filed suit claiming that it violated the separation of powers for the legislature to prescribe the method of execution in general terms and let the corrections department fill in the details. Incredibly, the court bought it. As a matter of administrative law, this is preposterous. Legislatures regularly delegate far more fill-in-the-gaps authority to administrative agencies than this. Every other state supreme court to consider such a claim has rejected it, as Justice Baker described in her dissent. So, the legislature had to write details into the…
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