New York State is one of the only states that does not allow for expungement of criminal convictions. However, a new law, Criminal Procedure Law § 160.59, now allows for sealing of more convictions. Under the new law those convicted of a crime can apply to the court to have their record sealed. To qualify, ten years must have passed since the imposition of sentence on the most recent conviction. An applicant cannot have any pending charges either. Sealing is not automatic, as the judge reviewing the motion has the discretion in deciding whether to grant sealing. Under the new law, many crimes are eligible for record sealing, including misdemeanors, many felonies, and Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) convictions. Convictions which are ineligible for sealing include: an offense contained in § 236 of the Penal Law (sexual performance by a child) a sex offense defined in § 130 of the Penal Law homicide (an offense contained in…
Expungement is still not a possibility in NY, but under the new Criminal Procedure Law, § 160.59 many more convictions can be sealed
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Bad Driving Is Not Criminally Negligent
Texas has more than its share of bad drivers. One of its cities, San Antonio, ranks in the top ten among the nation’s most dangerous drivers. In 2016, there were 3,773 traffic fatalities in Texas, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The question is this: when does reckless driving that results in a fatality become a felony in Texas? There are generally two criminal charges the State may bring against a defendant when a vehicle accident results in a fatality, when intoxication is not an issue: manslaughter and/or criminally negligent homicide. Reckless Homicide This type of homicide charge is most often referred to a “vehicular manslaughter.” Because there is no specific statute defining vehicular manslaughter, this offense is charged under the Texas manslaughter statute, Penal Code § 19.04, which states that a person commits manslaughter if he or she “recklessly causes the death of an…
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The Doctrine of Abatement Ab Initio Expanded
Moments before he took his own life in a Massachusetts prison this past April, former NFL star Aaron Hernandez was a convicted murderer. The moment life passed from his body in that maximum security cell, he became an innocent man. That’s the law. It is known as “the doctrine of abatement ab initio.” This doctrine is recognized by virtually every federal court of appeals and every state supreme court in this country. Death While Appealing Case Leads to Dismissal The doctrine provides that when a convicted defendant dies while an appeal of his or her conviction is still pending, their conviction becomes null and void; in a word, the conviction abates and the underlying indictment must be dismissed. Under this doctrine, the estate of the defendant is automatically relieved of any obligation to pay fines imposed as part of the defendant’s sentence. But what about a case where a defendant has already paid the fine? Can the…
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Hylton on Rational Incentives and Criminal Justice Reform
Keith N. Hylton (Boston University - School of Law) has posted Whom Should We Punish, and How? Rational Incentives and Criminal Justice Reform (Wythe Lecture, William & Mary Law School, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay sets...
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College Dorm Rooms Enjoy Fourth Amendment Protection
It was an issue of first impression for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA): whether a college dorm room is an exception to the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. This issue was resolved by the TCCA on June 7, 2017 in the case of Mikenzie Renee Rodriquez. Rodriquez is a student at the Howard Payne University located in Brentwood, Texas. As a freshman, she shared a dorm room on campus with fellow freshman Adrienne Sanchez. Room Inspections Allowed by Student Handbook The university’s Handbook contains a section called “Room Inspections.” This is a “housing agreement” between university and student which authorizes “resident assistants” (RAs) to conduct “routine inspections” of dorm rooms without notice. This practice permits RAs to check “for items that residents [are] not supposed to have such as candies, microwave ovens, and more obviously…
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Phillip Butters, Donald Trump, Cuba y ......
http://larepublica.pe/espectaculos/887373-phillip-butters-no-tiene-filtros-y-arremete-contra-el-ministro-salvador-del-solar-video “Los peruanos como Salvador del Solar y su grupito de comunistas y socialistas resentidos que tiene en el Ministerio de Cultura que no han hecho nada nunca por la cultura del Perú, porque no han dicho nunca ‘esta boca es mía’ con el 'muro de la vergüenza' de Huaquillas”, siguió cuestionando Phillip Butters. MI OPINIÓN Solía, cuando era asiduo a la red social "facebook" (cancelé mi cuenta hace siete meses) mantener la ecuanimidad y respetar al adversario ocasional aun cuando fuera insultado responder el insulto era un deleite para mí y no usaba una sola mala palabra como las que uso en este blog desde que tengo todo el tiempo de "facebook" para dedicarlo a escribir. Phillip Butters tiene el autoestima muy alta y una idea equivocada…
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Should Texas “Raise the Age” of Criminal Responsibility to 18?
Criminal justice experts have stated that treating teenagers as adults in the criminal justice system is detrimental for both the young people involved and the states. In Texas, along with a handful of other states, 17-year-olds accused of criminal offenses are automatically tried as adults. Texas lawmakers have introduced two bills that propose raising the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18. If the proposed laws are passed, Texas will join the majority of states that have lifted their criminal responsibility ages to 18. New York Becomes Most Recent State to Raise the Age In April 2017, New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed in a law that raises the state’s age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18. Previously in New York, 16-year-old offenders were housed in the same facilities as adult criminal offenders. Teenagers were also prosecuted in the adult system, which meant they received a criminal record if convicted. Under the new law, 16-year-old and 17-year…
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What You Need to Know About Your Rights in a Frisk
What is a Frisk? A frisk in the context of a law enforcement search is also known as a pat-down. It is less intrusive than a full body search. The purpose of a frisk is to ensure an officer’s safety by confirming that a suspect encountered by police is not armed and dangerous. Continue reading
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A Terrorist's Guide to New York City
The WSJ has this editorial, with the above headline and the subhead "The left would show jihadists how the cops prevent attacks."The New York City Council is the distilled political essence of modern progressivism, which means it can be dangerous to public health and safety. This summer tourists can see more New Yorkers relieving their bladders in public thanks to the council's reduction in penalties for crimes against public order, and now the council wants to expose the city's antiterror secrets. A new bill would require the New York Police Department to disclose and describe all "surveillance technology," which it defines as "equipment, software, or system capable of, or used or designed for, collecting, retaining, processing, or sharing audio, video, location, thermal, biometric, or similar information." The cops would have to post this information online annually and respond to public comments. The effort is…
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Freezing Bivens In Place
Can and should the federal courts invent new kinds of lawsuits, creating causes of action that Congress has not authorized? The U.S. Supreme Court's thinking on that question has evolved over the years, and it took another step today.Courts have been creating causes of action for a very long time. The English courts did so before there even was a Parliament as we now know it, and these are the "common law" causes of action we learned in the first year of law school. They created common law crimes as well.But courts do this less than they used to, and the federal courts do less than the state courts. Many states no longer have common law crimes; the federal courts have never been thought to have the power to create them.During Reconstruction, Congress created a cause of action for people whose constitutional rights are violated by state and local officials, but not by federal officials. In 1971, the Supreme Court created such a cause…
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Simonson on Contesting and Resisting Criminal Justsice
Jocelyn Simonson (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Democratizing Criminal Justice Through Contestation and Resistance (Northwestern University Law Review, Vol. 111, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Collective forms of participation in criminal justice from members of marginalized groups –...
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Injury crash west of Jerome
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 4 Patrol 218 West Yakima, Jerome, ID 83338-5904 (208) 324-6000 Fax (208) 324-7897 For Immediate Release: 06/19/2017 4:46 Please direct questions to the District Office The Idaho State Police is currently investigating a crash with lane blockage on westbound Interstate 84 at milepost 166, near Jerome. Westbound lanes are currently blocked for emergency vehicles. More information will be released when available. 3432 / 3933 -------------
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More Evidence of the Mueller-Comey Relationship
With the exception of a seven year period from 1994-2001, public confidence in government has been dropping almost steadily since Jack Kennedy was President. It is in part for that reason that insistence on strict ethical standards in high-profile and politically-charged cases must be maintained. As I have argued, public confidence in the Special Counsel's investigation of Donald Trump will be difficult to preserve if the present Counsel, Bob Mueller, stays on despite mounting evidence that he's close friends with his star witness (yet potential subject), Jim Comey. See my posts here and here.More evidence of that relationship has emerged in the views of an FBI agent who worked with both men. The evidence is sufficiently persuasive that CNN's legal analyst has said that Mueller's remaining in his position "could be problematic." For an outlet as hostile to Trump as CNN, that is strong language indeed. As…
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Communities reviewing sexual offender ordinances in wake of federal ruling
6-19-17 Wisconsin: RACINE COUNTY — At least three communities in Racine County are reviewing their sex offender residency ordinances after a federal judge found that similar rules in Pleasant Prairie were unconstitutional. In recent weeks, the villages of Caledonia and Waterford, and the Town Yorkville have discussed tweaking their ordinances in the wake of the ruling, and pending legal
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History examining at length "America’s War on Drugs"
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Will Utah be among the states voting directly on marijuana reform in 2018?
I already have my eye upon states like Arizona and Michigan for potential notable marijuana initiative votes in 2018. And this local article, headlined "Medical marijuana advocates within weeks of filing ballot initiative," suggests Utah is another state worth watching. Here are the basics: For years now, the Utah Legislature...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/YRDzHLqV2K4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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Race and Risk Assessment
Risk-assessment has become all the rage in American criminal justice. In jurisdictions across the country, criminal-justice officials are utilizing increasingly sophisticated risk-assessment tools, which can be used to predict a given offender’s likelihood to reoffend based on his criminal history and a number of other variables. These predictive evaluations can be brought to bear at several important decisional points in the criminal process: pretrial release, diversion into treatment, sentencing, and others. Although risk assessment has been widely applauded for its potential to support increased efficiency in the use of scarce criminal-justice resources, a recurring criticism has been that leading risk-assessment tools have built-in racial biases. A particular concern has been the heavy reliance on criminal history; to the extent that criminal history reflects biased actions by police or others in the past, then predictions based on that history may tend to…
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Secret Society Vets Trump Judicial Selections
"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party Federalist Society?"It's time for me to come clean. I am a member. I meet in an undisclosed location to back-channel judicial nominees to the Trump Administration, which bows to my orders.Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.P.S. My wife is a co-founder of the Federalist Society. This was back in the Eighties, when she was a University of Chicago law student in then-Prof. Scalia's class. I believe she was the first person he hired as a clerk when he went to the Supreme Court. And yes, that is bragging.
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2017 Martindale Hubbell Judicial Edition
Highest possible rating in both legal ability and ethical standards reflecting the opinions of members of the Bar and Judiciary.
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NEW LAWS IN FLORIDA & JNC STAYS VERY BUSY .......
THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:NEW LAWS IN FLORIDA ..... GOVERNOR SCOTT STAYS BUSY SIGNING BILLS INTO LAW .....SB 118 - CRIMINAL HISTORY RECORDS:Any person or entity engaged in the business of publishing through a publicly accessible print or electronic medium or otherwise disseminating arrest booking photographs of persons who have previously been arrested may not solicit or accept a fee or other form of payment to remove the photographs. To read the new law, go here. SB 494 - COMPENSATION OF VICTIMS OF WRONGFUL INCARCERATION: Revising the circumstances under which a person is disqualified from receiving compensation under the Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act; specifying that a wrongfully incarcerated person who commits no more than one felony that is not a violent felony, rather than a felony law violation, which results in revocation of parole or community supervision is eligible for compensation, etc To read the new law, go here SB 312…
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More Pages to Explore .....
