First let me preface this with I am in now way an expert when it comes to DUI case and jury trials. Yes I have litigated over 100 jury trials, but I'm always still learning, and I'm always open to becoming a better trial attorney. But lately I've had a couple of my trials continued so I stuck around and watched parts of several DUI jury trials. Not to critique the Defense Attorneys or their
Things a Seattle DUI Attorney should not do in Trial
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Kanzleien in Deutschland
Das Kanzlei-Handbuch „Kanzleien in Deutschland“ gehört in jede gut sortierte Anwaltsbibliothek. Der Nomos Verlag hat in der 14. Auflage erneut ein aktuelles Barometer der deutschen Anwaltsszene erstellt. Darin aufgenommen wurden jedoch nicht nur die „Big Player“ der internationalen Wirtschaftskanzleien, sondern ebenso zahlreiche mittelständische und aufstrebende Boutiquen. Insgesamt etwa 500 Kanzleiprofile werden mit ihren Keyfacts dargestellt, so dass eine gut sortierte und sehr umfangreiche Informationsbasis der agierenden Wirtschaftskanzleien abgebildet wird.
Bei JuraBiblio.de haben wir uns das Handbuch in der Neuauflage 2013 genauer angesehen.
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It's Not Wrong To Be Young Ladies
<font style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" face="arial">It's no surprised that people call them "honey, sweetie, darling" or just "the girls." Are they offended by it? Do they laugh at it? It's
unclear, but it appears to push them to show everyone in the courthouse that cute as they might be, they are not to be taken lightly.<br>
<br>
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NYT: Report Says T.S.A. Screening Is Not Objective
NYT: Report Says T.S.A. Screening Is Not Objective by Michael S. Schmidt:
The Transportation Security Administration has little evidence that an airport passenger screening program, which some employees believe is a magnet for racial profiling and has cost taxpayers nearly one billion dollars, screens passengers objectively, according to a report by the inspector general for the Homeland Security Department.
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WaPo: Wonkbook: These programs might well have been legal. That’s almost worse
WaPo: Wonkbook: These programs might well have been legal. That’s almost worse by Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas:
[...] Read more!
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SERGEANT BOSQUE ARRESTED FOR KIDNAPPING
When we last left Opa Locka Sergeant German Bosque, (see our prior post here) he was a law enforcement officer known more for his lengthy internal affairs rap sheet and misconduct than for his work as a peace officer. ![]()
(in custody)Today he is in jail, charged with kidnapping: From the Miami Herald:Former Opa-locka police Sgt. German “GB” Bosque — who has been jailed four times and has a longer internal affairs rap sheet than any cop in Florida — is back behind bars.State investigators arrested Bosque, 49, on Friday evening, charging him with kidnapping, battery and tampering with a witness who had tried to file a complaint against Bosque. He faces life in prison if convicted of the kidnapping charge, a first-degree felony.The Herald article details a career in which Bosque has been terminated and reinstated an astounding five times! (The Random Pixel blog also noted that Bosque had been arrested three times as well, which apparently didn't cause any concern with the Hialeah PD) Bosque is now on termination six, which he was in the process of appealing (natch) when the need for a good criminal lawyer and bondsman interceded. ON a completely different note, where did all this rain come from? Didn't the storm pass us Thursday night? Stay dry. former-opa-locka-cop-charged-with.html#storylink=cpySite Feed
(in custody)Today he is in jail, charged with kidnapping: From the Miami Herald:Former Opa-locka police Sgt. German “GB” Bosque — who has been jailed four times and has a longer internal affairs rap sheet than any cop in Florida — is back behind bars.State investigators arrested Bosque, 49, on Friday evening, charging him with kidnapping, battery and tampering with a witness who had tried to file a complaint against Bosque. He faces life in prison if convicted of the kidnapping charge, a first-degree felony.The Herald article details a career in which Bosque has been terminated and reinstated an astounding five times! (The Random Pixel blog also noted that Bosque had been arrested three times as well, which apparently didn't cause any concern with the Hialeah PD) Bosque is now on termination six, which he was in the process of appealing (natch) when the need for a good criminal lawyer and bondsman interceded. ON a completely different note, where did all this rain come from? Didn't the storm pass us Thursday night? Stay dry. former-opa-locka-cop-charged-with.html#storylink=cpySite Feed
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By the numbers: 83rd TX Lege created 33 new crimes (6 of them felonies), passed 20 enhancements
After shifting their weekly legislative updates exclusively to email instead of posting them on their website during the final weeks of the session (perhaps Grits was quoting from and linking to them too frequently?), the Texas District and County Attorneys Association has posted a legislative recap that may interest Grits readers. Here's an interesting "by the numbers" summary of 2013 criminal-justice legislative action at the Texas Legislature:The final tally. The Legislature ultimately passed almost 1,300 bills and joint resolutions, of which we were tracking more than 300. Here are some early numbers on the bills that passed (noting that some of these categories may overlap): Code of Criminal Procedure (# of bills): 76 Penal Code: 45 Traffic laws: 33 Juveniles: 21 Increasing punishments: 20 Firearms: 19 New Class As or Bs: 18 Sex offense/offender: 17 New duties for prosecutors: 12 Human trafficking: 11 Family violence: 11 New Class Cs: 9 Reducing punishments: 8 New felonies: 6 Controlled Substances Act: 3 DWI: 2These are rough numbers based on our tracking software. We will nail down "official" numbers after we summarize these bills in our popular Legislative Update book, followed by our famous traveling road show this summer. So if those numbers hold, that's 33 total new crimes (6 new felonies, 18 Class A and B misdemeanors, and 9 new Class Cs), plus 20 bills increasing punishments for existing crimes and a remarkable 8 bills reducing punishments. Though it sounds like a lot, that's far fewer new crimes and enhancements than the Texas Lege has typically approved in past sessions. Heck, usually "reducing punishments" wouldn't even be a category!It should be mentioned that TDCAA's count uses Shannon Edmonds' own nomenclature and the number of new crimes he estimates may not jibe precisely with, say, the number the parole board comes up with when they assign each new crime a risk factor for release purposes. Despite the occasional philistine suggestion that it's possible to come up with a hard and fast number, counting crimes is an inherently subjective task. Like federal law, Texas has reached the point where the number of criminal statutes is literally "countless"; nobody really knows for sure how many crimes there are anymore.I'm looking forward to discovering what are the 12 new duties of prosecutors when TDCAA begins holding its legislative update seminars. (Grits has already signed up for one of the Austin events.) Go here for information if you'd like to attend one of TDCAA's legislative updates (worth 3 hours of CLE credit) for their take on the important changes made by the 83rd Texas Legislature that affect their members.
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DOJ unveils new plans and programming for helping crime victims
As reported in this press release, the US Department of Justice yesterday "unveiled a plan calling for sweeping changes to advance crime victims’ rights and services in the 21st century." Here is more from the press release about this interesting...
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Politico: NSA memo pushed to 'rethink' 4th Amendment
Politico: NSA memo pushed to 'rethink' 4th Amendment by Philip Ewing (in 2001!):
[...] Read more!
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"Man in case of 3 Ohio women held captive faces 329 charges including murder, rape, kidnapping"
The title of this post is the headline of this AP report on the indictments coming from a local grand jury on Friday which charge Ariel Castro with hundreds of crimes for spending a decade torturing three young women in...
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Mother Jones: Justice Department Fights Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance
Mother Jones: Justice Department Fights Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance by David Korn:
Government lawyers are trying to keep buried a classified court finding that a domestic spying program went too far.
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TPM: Report: NSA Accidentally Collected Data From Innocent Americans
TPM: Report: NSA Accidentally Collected Data From Innocent Americans by Igor Bobic:
The National Security Agency inadvertently collected data from innocent Americans in 2009, including private email messages and phone conversations, prompting a review by Attorney General Eric Holder in the way the agency manages its domestic surveillance program, NBC News reported Friday: ...
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Time to pass Sen. Paul's “Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act of 2013,” S. 1037
I’ve been watching the media run around with their hair on fire screaming that the Obama Administration has subverted the Fourth Amendment: First with the subpoenas to FoxNews and the NYTimes, and then with the revelation the NSA is sweeping up all the numbers dialed on Verizon. Hardly anybody writing about this has any sense of history or knowledge of the law. I’ve been saying this all along: This is perfectly legal under the Fourth Amendment. It is distasteful as hell, but it violates no law. (WaPo: Obama defends NSA’s sweeping surveillance: "President Obama says 'nobody is listening to your telephone calls' and that Congress has authorized the programs.")
The Bush Administration had plans for all this to begin with, but then quickly came the opportunity for the USA PATRIOT Act. To paraphrase Justice Scalia during the Voting Rights Act argument, It’s against a Congressman's interest because of a name like that? “Even the name of it is wonderful: The [Patriot] Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?”.
The Patriot Act became law without any critical thought, and it made it carte blanche for government to gather information about us. Couple this with the information technology available over the last decade and the ability to store Brontobytes of data, and that we see now was inevitable. I'm not the slightest bit surprised. Nobody keeping up is surprised.
All this data collection is perfectly legal under pre-Patriot Act law and compounded by it. In 1976, the Supreme Court held in Miller v. United States that it did not violate the Fourth Amendment for the government to gather information from bank records of a depositor under investigation. In 1979, the Court held in Smith v. Maryland that it did not violate the Fourth Amendment for the government to put a pen register on a telephone to record only the numbers being dialed because the telephone call wasn’t recorded. That was, after all, all technology allowed at the time.
Fast forward 34 years to today, and it has been widely known that the NSA has the ability to gather all the information off satellites without a warrant. (1998's movie “Enemy of the State” was not off the mark.)
So, the subpoenas for phone records of journalists: perfectly legal. Congress has not seen fit to ever adopt a journalist shield law to help implement the First Amendment. They don't have any standing to complain.
If you don't like the privacy implications, Sen. Paul has proposed legislation to change it. First is the “Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act of 2013,” S. 1037 that would legislatively overrule Smith and Miller. Second is “A bill to stop the National Security Agency from spying on citizens of the United States,” S. 1121.
Then there is the question of legislation to revamp the hopelessly outmoded Stored Communications Act. The “Email Privacy Act,” H.R. 1852 is a start but never good enough.
What is Congress doing? Essentially nothing. Proposing a law with great fanfare is meaningless if it goes nowhere. I wrote my Senators about email privacy, so I figure they don't care since they never wrote back. So, I haven't bothered to write to them about Sen. Paul's bills. Congress is too mired is gamesmanship to do their damned jobs of actually legislating in the public interest.
"We the people" are the boiling frog, and the water has started to boil. We started giving up our liberties long before the Bush and Ashcroft sold the Patriot Act, and that was just raw exploitation of fear over any sense of history. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin, 1759 (or 1775 depending on the source).
Today's computers and software make unlimited information gathering possible, and the information is there, waiting to be mined. Under law, all this is, quite regretfully, legal. There is infinite personal information about each of us out there, just waiting to be gathered up. Smith and Miller have outlived their usefulness, and they need to be legislatively overruled because this is just the first real public disclosure of what's been going on for at least a decade.
Now, what are we going to do about it? Complain, but sit on our hands and do nothing? (The "collective national shrug"?) Write to your Senators so Sen. Paul's bill will get to committee for a discussion. The committee hearings, I'm sure, will be entertaining. And, to Sens. Pryor and Boozman: Do something. What are you there for? Stop just taking up space.
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TD Bank Settles Another Rothstein Investor Suit For $70 Million
A hedge fund specializing in arbitrage trading that had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Scott Rothstein's $1.3 billion Ponzi scheme has reached a settlement valued at nearly $70 million from TD Bank and others it claimed facilitated the scheme. Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage Fund, L.P. ("Platinum Partners") was one of hundreds of investors in Rothstein's purportedly lucrative business of investing in confidential structured settlements, ultimately investing more than $400 million along with two of its sister hedge funds. The fund brought claims against TD Bank and others in the aftermath of Rothstein's collapse, claiming the bank played a vital role in Rothstein's scheme. In the announced settlement, TD Bank will be on the hook for approximately $44 million which, according to Paul Brinkmann of the South Florida Business Journal, brings the bank's financial exposure thus far to roughly $374 million.
The settlement is a welcome reversal in roles for Platinum Partners, which found itself and two partner funds, Centurion Structured Growth and Level 3 Capital, the target of a $400 million lawsuit by the trustee appointed to recover funds for Rothstein's victims. The trustee, Herbert Stettin, filed suit in December 2010 and sought more than $400 million - an amount representing the amount of funds that flowed in and out of Platinum during Rothstein's fraud. Platinum Partners settled with the trustee in June 2012, agreeing to pay $32 million to the bankruptcy estate, which represented the amount of transfers made during the 90-day period preceding the bankruptcy filing in which Rothstein was legally presumed insolvent. In exchange, Stettin agreed to allow Platinum Partners to hold claims of $28 million, as well as subordinated claims of $26 million.
Meanwhile, Platinum Partners had joined a multitude of other Rothstein victims in pursuing claims against TD Bank, claiming that the bank and its executives willingly aided Rothstein's scheme. That strategy had become increasingly popular in the wave of several high-profile settlements by TD Bank, as well as a jury verdict awarding punitive damages. The adverse verdict served as a powerful incentive for settlement, and the bank has since settled several other suits.
Under the terms of the settlement with Platinum Partners, TD Bank agreed to make a cash payment of $18 million, as well as satisfy the fund's remaining obligation to Stettin of approximately $26 million. Platinum Partners will also recover its legal fees in pursuing the multi-year litigation. Additionally, Platinum Partners still has its $54 million in claims submitted to the bankruptcy estate, including an allowed claim with equal priority to other investor-victims of $28 million that is expected to be nearly or fully satisfied out of recoveries by Stettin. Thus, assuming a payout percentage of 80% or more, Platinum Partners will stand to recover approximately $70 million - a figure that seems even more impressive considering some estimates that the fund recovered all but $19.5 million of its original investment with Rothstein.
TD Bank has been a central focus of Stettin's efforts to formulate an exit plan from bankruptcy that has featured a heavily-debated ban on current and future litigation against TD Bank in exchange for a cash payment to the bankruptcy estate. The proposal has pitted Stettin and the creditors' committee against a group of investors with pending claims of nearly $300 million against TD Bank who would be 'forced' to 'only' receive whatever payments they would be entitled under a bankruptcy plan. Stettin supports the plan because victims would be on track to receive close to a 100% recovery - an outcome only possible with the cash payment by TD Bank in exchange for a bar order. Under a recently proposed version of the plan - one that still includes a bar order - creditors will have the chance to submit their vote in advance of a July confirmation hearing.
A copy of the Trustee's lawsuit against Platinum Partners is here.
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NJ Drunk Driving Defense Attorney Update: Garden State Motorists Seeking Post-Conviction Relief
As a former municipal prosecutor and now an advocate for drivers accused of operating their motor vehicles while impaired by the consumption of beer, wine or hard liquor, as well as doctor-prescribed medications or even illicit drugs, I and my legal team make it our goal to provide the best defense for every one of our clients who have been charged with DWI or drug DUI.
Here in the Garden State, hundreds of motorists are pulled over every week all across the state; many of these individuals are arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Some of these drivers will hire a DWI defense attorney to handle their case, while others will try to make a go of it one their own. Some will have their cases thrown out for one or more reasons, although many will likely be convicted and have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in fines, court fees and increase auto insurance rates.
Anyone who drives a vehicle in New Jersey probably understands that driving under the influence of alcohol or prescription drugs drunk driving is considered a very serious traffic offense under this state's laws. And, as we've mentioned many times before, there are severe penalties for those convicted of DWI-DUI.
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Possession, “Matter” Harmful to Minors and the Webcam
After a jury convicted him of “three counts of attempting to disseminate matter harmful to minors and possession of matter harmful to minors with the intent to disseminate it” in violation of Massachusetts General Laws 272 § 28, Milton R. Rock III appealed. Commonwealth v. Rock, 3 Mass. App. Ct. 1134, 2013 WL 2371410 (Appeals Court of Massachusetts 2013). According to the brief Rock filed on appeal, the investigation that led to this prosecution began on June 27, 2008, when Officer Reardon of the Medway Police Department began an undercover investigation to identify persons seeking to engage in sexual conduct with children over the Internet. . . . He assumed the identity of a twelve-year-old girl and registered with several instant messaging and chat services using the screen name `Jilly12MA.’ . . . Among the services he used was Yahoo!'s chat rooms through the Yahoo! Messenger program, frequenting the chat rooms geographically targeted to Massachusetts or Boston. . . . On July 23, 2008, as Jilly12MA he encountered an individual in the chat room using the screen name `MRR3RD’, and after chatting with that user added him to his friend list for instant messaging purposes and later traced the user name to [Rock]. . . . [Rock] communicated from July 23, 2008 to October 16, 2008 with the officer masquerading as Jilly12MA. . . . On several occasions, [Rock] would activate his computer's webcam, which allowed [Reardon] to view video streamed from [his] computer to the officer's computer. . . . When [Reardon] first communicated with [Rock], he informed [Rock] of his assumed age, 12, sex, F, and location, MA, all three characteristics which were also reflected in his screen name. . . . [Reardon] recalled one other occasion where he made a specific reference to his supposed age and had discussions that would indicate he was young and under eighteen. . . . While the officer and [Rock] were instant messaging, [Rock’s] webcam would frequently be transmitting video which [Reardon] could view with Yahoo! Messenger by accepting [Rock’s] offer to view the video feed. . . . [He] would often appear to be shirtless . . . and during a number of conversations he moved his arms and shoulders up and down and told the officer he was masturbating or touching himself. . . . In one conversation the officer mentioned that another person he encountered in the chat rooms asked `if he could hold me open while I peed’ and thereafter the parties engaged in a number of conversations revolving around sex. . . . During a conversation between the parties on October 2, 2008, [Rock] stood up twice and the officer observed that he was naked and his genital area was briefly exposed to the webcam. . . . On October 6, 2008, the officer again saw [Rock] naked through the webcam, and this time [Rock] repositioned the webcam so that it showed him masturbating to the point of ejaculation. . . . Subsequently, [Rock’s] webcam video broadcast to the officer showed him naked and masturbating to ejaculation on October 14, 2008.. . . Shortly thereafter, the officer obtained [an] arrest warrant for [Rock] and a search warrant for [his] home in Buckland. . . . The officer arrested [Rock] there and seized his home computer, webcam and laptop. . . . Brief for the Appellant, Commonwealth v. Rock, 2012 WL 1912749. A footnote in the brief explains that Officer Reardon used another program called Trillian to chat using several services like Yahoo! Messenger and America Online Instant Messenger at once without using multiple programs. . . . He could not view [Rock’s] webcam using Trillian and used Yahoo! Messenger for video communications. . . . Brief for the Appellant, Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. On appeal, Rock argued, in part, that the evidence was not sufficient to support his convictions under the portion of Massachusetts General Laws c. 272, § 28, that requires proof he possessed matter that is harmful to a minor with the intent to disseminate the same to minors.[His] focus is solely on the element of possession and he argues that because the webcam used to capture his live performance instantly transmitted the images to a remote computer screen, no `matter’ was created and, therefore, he was never in possession of prohibited material. Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. Earlier, I included a link to the current version of that statute. The court’s opinion explains that when Rock was charged in 2008, the relevant portion of the statute read “`Whoever . . . has in his possession any such matter [as defined in Massachusetts General Laws c. 272 § 31] with the intent to disseminate the same to minors, shall be punished.’” Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. It also noted that, during the same period, the [Massachusetts] Legislature defined `matter’ in [Massachusetts General Laws c. 272 § 31] . . . as `any handwritten or printed material, visual representation, live performance or sound recording including but not limited to, books, magazines, motion picture films, pamphlets, phonographic records, pictures, photographs, figures, statues, plays, dances’ (emphasis supplied). In the same statute, the Legislature also defined the term `visual material’ as `any motion picture film, picture, photograph, videotape, book, magazine, pamphlet that contains pictures, photographs or similar visual representations or reproductions, or depiction by computer. Undeveloped photographs, pictures, motion picture films, videotapes and similar visual representations or reproductions may be visual materials notwithstanding that processing, development or similar acts may be required to make the contents thereof apparent.’ (Emphasis supplied.) [Massachusetts General Laws] c. 272, § 31 as amended through 2002. . . . Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. In a footnote, the Appeals Court pointed out that in 2010, the state legislature “amended [this] definition of visual material by inserting in the first sentence: `telephone or any other device capable of electronic data storage or transmission.’” Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. Finally, the court explained that in 2010, the Massachusetts legislature added the following language to the definition of matter [in Massachusetts General Laws c. 272 § 31]: `or any electronic communication including, but not limited to, electronic mail, instant messages, text messages, and any other communication created by means of use of the Internet or wireless network, whether by computer, telephone, or any other device or by any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system.’ Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. The Appeals Court then proceeded to analyze Rock’s argument in this case, finding that [t]he notion that `visual material’ is a subset of `matter’ is clear both on its face and after a careful analysis of the terms. `Material’ is a synonym of `matter,’ and the modifier `visual’ denotes that `visual material’ was intended as a subset of the broader and unmodified term “matter.” Moreover, the specific examples listed in the definitions demonstrate the relationship between `matter’ and `visual material.’ The definition of `matter’ includes sound recordings and phonographic records, whereas `visual material,’ understandably, does not include these. [Massachusetts General Laws c. 272 § 31.] Both definitions, however, include the following terms: motion picture film, picture, photograph, videotape, book, magazine, pamphlet, and visual representation. Ibid. Thus, it is clear that any item that counts as `visual material’ necessarily counts as `matter.’ Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. Next, the Appeals Court pointed out that in Perry v. Commonwealth, 438 Mass. 282 (2002), the [Massachusetts] Supreme Judicial Court addressed the Legislature's addition in 2002 of the term `depiction by computer’ to the definition of `visual material.’ Id. at 288. The court found that the Legislature's addition of the term `depiction by computer’ did not expand the coverage of `visual material,’ but was merely an attempt to modernize the language of the definition. Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. It also noted, however, that [i]n this case, the webcam captured [Rock’s] image in bytes rather than by conventional film and that image was transmitted to a designated computer. See generally State v. Ritter, 49 Wash. App. 105, 201 P.3d 1086 (Washington Court of Appeals 2009). . . . As a result, the captured images often are not recoverable from the computer to which the webcam is attached because the transmissions are viewed almost instantaneously rather than downloaded to the computer. State v. Ritter, supra. Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. The Appeals Court then analyzed the significance of this difference in facts, noting that the statute under which Rock was convicted is not narrowly focused on whether the defendant possesses an actual tangible image or has retained that image for future use. Rather, `[t]he Legislature labeled the prohibited class “visual material,” a broad term.’ Perry v. Commonwealth, supra. The phrase `any motion picture film . . . or similar visual representations’ (emphasis added), [Massachusetts General Laws c. 272 § 31], `means what it says, any [visual representation] without limitation.’ Perry v. Commonwealth, supra. In discussing an analogous situation where a photographic image was captured digitally, rather than on film, the Perry court specifically held that `[i]t matters not that the scene is captured in bytes rather than on conventional film.’ Ibid. In this case, the webcam similarly captured [Rock’s] performance in bytes as part of the process enabling it to be transmitted. At the time the image was captured [he] was in possession of that image, just as the defendant in Perry was in possession of photographic images captured in bytes and stored in his computer. . . . Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. The Appeals Court also explained that [t]o the extent [Rock] suggests that his possession of the images captured by the webcam was of limited duration and he is insulated from possessing those images, the statute offers further guidance. ` Because § 31 clearly includes visual material even if undeveloped and even if it requires some sort of processing in order to be developed, the means used to store or display the visual material are of no relevance.’ Perry v. Commonwealth, supra. In other words, when [Rock] captured his image on the webcam, he was in possession of visual material prohibited under [Massachusetts General Laws c. 272, § 28], regardless of whether that captured data had to be transmitted before it was capable of being converted into a visual image. See U.S. v. Nichols, 371 Fed. Appx. 565 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit 2010) (visual depiction includes `the transmission of live video feed that causes a visual image to appear on a remote computer screen’). Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. The court therefore held that “the evidence was sufficient to establish that [Rock] possessed matter that is harmful to a minor with the intent to disseminate the same to a minor”, and so affirmed his conviction. Commonwealth v. Rock, supra. In so doing, it also upheld his sentence, which consisted, basically, of “three years probation” plus “two-and-a-half years in the house of correction suspended for three years”. Commonwealth v. Rock, supra.
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CA11: Roadblock for bank robber was reasonable, one car stopped
A roadblock to stop a fleeing bank robber was reasonable: It stopped the one vehicle they had a description for, and it was placed based on reports from the beeper. United States v. Rodger, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 11572 (11th Cir. June 6, 2013).
The trial court erred in holding that the police with an anonymous report of a methamphetamine lab should have gotten a search warrant. There wasn’t yet probable cause. They went to the house to corroborate it, and when the door was opened, the found an operating meth lab with a smoky haze in the room. That constituted an emergency to seize the apartment for an emergency search. State v. Lee, 2013 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 44 (June 7, 2013).*
Gant’s “reasonable to believe” language applies to DUI cases for a search incident. State v. Ewertz, 2013 Kan. App. LEXIS 51 (June 7, 2013).*
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MI reverses Jardines-like case
This case was held in abeyance pending Jardines because of its similarity: a dog sniff of a residence. It is reversed rather than debriefed. People v. Holt, 2013 Mich. LEXIS 903 (June 7, 2013):
[...] Read more!
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CA10: Delay in search of computer seized by consent was not unreasonable
Defendant was accused under the Assimilative Crimes Act of ignoring her infant child to death while her husband was deployed, spending 12-15 hours a day computer gaming, hardly stopping for anything. Her husband consented to a seizure of the computer, and it was finally searched months later. While a delay can be unreasonable, it wasn’t here and she never complained before the search. Her computer history was damning evidence against her. United States v. Christie, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 11704 (10th Cir. June 11, 2013):
[...] Read more!
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What is Reckless Driving in Virginia?
It’s a crime. If you’re charged with reckless driving in Virginia, you are charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor that carries the possibility of up to one year in jail, a $2,500 fine and license suspension up to six months. Most lawyer websites will only tell you the maximum punishment and that you’re facing a [...]
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More Pages to Explore .....
