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PokerStars, Murder and Habeas Corpus

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Richard Read “was convicted of murder, following a jury trial, and subsequently was sentenced to fifty years incarceration”, after which he appealed his conviction to the Appellate Court of Connecticut.  Read v. Commissioner of Correction, 2014 WL 5836756 (Appellate Court of Connecticut2014).  That court affirmed his conviction.  Read v. Commissioner of Correction, supra. Read then filed an action an action in the Superior Court of Connecticut – Judicial District of Tolland, in which he filed a “petition for a writ of habeas corpus claiming that his trial counsel was ineffective in representing him at his jury trial by failing to present certain expert testimony and as a result, he was prejudiced.”  Read v. Warden, 2013 WL 656893 2013).  As Wikipedia explains, habeas corpus is a legal action . . . by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment. The . . . United States…

The Dark Tactic of Stash House Stings

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It works, right?  Isn’t that good enough? “The conspiracy was real; the guns were real; the defendants’ intent to use them to violently rob a cocaine stash house was real; and the defendants’ criminal histories were real,” the federal prosecutors argued in their brief. The supposed stock of cocaine had to be set high, they said, to make the proposal credible. How, anyone of good conscience must ask, can we feel badly for such defendants?  Well, the problem arises from the fact that these aren’t defendants caught engaging in crimes.  Rather, these are people who live and hang in poor neighborhoods, where the government sends it friends to troll for the miserable, the pathetic, the losers who might be enticed by visions of big money and an end to their misery. And unsurprisingly, it doesn’t happen in white neighborhoods. “Stash-house stings” . . .  have sent more than 1,000 of the country’s most…

Penalties For The Sale Or Purchase Of Cocaine In Okaloosa County, Florida

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If you are convicted for the Sale, Manufacture, Delivery, or Purchase of Cocaine in Okaloosa County, a person faces a mandatory second degree felony conviction and up to 15 years in prison ($10,000 fine maximum). If the Sale, Manufacture, Delivery, or Purchase of Cocaine was a certain distance from a school, college, university, or park; the charge becomes enhanced to a first degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison, with a possible 3 year minimum mandatory sentence, even if the amount of the drugs is not up to a trafficking level. Serious stuff, isn’t it. If you or a family member has been arrested for the sale or purchase of cocaine in Okaloosa County, give me a call at (850) 362-6655 for a free consultation. Let’s see how I can help.

Republicans Hyperventilate Over Obama's Modest Immigration Reform

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Republicans are hyperventilating about President Obama's modest immigration reforms. If they had a clue what real immigration reform entails, they'd probably have a collective heart attack. Here are a few reform proposals that go much... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Friday Open Thread

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More court today (and now Monday and Tuesday as well) and jail visits. I wish I could recoup the hours I spent after court this week at the Apple store (that "new" phone they gave me 3 months ago stopped working. I'm now on my third iPhone 5s)... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

BREAKING NEWS! The President Extends Deportation Relief: Do You Qualify?

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Last night, the President finally announced his administration’s eagerly anticipated and hoped for plans to extend deportation relief to a greater segment of the undocumented foreign national population. President Obama has intimated that he will be hosting additional press conferences about his executive order in the coming days and weeks, but his revelations from last night have provided critical insight into who may now also qualify for deportation relief. Read on and contact our office to learn about the new immigration possibilities that may be available to you and your family! **Please note that the following new deportation relief and related initiatives have not yet been implemented by the government and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is not yet accepting applications for relief under these new initiatives. Continue to check back with our office to see when applications can start to be filed. Expansion of the DACA Program Two years ago, the…

DOJ Wields Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act Against Financial Institutions

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In 2012 and 2013, the Department of Justice brought a slew of actions against several financial institutions under a rarely used and little-known statute from the late 1980s for conduct related to the mortgage crisis. Outcomes in these cases in recent months show the statute’s potency and likely indicate that the government will continue to use this statute in the future. The statute involved is the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA). Originally passed by Congress in response to the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, FIRREA was enacted as a tool to protect financial institutions and others from fraud and insider actions by allowing the government to bring civil actions when certain criminal statutes (including mail and wire fraud) have been violated, as long as the violation “affected a federally insured financial institution.” Essentially, FIRREA allows the government to prosecute alleged criminal conduct…

The Unmatched Joy of Winning back your Driver's License

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When you win a Michigan driver's license restoration appeal, you usually have to wait for the decision to arrive in the mail. Once in a while, in certain, "special" cases, and only with certain hearing officers (for purposes of brevity, we'll leave "special" undefined and "certain" unidentified), a person will be told, at the conclusion of his or her hearing, that he or she has won. Last week, I had 2 such cases in the same afternoon. While that, in and of itself, is not such a big deal (I guarantee a win in every license appeal I take), in these particular cases, I was profoundly moved by sitting so near and watching, up close, the emotional reaction of my clients. I literally got to experience, firsthand, the intense feelings I usually get secondhand when a grateful client calls or emails his or her thanks. In both of these cases, I was right there as each client's eyes welled up and tears of joy ran down their faces. …

Might Texas revisit needle exchange pilots with Susan Reed gone, disease prevention in the news?

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Grits wonders if - owing to recent events surrounding the Ebola scare and the outlandish costs of Hepatitis C treatment under new drug protocols - 2015 might be a year in which the Texas Legislature favorably revisits Rep. Ruth Jones-McLendon's legislation allowing local health authorities to create pilot needle-exchange programs? This session, her bill allowing such pilots in Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Nueces, Travis, and Webb counties is HB 65.Legislation authorizing a pilot needle-exchange program passed once before back in 2007. Rep. McLendon carried the bill in the House and Dr. Bob Deuell (who lost his primary in the spring and will not return next year) championed it in the Senate. The designated pilot location was McLendon's home county in Bexar; Governor Perry approved it and local officials looked forward to implementing it. But Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, who herself was ousted earlier this month in the general election, threatened to…

Amar and Allard on Reevaluating the Bar Exam

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At Justia's Verdict, Vikram Amar has this article discussing the decline in performance of the July 2014 bar examinees relative to other years. Amar also addresses the National Conference of Bar Examiners' [NCBE's] response to this performance decline which was laid out in this memo by Erica Moeser, the president of the organization.I've blogged about this year's decline in performance yesterday. There, I described the unpleasant situation of California bar examinees who have to read about the nationwide drop in bar exam performance before they have even received word of whether they have passed. Here is an excerpt from Moeser's memo where she addresses this decline:Beyond checking and rechecking our equating, we have looked at other indicators to challenge the results. All point to the fact that the group that sat in July 2014 was less able than the group that sat in July 2013. In July 2013 we marked the highest number of [Multistate Bar…

Does new bill to make it easier for veterans to get medical marijuana stand any chance in Congress?

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The question in the title of this post is prompted by this new Huffington Post article headlined "Veterans May Gain Easier Access To Medical Marijuana." Here are excerpts: A bill introduced in Congress would allow Department of Veterans Affairs doctors to recommend medical marijuana for their patients. The Veterans Equal...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/QcXowshXM74" height="1" width="1"/>

Former Hillsborough County Teacher Arrested for Child Porn

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A Hillsborough County teacher resigned Wednesday after he was arrested on child pornography charges. The 68-year-old resigned from his position with the school district following his arrest,  according to a Hillsborough County School District spokeswoman. Tampa police claim they started the investigation against the man after an iPod with “questionable” images surfaced. School security was unable to track down who the iPod belonged to. Officers were called to the scene and obtained a search warrant for the device, then allegedly discovered several hundred images of young boys on the iPod. The iPod was eventually tracked to the man’s IP address, according to detectives. His home was searched on Wednesday morning. Police said the man admitted that the iPod belonged to him. He arrested and is facing seven counts of child pornography. The man had been with the district since 1980, and for the last four years worked as a peer evaluator, giving teachers tips on…

Man wrongly jailed for 525 days under sex offender's name

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11-21-2014 Alabama: A man was wrongly arrested and held at the Fulton County Jail for 525 days under another man’s name. Randy Wiggins was mistakenly booked under Randy Williams’ name. Williams is a convicted child molester who was wanted on a warrant for failing to register as a sex offender. “The sad part is the system failed him,” said Stephen Strong, his brother-in-law. Wiggins, who

Michigan Judge Suspends Defendant’s Driver’s License After He Brings English Interpreter to Court

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Recently, an Oceana County circuit court judge suspended a defendant’s driver’s license after the defendant brought an English interpreter to court in a case involving cocaine possession. Juan Leonel Estrada, a 44-year-old Hart resident, brought the interpreter to court, a move Judge Terrence R. Thomas felt wasted the court’s resources. Thomas said that Estrada was “playing a game” with him, and that he did not feel Estrada needed an interpreter. Estrada was ready to plead guilty to charges of cocaine possession in exchange for a maximum of 30 days in jail, however the judge rejected the defendant’s plea because he believed the defendant had misused the process of the court and its resources. He set the case for trial, and told the defendant that he would be the one paying for a translator at trial. The judge said that between now and the trial date, Estrada might learn English. The judge believed that Estrada could speak English fairly…

Sarah Hale’s Letter and Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

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In September, 1863, Sarah J. Hale’s fifteen year effort to have the last Thursday of November become a nationally recognized day of Thanksgiving became a reality when, in the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln issued a proclamation in response to Ms. Hale’s letter.  Ms. Hale is often referred to as the Godmother of Thanksgiving. […]

"The FBI Is Very Excited About This Machine That Can Scan Your DNA in 90 Minutes"

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FourthAmendment.com links to and excerpts this piece from Mother Jones. In part: Schueren grabbed a cotton swab and dropped it into a plastic cartridge. That's what, say, a police officer would use to wipe the inside of your cheek to...

Idaho State Police Arrest Kingston Woman for First Degree Murder of Infant Girl in August

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Heather Lynn CrawfordIDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE Teresa Baker Public Information Officer Headquarters 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 884-7122 Fax (208) 884-7087 For Immediate Release: 11/21/14 at 6:00 p.m. COEUR D'ALENE - Detectives with the Idaho State Police arrested a Kingston woman today for First Degree Murder in the death of a 22 month-old girl that occurred on or about August 22nd near Kingston in Shoshone County. Investigators arrested Heather Lynn Crawford, 26 at her home this afternoon without incident. Police were called to the home of the child during the early morning hours of August 23, 2014 when the child's father and his girlfriend, Crawford, reported that the child was found in her bed not breathing and unresponsive. First responders' attempts to revive the child were unsuccessful and the child was pronounced dead at the Shoshone Medical Center in Kellogg. Crawford was booked into the Shoshone County Jail and will be…

I Have Passed the California Bar Exam!

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This, of course, changes nothing in my disclaimers (although once I am sworn in, I will be changing that remark about not being a licensed attorney).But it is a good day.UPDATEBased on statistics recently posted by Derek Muller, it appears that the odds were not in my favor.

Ferguson News Reports

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The media hype over the grand jury decision in Ferguson is over the top. Except for a few stories about Buffalo and one warning of a cyber attack by China or Russia, CNN aired nothing else this afternoon, except commercials. It was that way on my... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Vandalia OVI Checkpoint (Nov. 21, 2014)

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There will be a Vandalia OVI checkpoint tonight (Nov. 21st, 2014) along US 40 (east of airport access exit) 8pm – midnight.  Stay safe and designate a sober driver. If you need the assistance of an attorney, contact us at (937) 776-2671 anytime 24/7. Stay ahead of the Vandalia OVI checkpoints! If you want to receive updated information on sobriety checkpoints, enhanced traffic enforcement, saturation patrols and other important developments that affect you, sign up for text alerts on the [Read the full post. . .]
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