Police have broad power to enforce the law, but they have to do so within the limits created by the Constitution and other civil rights laws. There have been many stories in the news recently about police officers who appear to have abused their power. The reports have resulted in demonstrations, protests and rioting throughout the nation. While we respect and appreciate police officers for protecting us, we can’t allow certain officers to get away with violating the rights of suspects.Whether some officers would like to accept it or not, all Americans have rights that need to be respected, even if they are suspected of committing crimes. Most officers respect these rights, but there are some who do not. Any time a person suspects that his or her rights have been violated during an arrest, it’s extremely important for the person to contact an experienced criminal defense lawyer who can investigate what happened so that the truth can be uncovered. An arrest and…
When a police officer infringes on a suspect’s rights
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Medical Marijuana Health Information Privacy
Medical Marijuana: Is Your Health Information Privacy Going to Pot?By John Henry Wright, Esq.Imagine teams of law enforcement agents, including officers from local police departments and the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) showing up at your door and requesting to enter your home to conduct a search simply because you have been issued a medical marijuana card (MMJ card) by the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS). One of the many problems with this scenario is that under applicable state law, except for the limited purpose of verifying a claim of authorization, law enforcement is not supposed to know who is a registered MMJ card holder.Nevada’s Medical Marijuana Registry.Article 4, Section 38 of the Nevada Constitution requires the legislature to promulgate laws for “a registry of patients, and their attendants, who are authorized to use the plant for medical purpose, to which law enforcement officers may resort to verify a claim of…
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Greenberg on Prior Convictions in Drug Prosecutions
Deena Greenberg has posted Closing Pandora's Box: Limiting the Use of 404(b) to Introduce Prior Convictions in Drug Prosecutions (Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review (CR-CL), Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The federal circuit courts diverge in...
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Holdings: State v. Deangelo M. (New Mexico Court of Appeals)
In State v. Deangelo M. the New Mexico Court of Appeals reversed a district court's detail of a Child's motion to suppress his statements concluding that the State did not meet its burden to show that the statements were knowing, voluntary, and intelligent.The case stems from the Ninth Judicial District and involves a second-degree murder, burglary, larceny, and tampering with evidence.The case centers around a Child who had just turned thirteen years of age.Holding regarding a Child's Fifth Amendment Right to Remain SilentThe capacity to waive Fifth Amendment rights is assumed for children over fifteen and for adults. See State v. Jonathan M., 1990-NMSC-046, p. 8, 109 N.M. 789, 791 P.2d 64; see also State v. Gutierrez, 2011-NMSC-024, p. 7, 150 N.M. 232, 258 P.3d 1024 (requiring the same assessment for adults and children when determining the legitimacy of a Miranda waiver); State v. Martinez, 1999-NMSC-018, pp. 14-15, 127 N.M. 207, 979 P.2d 718…
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False Reporting About the Death Penalty's "Decline"
An Associated Press story about the less frequent use of the death penalty in Virginia begins with this paragraph:A prosecutor's decision not to seek a death penalty for the man accused of abducting and killing a University of Virginia student [Hannah Graham] is emblematic of capital punishment's decline across the country and in the state that once operated one of the busiest execution chambers in the nation.The bulk of the story concerns a study by law professor John Douglass to the effect that prosecutors in Virginia are seeking the death penalty less frequently in recent years because capital defense has improved.I have not read Prof. Douglass's study (which is not linked in the AP article), but would certainly be open to doing so. Prof. Douglass is a former colleague of mine in the US Attorney's Office, and a bright and fair-minded person.Still, the story has a few problems. The first is that its lead is false. The…
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Barry on Retroactive Death Penalty Abolition
Kevin M. Barry (Quinnipiac University - School of Law) has posted Going Retro: Abolition for All (46 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 669 (2015)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The opening of the twenty-first century has seen a flurry...
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DNA EVIDENCE: IN MURDER CASES, IT CAN BRING DEATH TO THE INNOCENT
Let’s not accept the exception to the rule as a substitute for the general criminal justice rule. Particularly in cases where the stakes are as high as they are in murder cases. Especially when the penalties are either death or life imprisonment without the chance of parole. The Dzhokhar Tsarnaev case is the exception. Very rarely do you have defense attorneys get up in the beginning of a trial to proclaim their client guilty as charged. More often, there is some question as to guilt or innocence. Take instead the Washington D.C. case of Santae Tribble. Mr. Tribble was a 17-year-old man in 1978. That was when he was accused of murdering a taxi driver. Thanks mostly to the expert testimony of an analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation about DNA found on hair strands, Mr. Tribble was found guilty and received a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. It turns out that the expert had been wrong. The hair did not belong to Mr. Tribble. In fact, it turned…
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The Ethical Case for Neutral Third Party Investigators
How independent should an independent investigator be? The cover story in this month’s American Bar Association Journal called “The Probers” takes a look at some of the highest profile independent investigations of recent years carried out not by private investigators, but by attorneys. These are the mega-cases involving among others Penn State, the NCAA, the George Washington Bridge scandal, and soccer’s governing world body, FIFA. As famous as these names are, so are the law firms and lawyers involved: former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Senator George Mitchell, DLA Piper, K&L Gates, and Ted Wells at Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block. Anyone who reads a daily newspaper has probably seen reference to at least one of these investigations, as well as the inevitable questions that arise once the reports are issued: how independent can a report be when the subject being investigated is paying the bills? The answer…
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Bill Clinton: 1994 Crime Bill Went Too Far
Bill Clinton makes it official in an interview with Christine Amanpour: The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act went too far and locked up too many people. "The problem is the way it was written and implemented. We have too... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Wednesday Open Thread
I'll be working for several hours yet. Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome (except Freddie Gray, please put those in his own thread. If it fills up, I'll start a new one.) [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Corrado on Giving Up Desert
Michael Louis Corrado (University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - School of Law) has posted Withdrawal Pains: Giving Up Desert on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Underlying our present conception of punishment is the moral notion of desert....
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Two-Vehicle Crash in Rigby
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idaho State Police District 6 1540 Foote Dr. Idaho Falls, Idaho 83402-1828 (208) 525-7377 FAX: (208) 525-7294 For Immediate Release: 05/06/2015 at 7:00 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office Idaho State Police is currently investigating a two-vehicle injury crash at the intersection of 4200 E and 550 N in Rigby. At this time the intersection is completely blocked. More information will be released as it becomes available. KJ / SG -------------
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Update - Two-Vehicle Crash in Rigby
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idaho State Police District 6 1540 Foote Dr. Idaho Falls, Idaho 83402-1828 (208) 525-7377 FAX: (208) 525-7294 For Immediate Release: 05/06/2015 at 7:29 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office ***Update*** The intersection of 4200 E and 550 N in Rigby is no longer blocked. KJ/SG ***End of Update*** Idaho State Police is currently investigating a two-vehicle injury crash at the intersection of 4200 E and 550 N in Rigby. At this time the intersection is completely blocked. More information will be released as it becomes available. KJ / SG -------------
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Attorney General Lynch Meets with Some, Not with Others
Attorney General Loretta Lynch met on Tuesday with Freddie Gray's family. As the AP reports:The new attorney general met privately at the University of Baltimore with [the] family, days after the state's attorney charged six police officers involved in Gray's arrest. Gray's injury in police custody and death a week later sparked protests and riots that prompted Maryland's governor to bring in the National Guard.I think it problematic -- as potentially prejudicial -- for the Attorney General to have had this well-publicized meeting, even as I recognize that there may be legitimate reasons for it.My question, however, is less about the meeting she had than about the one she didn't. To my knowledge, Ms. Lynch has not met with, nor expressed any interest in meeting with, the family of Brian Moore.Moore, who at 25 was the same age as Gray, admittedly did not have Gray's history, including 18 arrests and…
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Lawyer’s Arrest Mid-Trial a Set-up by Opposing Counsel
Florida radio “shock-jocks”, “Bubba the Love Sponge” Clem and Todd “MJ” Schnitt were engaged in an ugly defamation lawsuit, a case that spun out for five years, culminating in a tough-fought court battle that ended with Bubba declaring himself the victor. But the conflict between the two radio DJ’s took a back seat to the drama that unfolded when MJ’s lawyer, C. Phillip Campbell Jr., was busted for drunk driving in the middle of the trial. Lawyer Campbell apparently got under the skin of Bubba’s lawyers at Adams & Diaco, so much so they repeatedly brought motions before the trial judge to have him removed as MJ’s counsel, with zero success. But according to Mr. Campbell’s DUI lawyer and the prosecuting attorney, Adams & Diaco found another way to get back at their courtroom adversary. After court Mr. Campbell walked from his office/apartment to Tampa’s Malio’s Prime Steakhouse two blocks away.…
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Legislators push new sex offender restrictions
5-6-15 New York: Legislators from the town, county and state level gathered at Eisenhower Park on May 1 to publicize legislation currently in the state Assembly that would give local municipalities the authority to enforce their own laws restricting convicted sex offenders from living near schools and parks. The legislation is in response to a February 2015 state Court of Appeals decision that
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New Bill Would Extend Statute of Limitations for Certain Sexual Offenses
A bill which would extend the statute of limitations for certain sexual offenses has passed through the Illinois Senate and is now heading to the House for consideration. House Bill 1418 passed by a unanimous vote of 51-0. The crimes which would be considered sexual offenses under the proposed bill are armed robbery, home invasion, kidnapping, or aggravated kidnaping if they occur during the commission of criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, or aggravated criminal sexual abuse. A statute of limitation provides the period of time in which a person can be charged with a crime. The countdown begins the day the crime is committed. The statute of limitations depends on the particular law pertaining to the specific charge in question. Once the amount of time prescribed by law has passed, a person can no longer be charged with that crime. Under current Illinois law, the statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual assault provides 10 years, as long as…
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Garcia on Miranda
Alfredo Garcia (St. Thomas University - School of Law) has posted Regression to the Mean: How Miranda Has Become a Tragicomical Farce (25 St. Thomas L. Rev. 293 (2013)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In my original article, I...
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News Scan
Doubt Cast Over Baltimore Charges: Lawyers representing the six Baltimore police officers arrested on felony charges in the death of Freddie Gray, have found contradictions between State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's announced findings and a police department investigation of the indicent. Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz and Wesley Bruer of CNN report that the police investigation concluded that the knife found on Gray is in fact illegal under Baltimore city code, refuting Mosby's key finding that the knife was legal. Investigators also said that the incident "at most contemplated a manslaughter charge," not second degree murder. Bill Would Allow TX To Enforce Federal Immigration Laws: A bill passed by the Texas Senate would give the state's law enforcement officers authority to enforce laws to combat illegal immigration and improve border security. Lana Shadwick of Breitbart reports that the authority would be…
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The Elephant in the Room in the Baltimore Prosecution
A principal foundation for the prosecution of the six police officers in Baltimore is the proposition, quite confidently put forward by State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, that the knife for which Freddie Gray was arrested was legal for him to possess.The officers are now disputing this. But it seems to me that a major point has been missed in virtually all the coverage of this case:For assessing the propriety of the arrest, it makes no difference whether the knife was illegal. It only makes a difference whether the officers had probable cause to think it was. Probable cause does not mean certainty. It doesn't even mean more likely than not. The officers had probable cause if they had a fair reason to believe Gray had an illegal knife whether or not they turn out to have been correct. See United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1 (1989).This is easy to see by calling to mind the law of search and seizure. The fact that contraband…
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