The government’s email search applications are overbroad and don’t sufficiently protect the privacy rights of the account holders. The government, however, can limit the applications and submit them again. “The Magistrate Judge’s denial of the search warrant applications was not … Continue reading →
M.D.Ala.: Govt’s email SW in identity theft scheme is overbroad; applications need to be limited and resubmitted
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Update: Fatal Crash on I-84 in Gooding County
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: 10/01/2017 12:07 a.m. Please direct questions to the District Office ***** Update ***** The driver of the vehicle that had stopped in the lane of travel was Derrickson George, 35, of Tucson, AZ. George was in a 2006 Chevrolet Impala. Next of kin has been notified. 3642/3641 ***** End Update ***** On September 30, 2017, at approximately 4:30 am, the Idaho State Police investigated a fatal crash on I84 at milepost 147, approximately 10 miles west of Wendell, ID. Clinton Harlan, 39, of Kuna, ID, was travelling westbound in a 2017 Volvo Semi-Tractor pulling 3 Semi-Trailers. Harlan encountered a vehicle that was stopped in the right hand lane of travel westbound on I84…
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Crazy Doctor Dreams
We teach our children to study hard, do well, get into a good college and become whatever they dream of becoming. We teach them that if they follow the path, there will be a pot of gold at the end. And statistically, that’s generally true. with a long list of caveats. So why are there so many radicalized, angry, miserable Ph.D.s out there? In August, Michael Isaacson, an adjunct instructor of economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, wrote on Twitter, “Some of y’all might think it sucks being an anti-fascist teaching at John Jay College but I think it’s a privilege to teach future dead cops.” Though he later said he was not wishing for his students’ deaths, but merely predicting some would die, his post was roundly condemned. He received death threats and was suspended from his job, ostensibly in the interest of campus safety. There have been similar cases in recent weeks. A sociologist holding a temporary…
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Appellate Squawk Taken To The Star Chamber
An appellate* public defender was snatched in broad daylight and forced into the interrogation room. A public defender was given the third degree, demanded to reveal the co-conspirators. Not by the government. Not by the cops. Not by some shady cartel. By the New York City Legal Aid Society. The public defender was Appellate Squawk, because the Squawk had been ungood. It began when the LAS changed its policies to focus first on social justice and later, if the opportunity presented itself, on defending the indigent. The Squawk reacted as any experienced public defender would, with satire. Woke fantasies aside, the trenches are a tough place, where real people wallow in real misery, and the machinations of the deeply passionate are pretty damned foolish, bordering on dangerous, when applied to reality. This was obvious to Squawk, who understood the job of public defender is to defend the accused. To LAS, this was secondary to assuring that a lockup of killers, dealers and the…
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Making the case for marijuana as a "driving engine of the American economy"
Paul Armentano, the deputy director of NORML, has this new commentary detailing positive elements of economic development that can be linked to marijuana reforms. The full headline of the piece serves as a kind of summary: "Making the case for Marijuana Is Now a Driving Engine of the American Economy:...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/YvRqxEKiIzg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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"South Dakota Swaps Lawyers for Tablets in Prisons"
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RECENT COURT OF APPEALS DECISION: REVERSAL DUE TO ERRONEOUS JUROR DISQUALIFICATION
The DC Court of Appeals in Mason v. U.S., decided on September 28, 2017, drastically reversed a set of convictions based on trial error in disqualifying a potential juror. Appellant Mason challenged his convictions for tampering with evidence, destruction of property, obstruction of justice, and unlawful entry contending that the trial court committed a reversible error in disqualifying a potential juror. Juror 7575-B was at the center of this ruling and analysis. During the jury voir dire, juror 7575-B was asked if black men in DC are treated fairly or unfairly by the criminal justice system, and she had responded in affirmative indicating they were treated unfairly and that “things are tilted in the wrong direction.” The trial court granted request to strike the juror for cause even though the juror had indicated further that she could have been still partial in the case and in her judgment. The trial had reasoned that it has to be systemic if the juror believed…
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Interesting look at what prison consultants advise as elites head to prison
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Case o' The Week: Ninth Mulls Serious Minor Issue: Jayavarman and Mens Rea for Foreign Child Porn Cases
You gotta believe. (And that'll get you convicted). United States v. Jayavarman, 2017 WL 4247402 (9thCir. Sept. 26, 2017), decision available here.Players: Decision by Judge Clifton, joined by Judges Graber and M. Smith. Facts: Jayavarman visited Cambodia and made videos of himself having sex with a female he believed was a minor. Id. at *2. Evidence at trial(including a disputed birth certificate) suggested that while Jayavarman thought the female was a minor, she may have been an adult when the videos were made. Id. [The jury apparently could not agree on whether the was a minor]. Id. Jayavarman was tried on, among other things, “Count 1B.” That count alleged a violation of 18 USC § 2251(c)(1) and § 2251(e): attemptingto persuade a minor, abroad, to produce child porn. Id. Jury instructions for this count did not require that the jury find that the female was actually under the age of eighteen. Id. at…
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GREGG TOUNG HAS PASSED AWAY
Gregg Toung, a very well liked and respected Assistant Public Defender has passed away. Gregg was a training attorney as well as a lawyer who handled some of the most difficult Jimmy Ryce cases.We didn't know Gregg, but emails and comments have been flooding in talking about his life and passing from cancer at way too early an age. Some of the comments are below, and we will post more:Gregg was my training atty when I started in the public defenders office. What a decent and caring man. May he Rest In Peace.I will miss Gregg. He and I tried many Ryce cases against each other, took may depo trips and had tons of laughs. Gregg was a terrific lawyer but an even better person. His word was his bond. May his memory be a blessing. My most sincere condolences to his family. Audrey Frank-AponteGregg Toung has passed away. Most PD's and ex-PD's in the last 15 to 20 years were trained at some point by Gregg. He was a classy, warm, genuine person and loved a good…
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South Orange County Teacher’s Flutes may be Tainted with Semen.
An independent teaching contractor who instructed a music program in more than one Southern California school district is currently under investigation for allegedly contaminating flutes with his semen before giving them to young students. On September 29th, parents of the students attending elementary schools in Fountain Valley, Los Angeles, Fullerton, Inland Empire, Fullerton, Chatsworth, Capistrano Unified and Newport-Mesa, and a minimum of five other school districts in Southern California received email alerting them about an ongoing investigation regarding the possible contamination of flutes that had been distributed to the children. It has not yet been determined which of the schools in each district may have been affected by the suspected tainted instruments. Accounting for the time it will take to investigate the considerable amount of sites in the districts, administration felt it was a priority to communicate with parents as soon as possible. Continue reading →
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New Laws Effective In Maryland
Each spring the passage of new laws creates numerous headlines coming out of the State House in Annapolis, and no subject creates more buzz than criminal legislation. Marijuana has dominated the last few years of criminal legislation headlines, but this year decriminalization and medical cannabis takes a back seat to a massive new set of laws falling under the Justice Reinvestment Act. Of all the new laws contained in the Act, none will be as impactful as the provision eliminating mandatory minimum jail sentences for a host of drug crimes. For decades a repeat offender for a low level drug dealing crime under 5-602 to 5-606 of the criminal code faced the possibility of a mandatory 10, 25 or 40 year sentence without parole. These mandatory sentences were often used as leverage by prosecutors to pressure defendants into pleading guilty, as the trial judge would have no choice but to slam a convicted defendant who turned down a plea deal. As of today though, a repeat offender for…
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Verdict Stands Despite Jury Foreperson's Racist Remarks
By a vote of 2 to 1, the Sixth Circuit refused this week, in United States v. Robinson, to grant a new trial based on evidence of racial bias infecting a jury. The caseThe three defendants were convicted at trial of running a pay-to-play scheme in a southern Ohio school district. All three defendants are black; the jury had only two black members.One defense attorney felt the two black jurors looked uncomfortable during the verdict and jury polling. So after the trial, he hired a private investigator to interview the jurors (in violation of court rules and the court's instruction not to contact them). The two jurors said that they were initially unconvinced of the defendants’ guilt. But then this happened (as summarized in Judge Donald's dissent):The white jury foreperson accused the two black members of the jury of deliberately trying to hang the jury because of their shared race with the Defendants, raising the suggestion that the two jurors were…
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Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Law eJournal
are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Paper Downloads 1. Congressional Control of Presidential Pardons Glenn Harlan Reynolds University of Tennessee College of Law Date Posted: 28 Aug 2017 3,671 2. Revenge Against Robots Christina Mulligan Brooklyn Law School Date...
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Support from leadership needed to get rid of Driver Responsibility Surcharge
The Republican House Speaker from Michigan is pushing to get rid of that state's version of the Orwellian-named Driver Responsibility Surcharge. Here's a quote from one of the bill's supporters which could easily have come from critics of the program in Texas:As a prosecutor in Genesee County, I saw every day the awful impact these unfair fees had on Michigan families. ... Far too many working people who received a ticket and paid their fine were hit with new, impossible surcharges, often costing them their licenses, and then their jobs, and then their ability to ever pay off the mountain of debt. These are good people who just want to get to work and drive to school to pick up their children. They want to do the right thing, but the government has them trapped in a cycle of failure from which they can never escape. That is not right, and it is well past time we repealed this unjust mistake.I've always believed that if any of Texas' Big 3 legislative…
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DWI Jury Charge Must be Tailored to Facts Presented at Trial
The Texas Penal Code § 49.04 prohibits the driving of a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Section 49.01(2)(A) defines intoxication as “not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties by reason of the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, a drug, a dangerous drug, a combination of two or more of those substances, or any other substance into the body.” In January 2013, a prominent Abilene personal injury attorney named Burt Lee Burnett was charged with driving while intoxicated after his 2006 Maserati was involved in a rear-end accident. The arresting police officers found a bottle for prescription pills in Burnett’s vehicle. The other officer found some pills in Burnett’s pocket. One officer believed the prescription pill bottle was for the pills found in Burnett’s pocket. He believed the pills were hydrocodone. One of the officers asked if Burnett had a prescription for hydrocodone. Burnett did not respond.…
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Marijuana Legalization in Minnesota: An Impending Reality?
Three years ago, Minnesota’s endeavor into medical marijuana legalization became one of the country’s most restrictive programs. Consequently, patients who were unable to afford state-approved marijuana turned to the estimated $700 million marijuana black market. Several years ago, Governor Mark Dayton asserted that full marijuana legalization would never be legal “on his watch.” Today, many […] The post Marijuana Legalization in Minnesota: An Impending Reality? appeared first on Minneapolis DWI Lawyer Douglas T. Kans.
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Deutschland: Privileg von Suchmaschinen bei der Anzeige von Vorschaubildern
Gemäss Urteil des Bundesgerichtshofs vom 21. September 2017 stellt die Wiedergabe von Vorschaubildern (oder Miniaturansichten) in einer Bildersuchmaschine keine Urheberrechtsverletzung dar. Im konkreten Fall bietet die Klägerin auf einer Internetseite Fotografien an, die von ihren registrierten Kunden nur gegen Zahlung eines Entgelts und nach Passworteingabe eingesehen werden können. Demgegenüber kann auf der Internetseite der Beklagten kostenfrei eine Bildrecherche gestartet werden. Hierbei wird auf die Suchfunktion von Google zurückgegriffen, welche dieselben Fotografien auf frei zugänglichen Internetseiten gecrawled, gespeichert und indexiert hat. Die dadurch gefundenen Bilder werden in der Ergebnisliste auf der Internetseite der Beklagten als Vorschaubilder angezeigt. Der Bundesgerichtshof kommt zum Schluss, dass das Anzeigen dieser Vorschaubilder auf der Internetseite der Beklagten die ausschliesslichen Nutzungsrechte an den Fotografien,…
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Holper on The Unreasonable Seizures of Shadow Deportations
Mary Holper (Boston College - Law School) has posted The Unreasonable Seizures of Shadow Deportations (University of Cincinnati Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: President Trump, during his campaign, promised a “deportation task force” to swiftly deport...
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Walsh & Sullivan on the Exclusionary Rule and Domestic Military Action
Patrick Walsh and Paul Sullivan (U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School and Government of the United States of America - Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) have posted The Posse Comitatus Act and the Fourth Amendment’s Exclusionary Rule...
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