DUIs can have a serious impact on recipients, causing financial distress and jeopardizing their ability to operate a motor vehicle. Even if you have been charged with a DUI, there may be a number of defenses available to you to alleviate the charge and to ensure that you are not punished unfairly. At Tilem & Associates, our seasoned New York City DUI attorneys have substantial experience analyzing DUI claims and helping individuals fight an unfair charge. The following recent appellate opinion illustrates why consulting with a criminal defense lawyer as soon as possible can make a huge difference in protecting your rights. The defendant was arrested for driving while under the influence in addition to a number of other traffic-related violations. The arresting officer transported him to the nearby station at which point two other officers observed the breath-testing procedure. Both officers were experienced administrators of the test and familiar with using the device. One…
New York Appellate Court Upholds DWI Conviction, Rejects Defendant’s Confrontation Clause Defense
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Early NY Cops
Clark Whelton has this book review in the City Journal of Law and Disorder: the Chaotic Birth of the NYPD, by Bruce Chadwick. The lesson for today that Whelton draws at the end has some resonance with my post of Wednesday.
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News Scan
Court Denies Murderer's Appeal: After nearly ten years of review, a county judge in Colorado has rejected the appeal of triple-murderer Sir Mario Owens. John Ingold of the Denver Post reports that while the judge, in a 1,343-page ruling, agreed that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that might have been helpful to the defense, the judge held the the defendant must establish more than helpfulness to sustain a claim of constitutional error. Owens was convicted by a jury of murdering a 20-year-old man at a party in 2004. He was later convicted of murdering a young couple to prevent them from testifying to the first murder. The direct appeal and state and federal habeas corpus review of this case have yet to begin.
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TDCJ ends solitary confinement as punishment, and other stories
Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention while mine is focused elsewhere:TDCJ is ending the use of solitary confinement as punishment, and the number of people in ad-seg overall continues to drop precipitously. "Before the administrative change was implemented this month, Texas prison officials had made sharp reductions in its solitary confinement population. In August 2013, there were 215 inmates in punitive solitary confinement. By July 2017, that number was down to 76. In the same time frame, the number of inmates placed in administrative segregation decreased from approximately 7,200 to 3,940."Why no Texas 5th Circuit nominations yet?Judge orders AC for some Harvey-displaced prisoners.Read Brandi Grissom on Texas' latest snitching reforms, and a case study supporting them published last year. The Texas Tribune quoted the national Innocence Project saying that, with Texas' newest innocence statute, our law represented the…
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"Betsy DeVos Reverses Obama-era Policy on Campus Sexual Assault Investigations"
From The New York Times: The rules, a sharp break from the Obama administration’s directives, will now permit colleges and universities to raise their evidence requirements to a “clear and convincing standard” of proof. The Obama administration had demanded colleges...
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Why Get a Lawyer For a Car Accident?
If you’ve been injured in a car accident you may have a lot of questions. One of the most common questions is: Why to get a lawyer for a car accident? A car accident can be one of the most traumatic experiences you go through in your life. We will answer some of the most common questions we hear from our clients after their car accident. When to hire lawyer for car accident? The best time to hire a lawyer for a car accident is immediately after the accident. As soon as the accident occurs, the other driver who was at fault will more likely than not notify their insurance company. If the police arrived to the scene of the accident, they probably obtained your phone number. When the other driver contacts their insurance company, the insurance adjuster will tame your phone number and attempt to contact you. The other driver’s insurance company is trying to contact you to force you into a quick settlement and to obtain a recorded statement from you. You should do…
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Massachusetts Changes its Felony Murder Doctrine for the Better
One fall evening in 2009, four men met up at one Timothy Brown’s apartment. They had earlier been driving around together when two of them, Hernandez and Hill, decided to rob two women at gunpoint. Hernandez, who had brandished a gun during the robbery, hid it in Brown’s kitchen when they arrived at the apartment. In the early hours of the next morning, three more men arrived with a proposal to rob two drug dealers. These three and Hernandez agreed to the second robbery and left in a car. Before they left, Hernandez retrieved his gun and they asked Brown for hooded sweatshirts to cover their faces and for the loan of his handgun. Brown provided them with the clothing and gun. During the ensuing robbery, the four men wore the sweatshirts Brown had provided and one of them brandished Brown’s gun. Hernandez shot and killed the two victims with his gun. On these facts, Brown was convicted of first-degree murder, on…
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Highlights from Powerful “Innocence Denied” Panel at the 2017 Congressional Black Caucus Conference
On Sept. 21, Texas Rep. Al Green invited us back to the Congressional Black Caucus to produce a panel: “Innocence Denied: Exploring the Intersection of Race, Bail and Guilty Pleas.” In a full room of guests at the Washington D.C. Convention Center, Innocence Projects Special Counsel for New Initiatives Chantá Parker moderated the conversation with criminal justice experts Tara Andrews Huffman, Adam Foss, Kristin Henning and Rodney Roberts. The group touched on everything from why innocent people guilty to implicit bias among prosecutors to the impact of jail on youth to solutions for the plea system. Panelists: Tara Andrews Huffman – Director of the Open Society Institute’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program | follow on Twitter @AndrewsHuffman Rodney Roberts – Exoneree and founder of the Rodney Roberts Foundation | follow on Twitter @RodneyRob2014 Adam Foss – Former assistant district attorney and…
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This Week in Innocence News – September 22, 2017
Here are some of this week’s news highlights: New Jersey court vacates murder convictions of Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee Last Friday, a New Jersey Superior Court Judge vacated the 1996 felony murder and robbery convictions of Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee based on DNA evidence identifying another suspect. Now prosecutors must decide whether to dismiss the charges or retry the case. Read more Texas prosecutors rethink the use of incentivized witnesses in light of Innocence Project case How an Innocence Project client’s case changed the way prosecutors handle incentivized witnesses in one Texas county. KERA News Legal groups: Dismiss all cases tested by tainted Mass. drug analyst A petition was filed Wednesday by the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and attorneys Daniel Marx and William Fick, calling for all drug cases involving disgraced Massachusetts drug lab analyst Sonja Farak to be…
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Massachusetts Court Rules Police Cannot Testify Defendant Was High on Marijuana in DUI Case
In a recent DUI case in Massachusetts, the state sought to prove that the defendant was impaired from marijuana while driving, thereby rendering him guilty of driving under the influence under that state’s DUI laws. At the trial, the prosecutor had the arresting police officer testify that based on his observations of the defendant and the field sobriety exercises, the defendant was high on marijuana. The defendant was convicted of DUI, and the criminal defense lawyer appealed. The appeal was successful, and the DUI conviction was reversed. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a police officer cannot legally testify that a defendant was high on marijuana based on observations and a field sobriety test. The court noted that marijuana can have different effects on different people. Also, the police officer was not an expert on marijuana and its varying effects on people (very few, if any, are; most seem to think they are). …
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A Black Life that Didn't Matter
The Washington Post reports (emphasis added):Zaire Kelly was returning home from a college prep course and was less than 300 feet from his front door when authorities said a man tried to rob him along a footpath in a small park in Northeast Washington.The 16-year-old Zaire -- a standout high school senior and track athlete -- used a pocket knife to defend himself Wednesday night, D.C. police said, and stabbed the attacker in the abdomen. Police said the would-be robber had a gun and shot Zaire once in the head....Police identified the assailant as Sequan Keyleo Gillis, 19, who had been freed from jail two weeks ago to await trial on a charge he took a vehicle without permission, and he had been wearing a court-ordered GPS ankle bracelet to track his movements.It's certainly comforting that the criminal justice system was "track[ing] his movements" while he murdered a young black man with a world of promise.This sort of preventable murder of African Americans…
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Week of September 18, 2017
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Can a DUI Lawyer Help?
So you got pulled over and the police officer smelled alcohol. He asked you to take a bunch of tests on the side of the road and the next thing you know you’re wearing handcuffs and in the back of a police car. You’re at the station and there is a bunch of paperwork and tickets for driving under the influence and driving while impaired. You had to call a friend or your spouse to pick you up and you woke up the next day asking: What do I do next? Do I call a lawyer? Am I going to jail? Can a DUI lawyer help? If you’re ever facing any type of criminal or traffic charges in Maryland and there is a potential for jail, fines or probation, then you need a DUI lawyer for your case. Our DUI lawyer Randolph Rice will begin the process by meeting with you as soon as possible. During the initial meeting the DUI lawyer will help by discussing your background, education, and how you got to the point of being arrested for DUI. The next phase that will help in the long…
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Fitbit – Fitness Tracker Solves a Crime – Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer
This is not the first time investigators have used technology to discredit a suspect’s story. Fitness trackers like the Fitbit have become popular in recent years. People use them to monitor their heart rate, keep track of how many steps they take, and help them get more restful sleep. Recently, a woman’s Fitbit may have helped the police bring her killer to justice. According to a CNN report, the woman’s husband called 911 in December 2015, claiming that an intruder had tied him up and tortured him, then shot his wife when she returned home from a yoga class. However, when investigators analyzed her Fitbit, the husband’s story didn’t match up with the device’s data. Pedometer Feature Pokes Holes in Husband’s Story One of the Fitbit’s main features is its pedometer, which tracks how many steps a person takes in a 24-hour period. Fitbit users can set daily step count goals to ensure they are getting enough exercise during the…
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Shouting Down Jim Comey
Readers may remember my mentioning that Jim Comey and I were AUSA's together in the Nineties. I have a high regard for his integrity, even while questioning his judgment and effectiveness in the investigation of Hillary Clinton's astonishing negligence with classified material (see my US News & World Report op-ed).But for whatever one may think of Comey, no one could seriously doubt his right to speak at the Howard University convocation to which he was invited. No one, that is, except the protesters who tried to silence him by shouting such things as, ""Get out James Comey! You're not our homie!" and, "No justice, no peace, no f---ing police!"This is what it has come to in academia: Harvard invites a traitor and felon to share his supposed wisdom as a Fellow and Columbia hires a cop killer, while "students" at Howard drown out Barack Obama's choice for FBI Director because of his support for the…
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Miller on Reciprocal Immunity
Colin Miller (University of South Carolina School of Law) has posted Reciprocal Immunity on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A defendant is charged with using extortionate means to collect a loan. Two brothers give statements to the FBI. One brother’s...
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Discussing opioid epidemic, AG Sessions says he is "convinced this is a winnable war"
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MARCO SIFUENTES Y LA HERMOSURA DE LA MUJER
MARCO SIFUENTES Y LA HERMOSURA DE LA MUJER http://elcomercio.pe/opinion/columnistas/ministro-hermoso-marco-sifuentes-noticia-460032 “Ojalá esas conductas, que vemos normales en esas generaciones mayores, no se repitan porque no son normales en un ambiente de trabajo”. ("sonrisitas" Martens dixit) El articulista a tono con el cargamontón al impresentable Vexler, nos trasmite sus pareceres en cuanto a la galantería ¡no de Vexler! y no pienso un instante en "sonrisitas" Martens, del hombre hacia la mujer en general. Es un buen artículo que el mismo destruye al incorporar las declaraciones de la "ofendida". Verdaderamente hay que tener el cerebro en el piso o no tener cerebro para endilgar a los viejos, comportamientos propios de ésta época no de las "generaciones mayores" y que "sonrisitas" Martens apoya aun fuera del ministerio que…
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Trump’s Travel Ban – What the Supreme Court Must Consider
President Donald Trump’s Travel Ban is heading to the Supreme Court in October after months of legal hearings. It is likely to be one of the most important cases the new look Supreme Court will decide. In June, the highest court in the land allowed some parts of the travel ban to go ahead pending its hearing. The court permitted the ban to go into effect for foreign nationals who lack a “bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States.” In an unsigned opinion the court, left Trump’s travel ban against citizens of six majority-Muslim countries on hold as it related to non-citizens who had relationships with people or entities in the United States. This included most of the plaintiffs’ cases brought against the travel ban. Examples of formal relationships include employees who accepted a job with a company in the US, and students accepted to universities in the United States, the court said. Trump’s Travel Ban Will be held…
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Change Has Come To Title IX, But To What End?
The news was big, huge, that the Department of Education under dreaded Betsy DeVos changed everything. The “Dear Colleague” letters of 2011 and 2014, together with the Q&A, that mandated a campus sex investigation and adjudication scheme designed to assure vindication of the accuser*, were rescinded. Interim guidelines were issued pending invocation of notice and comment as required by the Administrative Procedures Act and a new Q&A was issued to explain the application of the changes. So problem solved? Not quite. Certainly not yet. And potentially not at all. Others will run through the changes, highlighting portions they believe to be most significant, whether accurately or falsely. There will be lies, born of the belief that the cause is so critical that anything that achieves the end is justified. Believers will believe. But the changes don’t change very much. They release colleges from the mandate of what they must address and how they must…
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