Noting Justice Department's latest ACCA/AEDPA litigation switch in time hoping to avoid nine Justices
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How To Stop A Stalker in Florida
Are you living in Jacksonville and being affected by a stalker? Do you want a court order to stop the stalker? Continue reading to find out how to file an Injunction for Protection Against Stalking to protect you or your child! It can be a very scary experience to be the victim of a stalker, especially if it is someone you know and trusted. There are steps that you can take to protect yourself under the law in Florida that will help give you peace of mind. Florida Statutes section 784.0485 provides for a cause of action for an injunction for protection against stalking, including cyberstalking. A stalking injunction can be filed on your behalf or on the behalf of a minor child if you are the parent or legal guardian of the child and the child is living with you. Continue reading
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When can You View Police Body Camera Footage?
More than 1,100 San Diego police officers are now outfitted with body cameras, and the San Diego County District Attorney’s office received more than 100,000 body-camera videos from police across the county since 2016. Body cameras were initially intended to be a transparency tool to reassure the public that their police force follows the rule of law. In other words, body-worn camera footage is now a staple of San Diego’s police force, yet members of the public have not been able to view it. In fact, even after a trial is complete, it is nearly impossible for members of the public to access body camera footage. Police agencies claim that they withhold body camera videos from the public to preserve the accused’s right to a fair trial and to avoid tainting the jury pool. Public Records Requests Neither the San Diego Police Department nor the San Diego County district attorney’s office provides body camera footage through California’s open records…
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Trial Preparation Taints Eyewitnesses’ In-Court Identification, Leads to Reversal of Murder Conviction
Last week, the court of appeals reversed a defendant’s conviction for first-degree murder. That doesn’t happen every day, so let’s unpack the case. The central issue concerns two eyewitnesses’ in-court identifications of the defendant. The crime. The case is State v. Malone. It began when two men approached Kevette Jones on Jones’s front porch. They asked where his friend Jared Alston was, apparently because Alston had cheated them in a drug deal. Jones said he didn’t know. Dissatisfied with that response, one of the men fatally shot him. The witnesses. Claudia Lopez and Cindy Alvarez were on Jones’s porch at the time and were eyewitnesses to the murder. Lopez provided police with a general description of the perpetrators after the shooting. She was unable to identify the defendant in a photo lineup, though she said that the picture of the defendant “looked like” one of the perpetrators. She identified a man named Marquis…
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Barry on Death Penalty Abolition
Kevin M. Barry (Quinnipiac University - School of Law) has posted The Law of Abolition (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 107, No. 4, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Three themes have characterized death penalty abolition throughout...
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UT Student Accused of DWI tells Police “You can’t arrest me!”
A student of University of Texas at Austin has been accused of driving while intoxicated after she smashed her car into a restaurant on Monday morning. She allegedly became confrontational with the officers when they tried to detain her. 21-year-old Esther Shim is a junior at UT’s College of Communication. She was driving in an area near campus dubbed The Drag which houses a strip of university shops and restaurants. Around 2:30am she was said to have driven her car through the front windows of a restaurant called Poke Bowl, and the momentum of the vehicle came to a stop when it plowed through the interior and into the bathroom of the establishment. Two patrolling officers in the area heard Shim’s squealing tires and the sound of the collision. When they arrived at the site they found much of the restaurant structure had crumpled from the accident and was surrounding Shim’s car, trapping her inside. Continue reading →
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Making sure you maximize auto accident injury recovery
In most auto accident lawsuits on behalf of the person who was injured or killed, a lawyer will charge a contingency fee. The lawyer’s fee is typically a standard one third (33.3%) of the amount recovered, minus costs and expenses. Costs and expenses can include the following: filing fees; medical records; expert witness fees; private investigators; deposition fees; trial exhibits; mediation fees; etc. These costs and expenses may be high, further reducing your potential recovery. There also may be medical and other liens on the potential recovery that take even more money out of your pocket. Auto accidents involving serious injuries can be life changing, and every penny that you can save is critical. What can be done to increase the amount of your potential recovery? What if you could hire a great auto accident lawyer, who would take less than the standard one third referral fee? A lawyer to attempt to broker a lower…
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When A Restraining Order Is Necessary
Have you ever had someone in your life, a husband, wife, family member, or significant other, abuse you in some manner? Did that abuse ever cause you to think about getting a restraining order towards that individual for your protection? If you are unsure about what it takes for someone to get a restraining order towards another person in New Jersey, we have the answers. A restraining order is a court order of protection that restricts an action or prevents another person from contacting or harassing the person who filed the order. There are many reasons one can file a restraining order, such as divorce or protection of your children. The reasons for a restraining order can usually be found under these categories: Physical: This is the most common reason for a restraining order, but you will need proof of physical violence for a court to grant an order. Psychological: Constant degrading or unreasonable control of a person’s actions that interferes with your daily life can…
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Evaluating criticisms of risk-assessments in bail reform
Risk assessments have always been part of the justice system in some form or fashion. But until recently, there was little if any transparency surrounding them. Instead, they involved some unknown process that goes on in a prosecutor's mind, or a judge's, or a probation officer - even police officers. All of these people assess risk of re-offense and "future dangerousness" every day as part of their jobs. But who can really know on what basis?That's why outsourcing risk assessments to external, independent, transparent instruments has been so controversial - 1) it's taking a decision making function from humans in the system who may rebel at a perception of decreased power, and 2) the fact of its transparency means a risk-assessment instrument may be criticized in a level of detail that the inner workings of a judge or probation officer's could never be.Grits has argued that risk assessments play a different role in different parts of the…
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NYT Reporter Latest to Fall, Where is the Investigation of Trump?
Glenn Thrush has been suspended from the New York Times and will be entering an in-patient alcohol treatment program, following a Vox expose of his conduct with young female reporters. The report has copies of text messages between Glenn and one of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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California Cannabis Laws: Proposed Emergency Regulations
On November 16, 2017, California’s three state cannabis licensing authorities—the Bureau of Cannabis Control, the Department of Food and Agriculture, and the Department of Public Health—released the proposed emergency licensing regulations for commercial cannabis licensure. The three licensing authorities anticipate that the emergency regulations will be effective in December in anticipation of beginning licensure January 1, 2018. The proposed emergency rules put into effect a number of provisions that we have already seen from the original Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act as well as the subsequent proposed text of the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), and also includes a number important additions or alterations. While we cannot cover everything from the proposed emergency rules in this newsletter, here are some important highlights and takeaways: 1.The three licensing authorities committing to emergency rules…
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Misleading Testimony from Texas Crime Lab Analyst Leads to Forensic Changes in Courts
Courts and juries place credence on forensic evidence in cases. However, this is not always reliable and can be subject to human errors. Recently, misleading testimony from a Texas crime lab analyst led to changes in how this evidence is treated in court. The Dallas Morning News reported how unreliable testimony from a state crime lab analyst from Garland led to statewide changes in how forensic testing is handled. The report related to Texas Department of Public Safety lab analyst Chris Youngkin. The Morning News reported he made conflicting statements under oath in 2016 about his work. It impacted thousands of DWI and DUI cases in North Texas. The incident was alarming because prosecutors were kept in the dark for a considerable amount of time. In May 2013, two tubes of blood were erroneously switched. Youngkin sent the wrong blood alcohol levels to the wrong agencies. Reports stated the error was caught within a few days, and the correct results were later sent.…
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The Reckoning: Clinton & Franken Versus Trump & Moore
Sexual misconduct does not have a party affiliation. It is all about power, and white men -- Democrat and Republican -- have long wielded it. So, at this moment when women are finally feeling empowered to speak out, they are speaking out against Republicans like Roy Moore and Democrats like Al Franken. But that doesn't mean that the transgressions of Moore and Franken are equivalent. Sexual assault and harassment are always unacceptable but context matters. The nature and magnitude of the acts matter. The response to accusations matters. The effect of the response on the victims matters. And how Democrats and Republicans address the issue matters too. When a Republican is in the hot seat, Republicans are quick to point to Bill Clinton's misdeeds because "Clinton" is always a way to distract and deflect from Republican malfeasance, sexual or otherwise. Although it must be conceded that, Democrat or not, relevant…
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When the Death Penalty Is the Only Punishment That Fits
I bring you the beginning of this story from the Washington Post, revolting even by the standards we sometimes need to discuss on this blog (emphasis added):About 4:02 p.m. on Friday, police in Jerseyville, Ill., were dispatched to the Jersey Community Hospital in response to a 6-year-old boy's death.Police say the child starved to death last week after his father and stepmother spent two years withholding food from him as punishment.The boy, barred by Michael Roberts and Georgena Roberts from eating regularly since December 2015, died Friday weighing just 17 pounds, according to court documents. Some questions: Do you think this was really "punishment" for anything? Do you think it might just have been torture for the fun of it? How do you think it feels to be starving to death for a third of your life? Do you think a jail term, whatever its length, is proportionate to the grotesquely prolonged cruelty and sadism of these…
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Medical Care After a Car Accident
I’m shocked at the number of new calls we receive that involve a major car or truck accident where the victim states, “I’m not hurt” when it’s not actually the truth. Most people are not litigious. The idea of a lawsuit frightens most people. I usually get a call back a few months later. Now, the accident victim is not only experiencing pain, but is also frustrated because the insurance company won’t pay to get their vehicle fixed. So, how do people end up in this position? The first reason is time. You’re in an auto accident. Your car is totaled. You are traumatized. You go to the emergency room and sit for hours. You are frustrated. So, you rationalize. “I’m not hurt.” “I’m going to get better.” “I just want my car fixed and my life back.” Most…
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U.S. District Court Judge Praises New York Courts’ Efforts to Curb Prosecutorial Misconduct
An op-ed in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan celebrated New York’s comprehensive new rule that makes New York the first in the nation to require all of its criminal trial judges to issue so-called “Brady orders” to all prosecutors in every case (named after the 1963 case of Brady v. Maryland). As Judge Sullivan explains, the landmark administrative order is a critical step in ensuring that prosecutors across the state honor their legal and ethical obligations to turn over all evidence that is favorable to a defendant. Judge Sullivan, who presided over the trial of former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens—which was marred by prosecutorial misconduct—is one of the prominent judges that has long issued his own individual Brady orders. But soon, as of January 2018, under the new order, all criminal court judges in New York will be mandated to do so. As Sullivan explains in his op-ed, the…
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"Gun theft from legal owners is on the rise, quietly fueling violent crime across America"
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Harris et al. on Accounting Malfeasance and Sarbanes-Oxley
Peter Harris, Katherine Kinkela, Liz Washington Arnold and Michelle Liu (New York Institute of Technology, New York Institute of Technology, The Citadel and New York Institute of Technology) have posted Corporate Accounting Malfeasance and Financial Reporting Restatements in the Post-Sarbanes-Oxley...
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Penal Code 290: Failure to Register as a Sex Offender
If the courts have found you guilty of a sex crime, part of your conviction may be a requirement to register as a sex offender in the jurisdiction where you live. Failure to register may result in criminal and civil prosecution and a range of penalties depending on where you live and the nature of... The post Penal Code 290: Failure to Register as a Sex Offender appeared first on Law Offices of Graham D. Donath, APC.
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No Reason Needed For Police to Ask to Enter Home
Police do not need a valid reason to ask someone if they can enter a home and unless a warrant is served, homeowners do not need to comply with the request. Respect but protect Many Utah residents acknowledge police officers as being authority figures who can often be seen as intimidating. When an officer knocks […]
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