By Adrienne Travis Adrienne, a senior at Scarsdale High School, will be interning with the Innocence Project for the next six weeks, during which she’ll also be an ongoing guest blogger. A high school student with a dream to be a lawyer; I know—real original. Perhaps this would be more accurate: a high school student acting on her dream to be a lawyer. Now, that sounds better. When I found out that the last six weeks of my senior year of high school would be spent at an internship of my choice, I was ecstatic yet concerned. How would I choose the perfect internship to top off my high school career? I reflected on the classes I’d taken during the year and on what truly interested me. In both my criminal justice and constitutional law classes, the topic of wrongful convictions was studied in depth. Learning about the limitations and challenges convicted felons faced and seeing images and videos of the horrible prison…
From the Inside: A High School Senior's View on the Inner Workings of the Innocence Project
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Loretta Lynch Applauds Tsarnaev Death Sentence
The Boston Herald reports:U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said today in a statement that "Tsarnaev coldly and callously perpetrated a terrorist attack" in Boston."We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack," Lynch said. "But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families. We thank the jurors for their service, the people of Boston for their vigilance, resilience and support and the law enforcement community in Boston and throughout the country for their important work."I also thought this item in the Herald's story was noteworthy:Only three of the 12 jurors bought into the defense argument that Tsarnaev was influenced by his older brother Tamerlan. The jurors…
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Know These 4 Things When Talking to Insurance Adjuster after Auto Accident
One of the first things that you should do following an accident—after reporting the accident to the police and seeking necessary medical care—is to call your insurance company. Most insurance companies will prevent you from filing a claim if you don’t notify the company of the accident within a specific amount of time. Before you talk to the insurance adjuster after auto accident, consider these four things.1. Remaining Silent is an Option You do not have to tell an insurance adjuster anything up until the point that you’re ready to file a claim. Even then, you have every right to tell the insurance adjuster that you “don’t know” when asked certain questions. Anything that isn't a hard fact deserves an "I don't know." An example would be the speed at which you were traveling at the time of collision (if this is the case). Everything you say can be used against you, and an insurance adjuster may misconstrue what…
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Do Federal Capital Appeals Really Need to Take Decades?
No, they do not. As noted in this post, Timothy McVeigh as executed less than four years after sentence. He voluntarily gave up one of the many steps, appeal from the denial of collateral relief, but the case went through all the other steps.Congress has made clear that review of capital cases should be handled expeditiously. In 18 U.S.C. §3595(a), Congress provided that an appeal from a death sentence "shall have priority over all other cases."From the date of affirmance of the direct appeal through the Supreme Court, the inmate has one year to file a collateral review motion under 28 U.S.C. §2255. Again, Congress has provided, "The ... adjudication of any motion under section 2255 by a person under sentence of death, shall be given priority by the district court and by the court of appeals over all noncapital matters."The federal government has an advantage over states in that there is normally only one round of…
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Jury Sentences Tsarnaev to Death on Some Counts
The jury has returned a sentence of death for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Counts 4,5,9,10,14, and 15. See Jim Armstrong on Twitter for each finding. Added: The counts on which the jury voted for death pertain solely to Lingzi Lu and Martin Richard.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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News Scan
Jury Condemns Boston Bomber to Death: The jury in the trial against Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsaenaev has handed down a sentence of death for his role in the 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three and wounded hundreds. Tsarnaev also killed a police officer days after the attacks. The AP reports that the jury deliberated for 14 hours over a three-day period before reaching a unanimous verdict. Tsarnaev reportedly showed no emotion while his fate was read aloud in court.Amtrak Engineer's Phone Records To Be Searched: Investigators probing Tuesday's fatal Amtrak derailment have obtained a search warrant for cell phone records of the train's engineer, to determine whether he was distracted in the moments that led to the crash that killed eight and wounded dozens more in Philadelphia. Fox News reports that there are conflicting stories regarding 32-year-old Brandon Bostian's cooperation with investigators. …
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“Paradee” Motions – What Judges Need to Know: Seven Basic Facts & Two Sample Orders (15-09)
What is a “Paradee” Motion? Criminal defendants have a broad right to discovery in order to prepare and present a defense. When a defendant requests records that are subject to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act or other legislation, the court may screen the confidential records in camera to balance the right of the defendant to prepare and present a defense against the rights of victims and witnesses to privacy. However, this in camera review is not a right and defendant must first establish a “plausible showing” that the information sought would be “both material and favorable to his defense.” This Training Update will discuss seven basic facts that judges need to know to properly rule on a Paradee motion. PendletonUpdate15-09
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Hernandez on Immigration Law by Proxy
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández (Capital University Law School) has posted Immigration Law by Proxy: The Case of Colorado’s Human Smuggling Crime (Denver University Law Review, Vol. 92, p. 41, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Despite the federal government’s...
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Former NFL Player Jerramy Stevens Sentenced to Jail - Drunk Driving Charges
According to a recent report from Huffington Post, former NFL football player Jerramy Stevens was sentenced to jail following a drunk driving conviction. Stevens, now 35-years-old, played for nine years in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring. He is now married to U.S. Woman's Soccer Team goalkeeper Hope Solo. Authorities say he was pulled over on January 19, 2015 after driving his van without headlights operating in a suburb of Los Angeles. After being placed under arrest, Stevens refused to take a breath test upon police request. At this point, police obtained a search warrant allowing them to draw Steven's blood to perform a blood test, and police determined his blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was above the legal limit of 0.08 grams of ethanol per 100 milliliters of blood. Defendant pleaded no contest to driving under the influence and driving with a .08 blood alcohol content (BAC). His sentencing judge sentenced him…
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WEEKLY ROUNDUP
It was another week full of ups and downs and in-betweens in the REGJB.First the good news:Ringing the bell.Judge Stan Blake finished his course of radiation and chemotherapy for oral cancer. He celebrated by wearing a Tux and ringing the bell signifying the end of his treatment. Hyman Roth: Good health is the most important thing. More than success, more than money, more than power. The bad news:Miami Beach Cop Alex Carulo was fired for sending racist emails from his official account. The Miami Beach Police Department has a serious problem. "Q: How many Beach cops does it take to throw a defendant down a flight of stairs?A: None. He fell." The In-Between:Judge Veronica Diaz was MIA again this week on Thursday. She didn't show up for court and she didn't arrange for coverage. Blog commentators wrote and sent us emails describing the scene as the bailiff struggled to maintain order in a courtroom with…
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Barton Morris is the Top DUI Forensic Lawyer Scientist in Michigan
The strongest evidence in almost every DUI case is a chemical test. It could be a breath alcohol test on a Datamaster or a blood test analyzed by the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Department. To receive the best possible defense to a DUI charge the defense attorney must possess expert knowledge and understanding of precisely how these chemical tests operate, the policies and procedures for administering them, how to challenge and question their effectiveness and validity, and how to fight them in court. It requires a very good understanding of the sciences applicable to DUI evidence. A lawyer cannot learn these scientific disciplines by going to court. The prosecutor or judge are not going to teach them to the defense attorney. They barely know it themselves. An expert DUI specialist must endeavor to take the educational courses, related advocacy skills training and then practice what he was learned in court. The expert DUI attorney must continue to maintain his…
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Mikos on Indemnification and Federalism
Robert A. Mikos (Vanderbilt University - Law School) has posted Indemnification as an Alternative to Nullification (76 Montana Law Review 57 (Winter 2015)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The federalization of criminal law arguably threatens the states’ traditional police...
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Huskey on Veterans Treatment Courts
Kristine A. Huskey (University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law) has posted Reconceptualizing 'The Crime' in Veterans Treatment Courts (Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Recent scandals involving the...
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Capital jury concludes character of crime matters most in death sentencing of Boston bomber
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Limits on Federal Drug Conspiracy Liability
Earlier this week, the Second Circuit issued a decision in United States v. Dickerson, vacating a federal drug conspiracy conviction. In so doing, the Court of Appeals affirmed important limitations on the scope of conspiratorial liability. In simplest terms, a criminal conspiracy is an agreement of two or more persons to engage in unlawful conduct. Individuals found to be part of a conspiracy can be held liable (punished) for any foreseeable act that a conspirator commits in furtherance of the conspiracy. Although conspiracy liability tends to be far-reaching, courts have held that a mere buyer-seller relationship cannot sustain a drug trafficking conspiracy charge. In United States v. Parker, 554 F.3d 230 (2d Cir. 2009), the Second Circuit spoke to these principles when it found that “[a]s a literal matter, when a buyer purchases illegal drugs from a seller, two persons have agreed to a concerted effort to achieve the unlawful transfer of the drugs from the seller…
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Slobogin on Privacy and Unreasonable Searches
Christopher Slobogin (Vanderbilt University - Law School) has posted A Defense of Privacy as the Central Value Protected by the Fourth Amendment's Prohibition on Unreasonable Searches on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Katz v. United States and the accompanying turn...
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The Right To Film Cops Comes Into Focus
While it appears that there is a general, amorphous right to film police, a decision by the Second Circuit, Higginbotham v. City of New York, both focuses and fuzzies the right at the same time. The cases involved Douglas Higginbotham, a free-lance video-journalist, working for TV New Zealand covering Occupy Wall Street. And New York’s Finest treated him like anyone else. While he was filming “an arrest that resulted in a significant injury to the person being arrested,” he was ordered to climb down from the telephone booth by the defendant police captain, but could not immediately comply because there were too many people surrounding the booth. Eventually, he began to climb down, and when he did so, the three individual [police officer] defendants pulled his legs out from under him, causing him to drop his camera and fall onto the ground. He was cuffed (plastic) for three hours, held until issued a summons for disorderly conduct, which was…
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Tsarnaev Gets Death
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had no death penalty, so Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was tried by the feds. Because the Boston Marathon bombing, together with the subsequent murder of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, was, without question, a heinous crime causing terrible harm to so many. Yet, death? In a sweeping rejection of the defense case, the jury found that death was the appropriate punishment for six of 17 capital counts — all six related to Mr. Tsarnaev’s planting of a pressure-cooker bomb on Boylston Street, which his lawyers never disputed. Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, stood stone-faced in court, his hands folded in front of him, as the verdict was read, his lawyers standing grimly at his side. Judy Clarke and her team did an extraordinary job trying to prevent a sentence of death. The primary thrust was that Dzhokhar, the younger brother, was under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan. It was a well-grounded argument, but the jury rejected it. With…
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Why Judy Clarke Did Not Call Tsarnaev's Family
One of the typical moves for a defense attorney in the sentencing phase of a capital case is to call some of the defendant's family. This has the effect both of "humanizing" the defendant, and showing the jury the suffering it will cause if it orders his execution.Some have wondered why Judy Clarke did not call any of her client's family. The reason is provided in spades by this Time article. You don't have to read far to see that, as ever, Ms. Clarke knew what she was doing:Like many observers of the case in Russia, the Tsarnaev family has claimed -- without providing any meaningful evidence -- that the bombing was part of a U.S. government conspiracy intended to test the American public's reaction to a terrorist threat and the imposition of martial law in a U.S. city. "This was all fabricated by the American special services," Said-Hussein Tsarnaev, the convicted bomber's uncle, tells TIME.No wonder little…
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Baltimore Public Works Employees Charged With Bribery
The FBI recently concluded a two-year investigation of five Baltimore City public works employees, and now two face bribery charges in the United States District Court. The other three face theft and conspiracy charges, which are charged under a similar federal law. Cell phone wiretaps ultimately led to a raid in which federal authorities confiscated physical evidence to aid U.S. attorneys in proving their case against the five. One of the male defendants has been charged with conspiracy to solicit bribes concerning a program receiving federal funds and the only female defendant has been charged with the same, plus an additional count of bribery. The other three males are charged with conspiracy to steal from a program receiving federal funds and with theft.
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