A year ago, Gov. Mario Cuomo granted clemency to our client Felipe Rodriguez, commuting his life sentence to the 27 years he had already served for a 1987 murder. Felipe, who is also represented by Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project, was released because he was an incredible inmate: he had renovated the rectory in one prison and replaced the plumbing in another; he brought Cardinal Dolan to pray with the men on Easter and recruited writers from among the inmates for a prison newsletter. He was so respected by prison authorities that he was put in charge of caustic chemicals at Eastern Correctional Facility. Felipe Rodriguez is also innocent. He was wrongly convicted of murdering a young Brooklyn mother named Maureen Fernandez and leaving her body behind a warehouse in Queens. His conviction was based on two pieces of evidence: (1) testimony of a drunk who identified Felipe a year-and-a-half after the murder as someone he briefly saw in a bar with the victim the night she…
Felipe Rodriguez is Front Page News
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Why You Need an Attorney for a NYC Desk Appearance Ticket: From Immigration and Minimizing Collateral Consequences to Avoiding Warrants and Criminal Convictions
A routine and common sentiment heard by New York City Desk Appearance lawyers is that an appearance ticket, aka, DAT, is not a big deal. After all, a DAT is not an arrest and misdemeanor crimes don’t stay on the record, right (wrong!)? So, why worry? Why would you retain or hire a lawyer in New York City for a Desk Appearance Ticket? Better asked, should you get an attorney for an appearance ticket in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx? In one word, “yes.” While a New York Desk Appearance Ticket may charge a lesser crime, each and every misdemeanor or felony upon a conviction will result in a lifelong public criminal record searchable and reviewable by Homeland Security, any and all immigration authorities, potential creditors, future employers, and just about anyone who does a background check for co-op apartment, medical and professional licensure or merely because they want to dig into your history. Because criminal convictions in New York are never…
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A Note To Arthur
Dear Arthur, Congratulations on taking the helm of the greatest newspaper on earth. Granted, you were weaned for this position, extending the dynasty that created something of immense power and value, but dynasties fall. Yet, here you are. I remember when we talked a few years ago. I was impressed by your interest, knowledge, and nuts-and-bolts concerns. And here you are, publisher of the New York Times. Whew. That’s a hefty burden. But in reading your note, I have some concerns. For context, my wife and I were home delivery subscribers for decades. It’s an expensive deal, frankly, but that’s the price of keeping informed. In the past year, we canceled our subscription. To cut to the chase, as you must be busy, the problem is that the Times strives too hard to report the “truth” rather than the facts. It’s unclear from your note whether you recognize this distinction. The Times will continue to search for the most important stories of our era…
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Fraud Charge Nets LAUSD Teacher
Fraud Charge Nets LAUSD TeacherA former Los Angeles Unified School District teacher will spend two years in prison for insurance fraud. In addition to the prison sentence, the woman must repay more than $92,000 in restitution and complete six years of supervised release. According to investigators, the woman submitted several phony disability claims between 2013 and 2016. In each case, the woman forged the signature of a LAUSD employee. According to the claims, the woman was unable to work, however she continued to work during that time. As a result, she collected disability insurance payments in addition to her regular salary. Investigators found copies of the forged documents in the woman’s car, along with other evidence to support the forgery claim. In addition to the fraudulent insurance claim, the woman also pleaded guilty to a single identity theft charge. The identity theft charge was unrelated to the insurance case, but investigators discovered it during a…
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Sea Weed Could Help Heal Traumatic Brain Injuries
Traumatic brain injuries are among the most serious potential consequences of a car, motorcycle or truck crash. While most fractures heal, brain injuries can be permanent and may impair the sufferer for life. Traumatic brain injuries, known as TBIs can cause irreversible damage in the long-term because the inflammation associated with the injury can prevent healthy brain tissue from growing again. However, Australian scientists believe they have found a natural ingredient that will halt the inflammation and alleviate some of the permanent effects of a brain injury. The natural compound they hit on was seaweed. A report on FireceBiotech stated scientists at Australian National University and RMIT Australia University joined forces with Tasmania-based biotech company Marinova to develop a compound of a sugar molecule in seaweed. Sea weed may be used to treat traumatic brain injuries They were able to create a brain scaffold that closely resembled healthy brain tissue, according…
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Why The NRO Got “Stop and Frisk” Wrong
To his enormous credit, Kyle Smith concedes that the National Review got it wrong. As of December 27, New York City saw 286 homicides in 2017, down 12 percent from the previous year, itself a near-record low. That is a rate of about 3 per 100,000 population. By contrast, Chicago’s homicide rate for 2017 was about 24 per 100,000. The figure for Baltimore is about 56. There were more murder victims in Baltimore than in New York City in 2017, even though New York has nearly 14 times as many residents. These numbers are extraordinary. Back in the 1990s, the hope was to bring the number of murders below 2000 per year. Small fluctuations now will have out-sized impact on percentages, but in raw numbers, this is about as safe as it gets. And it happened without stop and frisk. Stop-and-frisk was deployed in New York City some 686,000 times at the peak in 2011, dropped sharply in 2012–2013, the last couple of years of the Mike Bloomberg administration, and plummeted to…
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Short Take: Remembering The Sokal Hoax
It was masterful, and made the deeply passionate intellectual elite very, very angry. Liberally citing work by feminist epistemologists, philosophers of science, and critical theorists — including two of Social Text’s editors, the NYU American-studies scholar Andrew Ross and Stanley Aronowitz, a sociologist at CUNY Graduate Center — Sokal endorsed the notion that scientists had no special claim to scientific knowledge. Just as postmodern theory revealed that so-called facts about the physical world were mere social or political constructs, he wrote, quantum gravity undermined the concept of existence itself, making way for a “liberatory science” and “emancipatory mathematics.” I know, right? It doesn’t get any deeper than this. Except: A couple of weeks later, in the magazine Lingua Franca, Sokal revealed that he didn’t believe a word of what he’d written. It was all a big joke, but…
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Cassell & Garvin on Victims' Rights
Paul G. Cassell and Margaret Garvin (University of Utah - S.J. Quinney College of Law and Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense or Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces (DAC-IPAD)) have posted Policy Paper: The Need to Enhance...
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Criminal Law Holiday Movies (You Might Be Surprised)
I’ve been saving this post for the holidays because it suits the season and, after a long break, it seemed like a good way to start back to work (at least for me). What’s your favorite criminal law holiday movie? It’s hard to pick just one. Bad Santa is up there for me. It’s a treasure trove of criminal offenses, big and small, particularly if you count repeat offenses, e.g., drunk and disruptive by Santa himself, played by Billy Bob Thornton. Social media occasionally blows up over whether Die Hard, a blow ‘em up movie with Bruce Willis, is a Christmas movie. The School of Government is, of course, neutral on the issue, but I have a personal connection to the movie, which I explain at the end of this post, like a bonus scene after the credits. What I really want to talk about is It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic Jimmy Stewart movie. Justice Newby of our Supreme Court discussed the movie’s criminal law implications in his concurring…
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"American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment"
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Can You be Guilty of Crimes You Do Not Complete?
It is illegal to commit a crime. That simple statement would seem straightforward enough. But do you really know what the words “commit a crime” mean? On the surface it would appear that the crime must be completed. That is, if you commit a robbery, you must actually follow through and rob someone. That definition leaves out an entire category of what are known as inchoate, or incomplete crimes. In common language, we call these “attempts,” and you have probably heard of people convicted of attempted murder or attempted robbery. Inchoate Crimes Continue reading
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News Scan
Violent Crime Spikes in San Jose: Robert Salonga of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the Bay Area's largest city was on track for a 7% increase in violent crime for 2017. This follows a 14% jump in 2016. While the mayor of San Jose still considers the city one of the safest in the nation, he admits the trend is causing concern. The story notes that the Bay Area cities of Hayward, Fremont, Oakland, and Palo Alto also suffered two-year increases in violent crime. It should be noted that San Jose was among the first cities in the state to fully adopt policies encouraged by AB109, offering split sentences, home confinement, and rehabilitation programs rather than jail time for theft and drug offenders.
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The Guilty Except Insane Defense in Arizona
In a recent Arizona criminal case, a police officer answered a check vehicle call after police got reports of a white truck that was parked in a lane of traffic. The officer turned on his overhead lights and pulled up behind the truck. He came up to the driver’s window and tried to talk to the truck driver. He saw three young kids in the car, who seemed to be sleeping. The truck driver asked to see his identification twice. He told her he was a police officer and pointed at his badge and at the police car’s emergency lights. The police officer believed that it was necessary to check on the kids, due to the totality of the circumstances. He asked her to unlock the doors to check the kids’ welfare and tried to open the doors. She drove up about 100 yards, ignoring his requests to stop, and went into a parking lot. He followed and pulled his police car behind the truck to effectuate another stop. She backed the truck toward his patrol car. He pulled into a bank…
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News release - Idaho State Police District 5 holiday period "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" mobilization
For Immediate Release, Jan. 2, 2018 News release - Idaho State Police District 5 holiday period "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" mobilization [Contact information below] Idaho State Police District Five troopers, headquartered in Pocatello, recently participated in the Holiday "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" mobilization. This mobilization was sponsored by the Office of Highway Safety through the Idaho Department of Transportation and provided overtime opportunities for law enforcement agencies around the State to focus on impaired driving. This mobilization took place from December 13th, 2017 to January 2nd, 2018. For their part in this mobilization, District Five troopers arrested 25 impaired drivers during this time period. For reporters seeking additional information on this mobilization, contact: Lieutenant Michael Winans Idaho State Police District 5 Patrol (208) 239-9811
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NY Times again forcefully calls for Supreme Court to end the use of the death penalty
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117 Arrested For DWI Over New Year’s Eve in Minnesota
Despite knowing that police officers would be out in full force looking for drunk drivers, more than 100 Minnesotans were arrested for DWI on New Year’s Eve. According to the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety, law enforcement officials in Minnesota arrested 117 people for drunk driving between the hours of 6 p.m. on Sunday and 8 a.m. on Monday. This number represents a sharp decline from last year when 152 people were arrested on New Year’s Eve, including 125 people after the stroke of midnight. Statistics show that 174 people were arrested for DWI on New Year’s Eve in 2015, and 191 were arrested on the same day in 2014. “If you didn’t make a new year’s resolution, here’s an idea: Always plan ahead and line up a sober ride,” the state traffic safety office when announcing the arrest totals on their Facebook page.” DWI Arrests Up Overall DWI arrests in Minnesota had been trending down in recent years, but that’s not…
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OECD Global Forum on Tax Transparency Highlights Enforcement Initiatives in Annual Report
On December 20, 2017, the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes issued its annual report. It noted the fact that 50 jurisdictions have committed to starting Automatic Exchange of Information in September 2017 pursuant to the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS). As the jurisdictions that participated in the 2017 exchanges are preparing to use the data for enforcement purposes, most of the remaining jurisdictions are preparing now to make their initial exchanges in September 2018. Already the report on the 2017 implementation period is ready. The Global Forum is preparing to conduct full reviews of the implementation of automatic exchange of information (AEOI) by 2020. The OECD has developed a plan of action to expand AEOI to developing countries. The Global Forum has finished the first round of peer reviews on exchange of information on request (EOIR). Almost all the jurisdictions have received a…
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Seized Cash Successfully Returned to Rightful Owner
Court: Authorities Must Return $167,000 in Seized Cash In a May 8 ruling, a Polk County District Court judge ruled authorities must return over $167,000 unlawfully taken from our client whom officers wrongfully suspected of identity theft. Our client was stopped, seized and his vehicle searched all because the police mistakenly believed he was involved in an identity theft case. During the search, the police found the chash and other items which resulted in criminal charges. The State, attempting to keep the money, filed a forfeiture action in the Iowa District Court. However, the cash was returned after the State failed to file a notice of pending forfeiture as required under Iowa Code Section 809A.8. Iowa Code Chapters 809 and 809A require the State follow a stringent forfeiture procedure before permanently taking property from private citizens. Seized property and cash must be returned if the State fails to comply. Criminal…
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Sekhri on Plea Bargaining in India
Abhinav Sekhri (Harvard University, Law School, Students) has posted Plea Bargaining's Resounding Defeat? The Indian Experiment with Plea Bargaining on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Plea bargaining has been on the statute books in India since 2006, and yet, after...
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Kuckuck v. State: An Examination of Double Jeopardy With Solicitation and Traveling After Solicitation
William Kuckuck v. State of Florida, 43 Fla.L.Weekly D80b (5th DCA 2017) involves a defendant, William Kuckuck, who was convicted of violating Florida Statutes section 847.0135(3)(b), by knowingly using a computer on-line service, internet service, or other similar device to solicit a person believed to be a parent of a minor child to obtain their consent to engage in unlawful sexual conduct with the child and of violating section 847.0135(4)(b) for traveling to meet the minor child to engage in unlawful sexual conduct after solicitation. The arrest came about after an FBI Agent posed as the father of 11 and 9 year old daughters and posted an ad on Craigslist seeking “taboo” experiences for his “daughters.” Kuckuck responded by email and engaged in explicit communication regarding sexual conduct that Kuckuck sought to engage in with the “daughters” on July 14, 2016 and sought consent from the “father” on July 15, 2016. …
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