A traffic stop is valid if it is supported by reasonable suspicion. During a valid traffic stop, an officer may demand the driver’s license and registration, may run a computer check based on those documents, and so on. But what if the reasonable suspicion supporting the stop dissipates soon after the stop is made? A […]
When Reasonable Suspicion Is Dispelled
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Underage DUI In Chicago
Driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI) is against the law for everyone in Illinois—and every other state, for that matter. The penalties for a DUI conviction can be severe and may have a significant impact on your life. These penalties only increase, however, if you are under the age of 21 when the DUI allegedly occurred. Harsher Standards for Underage Drivers The legal limit, or limit at which an individual is presumed to be under the influence, in Illinois is 0.08 percent blood alcohol content (BAC). Because consuming alcohol is unlawful for individuals under 21, the law places a much stricter standard on underage drivers. Illinois has adopted a “Zero Tolerance”1 law in regard to underage drivers, meaning that even the slightest amount of alcohol detected in their systems can result in a criminal conviction. The following are possible convictions for drivers under 21 depending on their BAC: BAC of 0.00 to 0.05 – Zero Tolerance…
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A Nice Young Man At Yale
Could the Yale police have made a worse choice of students to pull a gun on? Not likely. The student turned out to be the son of New York Times columnist Charles Blow. Saturday evening, I got a call that no parent wants to get. It was my son calling from college — he’s a third-year student at Yale. He had been accosted by a campus police officer, at gunpoint! Blow’s commentary often addresses the state of race relations in America. I suppose it comes with the territory, though that would be a racist conclusion based on Blow’s skin color. He could just as easily be a fencing writer, though it doesn’t pay as well. In any event, that’s what he does. And he does it well, whether or not you see the world as he does. According to the column, his son was doing what normal people who have no reason to think any cop would be interested in them do. He left for the library around 5:45 p.m. to check the status of a book he…
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The Open Access Advantage in Legal Education’s Age of Assessment
James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson & Caroline Osborne, The Open Access Advantage for American Law Reviews (October 7, 2014), available at SSRN. Elizabeth Adelman Open access (OA) scholarship is available online, without fees, and free of restrictive copyright and licensing provisions. As institutions of higher education implement a more metrics-driven paradigm, law schools are increasingly attentive to the quantification of both individual faculty and aggregate law school impact. Citation counts are one means of quantifying these impacts. Donovan, Watson, and Osborne build on their 2011 article, Citation Advantage of Open Access Legal Scholarship, which demonstrated that open access resources have a great impact on legal scholarship, (103 Law Lib. J. 553, 557). In this article, they work to develop a systematic and scientific explanation for why open access scholarship has a citation advantage in the legal education context. The authors’ research shows that…
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Things Only Bad Cops Do
Omar Rendon was a sergeant in the Marines, which is detailed so you realize that he was one of the good guys. You know, the brave heroes everybody talks about, who deserve our thanks. And indeed, they do, and he does. And he is a good guy, which didn’t really help him much. From the Daily News: Omar Rendon, 25, a former Marine sergeant, said he was sitting in his Acura sedan in an Ulmer St. parking lot in College Point, Queens while on his lunch break last week, eating a Subway sandwich and watching “Wentworth” on his cell phone, when an unmarked blue van pulled alongside him. Two men in plainclothes said, “Police! Get out of the car,” and reached in to unlock the door, he said. When Rendon — a handyman at the commercial complex, which features a movie theater and a Toys “R” Us — asked who they were, he said he was violently yanked out of the car. When he asked to see their I.D.s, one cop punched him in the face, he…
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Move On
From what I would assume to be a transcript posted by Jamison Koehler: HEARING EXAMINER: I will tell you right now, I do not, unless you have an expert here to testify as it relates to the field sobriety tests, unless you can provide that testimony through an expert – DEFENSE COUNSEL: — I have an expert right here – HEARING EXAMINER: — I cannot allow that line of questioning. DEFENSE COUNSEL: Let me try – HEARING EXAMINER: Because you are trying to get the officer to say that the tests are not peer-reviewed. What does that mean? What does that mean to the officer? DEFENSE COUNSEL: I don’t care what it means to the officer. What matters is what it means to you. HEARING EXAMINER: Right. And so the officer says it wasn’t peer-reviewed, how do you refute that if you don’t have an expert? DEFENSE COUNSEL: I have an expert. Right here. The officer is an…
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Gegenüberstellung durch Wahllichtbildvorlage: Den Verdächtigen bei der Polizei sicher wiedererkannt?
Seit jeher werden Tatverdächtige den Zeugen zur Wiedererkennung gegenübergestellt. So wie man das aus dem Fernsehkrimi kennt, wird die Gegenüberstellung allerdings nur noch selten gemacht, da diese mehr und mehr durch eine Wahllichtbildvorlage ersetzt wird. Beliebte Frage: War der das? Die überaus hohe Irrtumsanfälligkeit des Wiedererkennens ist ebenso schon immer eine Fehlerquelle ersten Ranges im Strafverfahren, insbesondere bei der Einzelgegenüberstellung oder der Vorlage nur eines Bildes („War der das?“). Daher bestimmt Nr. 18 RiStBV1, dass einem Zeugen mehrere Personen ähnlichen Alters und einer ähnlicher Erscheinung gegenüberzustellen sind – entsprechend ist bei der Wahllichtbildvorlage zu verfahren. Einer solchen Einzelgegenüberstellung und damit auch der Vorlage nur eines Einzellichtbildes dürfte wegen der damit einhergehenden suggestiven Wirkung kein2 oder allenfalls nur ein sehr geringer…
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Fantastic Result in a Case in Richmond this Week
Dave Caddell from Caddell Weiland obtained a fantastic result in a case in Richmond this week. Our client was charged with Driving Under the Influence and Refusing to Provide a Breath Sample. It all began when the client attempted to parallel park his vehicle on a road in the Fan District of Richmond. Unfortunately, he […]
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What are common DUI reductions in Washington State?
Common reductions in DUI (from DUI) cases are Reckless Driving, Negligent Driving and less common Reckless Endangerment. The negotiating environment these days is very difficult and the key to getting a reduction or (plea bargain) is having an experienced DUI...
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"The Humane Death Penalty Charade"
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Disorderly Conduct and Obstruction Arrests In Pensacola
People need to be aware that, albeit often illegally, they may be arrested by merely asking questions to officers who are arresting someone else. The best thing to do is to observe as much information about the incident as possible from a distance, obtain, without interference, the name of the officer or the number of his or her squad car. Just asking where the officers are taking the person being arrested should not result in your arrest, but unfortunately in Pensacola, Pensacola Beach, etc., people are arrested for doing nothing more than asking these types of questions. Be careful. You can always find out information about your friend or loved one later by calling the Escambia County Jail at 436-9820 ask for booking. As mentioned, people may be arrested for “disorderly conduct,” “obstruction,” or “resisting arrest without violence” for merely asking questions directed to law enforcement about why the officers may be arresting their…
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Disability and abuse, aging and budgets, chipping away at rape kit backlogs, unheralded drug exonerations, and what to do with an empty jail
While Grits focuses elsewhere, here are several news items that merit readers' attention:Are disabled inmates at the Estelle Unit abused?Maurice Chammah the Marshall Project summarized a recent report (pdf) from the Prison Justice League focused on the Estelle Unit in a story titled Report: Blind, deaf, disabled inmates abused in Texas prisons. Aging prisoners drive rising prison health budgetThanks to long sentences and unforgiving parole policies, expect this meme to become repetitive over the next few years: "Texas prison budget feels strain as age of prisoners keeps rising." Prison costs are rising for two main reasons: Churn among tens of thousands of nonviolent offenders who mostly spend short periods of time inside, and long, unyielding sentences for violent offenders which prioritize punishment for past crimes long after there's any public safety benefit from incarceration. There will be proposals this session to address the former group, but…
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Why Corey Batey Had To Testify
One of the bedrock principles of our criminal justice system is the defendant does not have to testify in his defense. Corey Batey had to testify for two reasons Batey had to say the two magic words. I'm sorry. Batey had to advance the defense theory of his intoxication. One of the elements of aggravated rape in Tennessee is that the government has to prove that the defendant knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally defective ,mentally incapacitated or physically helpless. Batey testified that he was" drunk out of his mind ". The rest of the closing arguments will start in minutes. We will soon see if the jury believes him.
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Pardon me, Governor Abbott, but about your clemency policy?
Despite recent national attention to clemency policy, I've yet to hear of any reporter asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott about his. Might he order a review of the hundreds of cases in which the Board of Pardons and Parole recommended clemency and Perry never signed off to see if deserving candidates were overlooked? Should we expect clemency to be exercised regularly as a routine part of the governor's duties or will it be relegated to symbolic Christmastime media rituals, as under his predecessor? And in general, as Grits wondered last November:Will Greg Abbott exercise clemency more generously than Perry? Texas' longest serving governor rejected two-thirds of recommendations for clemency sent to him by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, for the most part allowing the constitutional pardon power to atrophy on his watch. He's not the only executive-branch figure to ignore the clemency process: It's something Rick Perry and Barack Obama have in…
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//blawgsearch75.rssing.com/chan-6519914/article9715-live.html
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a first appeal of the conviction of a Texas man against his verdict and death sentence over the killing of a grandmother. Mark Anthony Soliz is on death row for killing a 61-year-old grandmother at her Johnson County home nearly five years ago. The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported on the recent high court ... Read More The post appeared first on .
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Driver facing fourth DUI charge for crash that injured teens pushing stalled car
A man with three previous DUIs is charged with multiple felonies for a crashing into a stalled car and injuring two teens trying to push the car off the road. The teens, 14 and 17, were both injured in the crash, according to a report in the Florida Times-Union. The car had run out of gas and the teens were trying to push the car to the shoulder when the defendant hit them, pinning one under the car and sending the other off the road, the newspaper reported. The driver and the other passenger in the car had minor injuries, the newspaper reported. The man is facing several charges, including DUI causing serious bodily injury, a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in state prison. Because he has a history of DUI convictions, according to the newspaper, his DUI itself is a felony - regardless of whether anyone was hurt. DUI penalties increase when people have a criminal history that includes DUI convictions. For example, for a first DUI, penalties include a fine…
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DUI Arrests in Birmingham Expected on Super Bowl Sunday
Having a big Super Bowl party or going to one at a friend’s house can be a great time. This year, given all the media coverage about “deflate gate,” media analysts are predicting even higher television ratings than previous years. As you are well aware, in addition to watching the game, a Super Bowl party usually involves a lot of drinking. As the Birmingham police are aware, the night also involves a lot of drinking and driving, which means a spike in DUI arrests. It is probable there will increased patrols out on the streets and highways, as well as the possibility of sobriety checkpoints. While the best thing you can do is drink responsibly and use a designated driver, if you find yourself being pulled over by the police, there are several things you should keep in mind. The police are trained to administer three standardized field sobriety tests (SFTSs) when conducting a traffic stop in which driver is suspected of driving…
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Woman Seeks More than $75,000 in Damages After Allegedly Being Assaulted by Law Enforcement Officers 25 Years Ago
A woman who claims she was sexually assaulted numerous times in 1990 and 1991 by Pleasant Ridge and Garden City police officers and employees has now filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking more than $75,000 in damages. The woman, who is now 40 years old, claims that she turned to drugs and prostitution after her dreams of becoming a police officer were dashed by the alleged sexual attacks. At the time of the abuse, the woman was 15 and 16 years old, and participating in a program training her to become a police officer. From 1989 to 1992, the victim participated in the Garden City Police Explorer Post, a program that made it possible for teens to explore a potential career in law enforcement. According to her lawsuit, she suffered both emotional and physical abuse which led to a career as a prostitute; she also battled drug addiction through August of 2013. Some of those named as defendants in the lawsuit include Pleasant Ridge Police Chief Kevin Nowak, Garden City police…
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Hide and Seek: Non-Disclosure in Family Law
At the end of a marriage, each spouse has a legal obligation to make honest disclosure of the assets in their name, possession or control. A colourful British Columbia judge called the absence of accurate disclosure the “cancer of matrimonial litigation”, and he was right. Spouses who initiate the costly game of “hide and seek” have characteristics in common, and that is arrogance and greed. Whether they accumulate assets off-shore, stash them in trusts and corporations, or transfer them to family members and friends, the result is the same for the non-owning spouses who must spend tens of thousands of dollars to track the concealed assets, often with limited success. The latest player in this high-stakes game is John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple, whose business and entrepreneurial skills are legendary. Most notably he took Apple from an $800 million company to one worth $8 billion, firing Apple’s visionary founder Steve Jobs along the way.…
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National Registry Reports Record Number of Exonerations in 2014
2014 was a record year for exonerations, according to a report released today by the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan Law School. A total of 125 exonerations were recorded by the registry, 34 more than last year and the highest recorded in the registry's history. The report attributes the sharp increase in part to the success and proliferation of conviction integrity units set up by prosecutors across the country to investigate claims of innocence. The Harris County District Attorney's Post Conviction Review Section in Houston, Texas, alone boasted 30 exonerations in 2014. Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson's Conviction Review Unit tallied 10. Six district attorneys' offices set up conviction review units in 2014, including the United States Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. There are now 15 such units across the nation working to review claims of innocence in their districts. The report revealed a record number…
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