After initially denying requests for a new trial, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office today announced that it will agree to a new trial for Anthony Wright. New DNA testing of the rape kit identified a man with a lengthy criminal record as the real perpetrator. Wright, of Pennsylvania, was convicted of the rape and murder of an elderly woman. Today, post-conviction DNA testing excludes him as the source and points to another suspect. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Wright, who has been serving a life sentence since 1993, has maintained his innocence since 1991 and said he was working a construction job when the crime was committed. He also maintains that his confession was coerced by a police officer who threatened him while he was handcuffed to a chair. During the investigation, a rape kit was taken of the victim's corpse and police claim to have collected blood stained clothes from Wright's house. Recent DNA testing of the rape kit has…
Philadelphia District Attorney Agrees to New Trial for Man Who Served 22 Years for a Murder DNA Proves Was Committed by Another Man
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How to Increase Gross Domestic Product
The Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded yesterday by the Annals of Improbable Research.And the prize in economics goes to [drum roll] ...ISTAT -- the Italian government's National Institute of Statistics, for proudly taking the lead in fulfilling the European Union mandate for each country to increase the official size of its national economy by including revenues from prostitution, illegal drug sales, smuggling, and all other unlawful financial transactions between willing participants.The full list is here.
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SpearIt on Prisoner Radicalization and the Evolving Terrorist Threat
SpearIt (Texas Southern University - Thurgood Marshall School of Law) has posted Spectacular or Specious? A Critical Review of the Spectacular Few: Prisoner Radicalization and the Evolving Terrorist Threat (39 T. Marshall L. Rev. 225 (2014)) on SSRN. Here is...
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The dangers of disorderly conduct laws in our police state.
By Fairfax County/Northern Virginia/Maryland/Beltway criminal defense lawyer Jon Katz. Defending DWI/ DUI/ Drunk Driving, drugs, marijuana/medical marijuana/cultivation, sex cases, felonies and misdemeanors. Fighting relentlessly for the best possible results for his clients. The United States is a police state. The streets and beyond are littered with police, other security personnel, security agencies, security contractors, security cameras, security laws, and warrantless NSA spying on citizens compliments of President Obama, which follows up from George Bush II's violations of our privacy. This state of affairs did not just happen on its own. In our supposed democracy -- and how is it possible to have a true democracy in any nation populated by over 10,000 people? -- too many voters have let fear of terrorists, communists and other real and imagined threats; apathy; and busy-ness with other things allow this police state to be created, mushroomed,…
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Missing Afghan Cops Training at Quatico With DEA Found
The DEA brought a bunch of Afghan police to Quantico to train them. It says it polygraphed them and took their passports. That didn't stop two of them from taking off in Georgetown Saturday. They have now been found. They will be returned to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Stop Me Before I Comb Again
So you're hangin' in the neighborhood barbershop waiting for a chair to open so you can get a trim. There are five, maybe six barbers working, a whole bunch of customers sitting around, talking, reading comics, the paper, old magazines. School's starting soon, so there are a bunch of kids there. Gonna get cleaned up for that first day of school.There's a couple of cops inside, dressed in civvies, just kind of looking around. This is, after all, this barbershop is in a black neighborhood. Or a Latino one. So you gotta figure someone's dealing crack and someone else is fencing hot TVs. And surely everyone is armed to to teeth and itchin' for a fight. Just sayin'.In Berry v. Leslie, Judge Rosenbaum of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals tells what happened next.Shortly after the arrival of the plain-clothes officers, a “whole bunch” of police cars pulled into the shopping plaza and…
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Fatal crash westbound I-86 at milepost 56.5
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idaho State Police District 5 5205 South 5th Ave. Pocatello, Idaho 83204-2299 (208) 236-6466 FAX: (208) 236-6068 For Immediate Release: 09/20/14 3:28 a.m. Please direct questions to the District Office On Saturday, September 20, 2014, at approximately 1:04 a.m., the Idaho State Police investigated a one-vehicle fatal crash westbound on I-86 at milepost 56.5, 5 miles west of Chubbuck. Skyler Whitnah, 22, of American Falls, was westbound on I-86 in a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt. Whitnah went off the left shoulder of the road, came back on the roadway, overcorrected, and went off the right side of the road. The vehicle rolled and Whitnah was ejected. He was pronounced deceased at the scene of the crash. There was no road blockage. Whitnah was not wearing his seatbelt. The crash is under investigation by the Idaho…
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Greater Driver Accountability Urged by Grieving Massachusetts Father
A 20-year-old student studying physical therapy at Simmons College was killed on Father's Day while jogging along a road in Sharon. The vehicle that caused her death was driven by a man who never should have been behind the wheel because his license was suspended. Now, the student's father has become an advocate to press Massachusetts state lawmakers to pass a measure he hopes will help boost enforcement against derelict drivers. It would require the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue a notification to local police when a person's license is suspended. This would allow officers to watch for that person's vehicle, in the event he or she decides to venture out anyway. Testifying before the state's Transportation Committee recently, the father spoke of his family's struggle to make it through another day without his daughter. He said a driver operating a suspended or revoked vehicle is "an immediate threat to public…
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Safety First?
Lead paint. It was a far better paint than anything we have today. It stuck. It held. It was damn fine paint. But when it did come off the walls, and was eaten by children because it tasted sweet, it caused brain damage, loss of impulse control and a slew of other problems. In 1978, lead paint was banned from household use. In the scheme of things, brain damage was deemed far worse than paint that lacked durability. At Hercules and the Umpire, Judge Richard Kopf raises a troubling problem based on Rick Nevin’s theory that the elimination of lead paint in the environment was a causal force in the decline of crimes rates. The TL:dr explanation is that Excessive lead exposure due to paint chips, car and truck fumes and otherwise can permanently drive down the IQ of a child and, at the same time, it can permanently reduce the child’s ability to control his impulses. Those twin harms tend to produce a criminal when the child grows up. Before lead…
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Staatsanwälte müssen sich verantworten
In der vergangenen Woche sorgten zwei Verfahren für mediale Aufmerksamkeit, die jeweils von rechtskräftig freigesprochenen Prominenten gegen die Staatsanwälte geführt werden, die einst selbst gegen sie ermittelt und dabei mutmaßlich ihre Amtspflichten verletzt haben. Verletzten Staatsanwälte das Dienstgeheimnis? Im Fall von Bundespräsident a.D. Christian Wulff gehen die Ermittlungen auf eine Strafanzeige des Rechtsanwalts Gernot Fritz zurück, die nun von der Staatsanwaltschaft Göttingen gegen die beteiligten Ermittler geführt wird. Zwar will die Staatsanwaltschaft aus ermittlungstaktischen Gründen keine Auskünfte über den Umfang der Ermittlungen oder den konkreten Personenkreis geben, gegen den ermittelt wird — die Nachforschungen sollen sich jedoch auch auf das niedersächsische Justizministerium selbst erstrecken. Es ist zu vermuten, dass auch einige Staatsanwälte der damals…
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The Forfeiture Curmudgeons
When we were young, asset forfeiture was only used against evil drug kingpins, to take the profit out of crime, because we were pure at heart and would never tolerate an abuse of the vast power entrusted to us. –Paraphrased from a Washington Post op-ed John Yoder and Brad Cates These aren’t two random lunatics, but two men in whom the United States of America reposed huge power to wreak havoc with the fundamental underpinnings of our legal system. And they did. John Yoder was director of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Office from 1983 to 1985. Brad Cates was the director of the office from 1985 to 1989. I can still remember sitting in the judge’s chambers on my first asset forfeiture conference, the judge looking sternly at the AUSA and saying, “you know, the law abhors a forfeiture, right?” It’s unbearably quaint today. I suspect newer judges aren’t even familiar with the maxim, no less interested in…
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Blame the Children
Q: What happens when a police officer finds a 5-year-old special needs boy by himself a couple of blocks from the school house? A: Suspend the child. At least, if the principal is Denise Segars-McPhatter, and the school is Early Childhood Center School 82. What, you thought the cop did something wrong? Not this time. From the Buffalo News: A 5-year-old boy with special needs managed to grab his jacket and bookbag, leave his kindergarten class, get down a flight of stairs and walk out of a Buffalo elementary school undetected Tuesday. A police officer on patrol around noon happened to spot the child nearly two blocks away in the East Side Kensington-Bailey neighborhood and returned him to Early Childhood Center School 82. Shortly afterward, the child’s mother got a call from a school staffer. To apologize? To beg forgiveness? To seek the mercy and understanding of parents from those in loco parentis? Nope. Wrong loco. Gloria…
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Saturday Open Thread
ISIS released the full version of its latest propaganda video yesterday, "Flames of War." It's available on You Tube here.[new link] The speaker narrating the video sounds American. This struck me as an (unintentionally) funny line, which they... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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BRAVE BLOG POST
A brave blog post:We write this with some trepidation, but not the same courage that it took our colleague Phil Reizenstein to make a post on his blog about Adrian Peterson and child abuse. Many of you have emailed us and asked us to re-post it. We won't do that. And Phil has not contacted us. But he did post it publicly, and that is enough for us to mention it here. It was always baffling as to how his name became linked with this blog, there being zero evidence to support such an allegation. And in the early years, to say he was upset at us is an understatement. He had to respond to at least one bar complaint that he forwarded to us. In recent years we have heard him joke about it. We were in the audience for one such reference. So please, no comments about Rumpole and who you think we are. Just applaud Phil for his brave discussion of some very personal issues. And beyond the Adrian Peterson post, it's a very unique blog for a criminal defense attorney.…
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Accessory to a Crime
Being Charged as an Accessory After the Fact Many actions may be considered illegal by Nevada law enforcement. Even if you don’t participate in a robbery or other crime, you may still find yourself facing charges under NRS 195.030, the law for being an accessory after the fact. It may seem like you’re just helping someone, but if your actions render aid to a fugitive you may be facing criminal charges. While you may not be the principal party to a crime, you may still be responsible for offering the principal help. Perhaps you offer them a place to lie low or help get rid of evidence. You may lie to police or assist the fugitive to escape. All of these actions may lead to charges under NRS 195.030. However, it’s important to note that you cannot be charged with a crime under this section if the person you helped was your spouse, a sibling, child, parent or grandparent. Being an accessory is not the same thing as aiding and abetting. That’s because aiding…
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Designated Felony...cont
Respondent does not indicate whether he believes the absence of a five year statute of limitations violates procedural or substantive due-process. Procedural due-process imposes constraints on the procedures through which the government deprives persons of protected liberty or property interests. It requires notice of such potential deprivations and an opportunity to be heard. "Substantive due-process" on the other hand bars certain governmental actions regardless of their procedural fairness. It prohibits abuses of governmental power which are arbitrary and without "reasonable justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective." Respondent's claims here are that the procedures which would be used to subject him to civil management would be unfair because his felony convictions arose in 1992. He asserts that a fact-finding process which would take place 18 years after his sex crimes would impair his ability to defend himself and cites…
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NYPD Use of Force Stats: Consider the Source
The NYPD is proudly touting statistics that indicate that the use of force by police officers has been declining for the past 20 years. That's great. Unfortunately, it may not be true. As the department has had to acknowledge, the NYPD is relying in large part on self-reporting by officers. Color me cynical, but the sourcing is problematic.Of the many numbers in the NYPD's report, one that catches the eye concerns the percentage of arrests that involve the use of force. According to Commissioner Bratton, in 2013, the NYPD made nearly 400,000 arrests, in which only about 2 percent did officers use force. This number is down significantly from the 8.5 percent rate from 20 years earlier. Bratton claims that these stats show that officers are demonstrating an "extraordinary record of restraint," and are evidence that police force is the rare exception.But, you might ask, where do these numbers come from? After all, it's not like tracking points…
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"Marijuana Money Is Still A Pot Of Trouble For Banks"
The title of this post is the headline of this recent lengthy and informative Forbes article by Jacob Sullum. Here is how it gets started: During a visit to the Dixie Elixirs & Edibles plant in Denver last summer, I saw the machines the company uses to produce cannabis concentrates,...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/ODqqY2HqB_o" height="1" width="1"/>
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Recent highlights from Marijuana Law, Policy and Reform
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THE RIGHT TO TREATMENT CASES...cont
We conclude that appellant was entitled to a jury trial, first, because the crime with which he was charged was an indictable and serious offense at common law, and second, because the crime itself is morally offensive and Malum in se. Even if a first conviction becomes the subject of a mandatory youthful offender finding thus purporting not to be a criminal conviction, this finding itself may become a predicate in a subsequent prosecution wherein youthful offender status may be denied. Having been rendered in a constitutionally defective proceeding lacking trial by jury, its utility in the statutory scheme becomes null and void. THE PREDICATE NATURE OF A YOUTHFUL OFFENDER FINDING We respectfully submit that the "youth-adult" classification does not apply here. We are not now faced with a youth who, being given special benevolent treatment may be classified separately from an adult. In reality, the classes matched against each other in this instance are youths with…
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