Criminal Defense Attorney Help Those Facing Terminating Or Attempting To Terminate Human Pregnancy After Viability (O.R.C. 2919.17) Charges Ohio law defines viability of a fetus as 24 weeks gestational age, although there are other medically relevant factors to consider. Read More
Criminal Defense Lawyer For Terminating Or Attempting To Terminate Human Pregnancy After Viability (O.R.C. 2919.17) In The Cleveland, Ohio Area
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Defense Lawyer For Endangering Children (O.R.C. 2919.22) In The Cleveland, OH Area
Criminal Defense Attorney Help Those Facing Endangering Children (O.R.C. 2919.22) Charges Parents have a duty to take appropriate actions to protect and support their children, and failure to live up to that standard can have serious consequences. Read More
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Should Legal Outcomes Reflect the Truth?
The title of this post asks a question to which the answer should be unanimous. Of course legal outcomes should reflect the truth. What's the alternative? Fiction? Lying?As this entry on SL&P shows, however, legal outcomes very often reflect a fable agreed to by the lawyers, rather than the truth. In criminal cases, the great majority of outcomes -- over 90% -- are ordained in plea agreements. As the article shows, however, in at least one category of cases (and in truth many others), plea agreements typically deep-six the truth in favor of some sanitized account -- an account that, in the words of one frustrated judge, bears "no factual resemblance to what occurred." The article notes:Judge Michael P. Donnelly had seen enough by the time his spreadsheet of plea deals in sexual-assault cases reached nearly 200. In each case, the defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser crime that bore no…
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"Mass Incarceration Has Become the New Welfare"
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The arithmetic of de-incarceration: TDCJ edition
For long-term de-incarceration strategies to work, in the near term, while crime is low, prisons must release more inmates than they receive. Here are the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's aggregate receive/release figures from FY 2007-2014, the most recent full year available from the TDCJ Annual Statistical Reports. Since Texas' much-ballyhooed 2007 probation reforms (which arguably impacted parole revocation rates more than probation's), Texas has only released more prisoners than it received two years - 2012 and 2013.Over this period, the total number of inmates on hand declined from 152,661 to 150,361, but not until after briefly bulging past 156,000 in 2008.In a nutshell, the push for de-incarceration is about driving that red curve upward on the Y axis and driving the blue curve down, focusing in particular on situations where that can be accomplished without compromising public safety. Simple, right?
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CCJRC 2015 Voices for Justice Sponsors
We simply cannot thank these folks enough for being part of our event. A huge thanks also to all those who donated to the silent auction!!
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No "Fowl" Play: Fifth Circuit Overturns Migratory Bird Treaty Act Convictions
Guest Blogger - Erin Okuno Foreman Biodiversity Fellow, Institute of Biodiversity Law and Policy, Stetson University College of Law Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned convictions under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ("MBTA") and the...
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13 More Prison Officials Detained For El Chapo Escape
13 more former prison officials and guards have been arrested and detained over the escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, including the ex-head of Mexico's prison system, Celina Oseguera Parra, and the ex-warden of the prison at Altiplano,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Sunday Open Thread
Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Speaking of Reflecting Truth...
My last entry built on an SL&P posting about fictionalized plea bargains that whitewash the defendant's behavior.That same blog now features an article titled, "Mass Incarceration Has Become the New Welfare." The thesis of the article, taking off from the work of black radical Ta-Nehisi Coates, is that America -- ever the cruel, racist nest -- has solved its welfare state problems by the morally indefensible expedient of building the "carcereal state" instead.I shall refrain from addressing the premise of this view of things, or its implicit concession (or proclamation, I'm not sure which) that we would not, as the Left usually claims, save taxpayer money by de-incarceration. (Instead, we would simply move the expenditures to what the article views as a more benign expansion of welfare). Instead, I want to highlight this paragraph (emphasis added):But, in characteristic fashion, [Coates] goes beyond this,…
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The USA vs. King George. Or as we know it, the Declaration of Independence
While the Declaration of Independence is revered for its eloquence, and inspirational philosophies, in the most straightforward sense it is a legal documents written by a lawyer and approved by lawyers. Of the Declaration’s signers 25 of 56 were lawyers. Of the non-lawyers, they rest were in business and active in public affairs. The statistics […]
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News Scan
Baby Doe Identified, Mother and Boyfriend Charged: The mother of 'Baby Doe,' the young girl found dead inside a duffle bag dumped in Boston Harbor last June, was arrested last week along with her boyfriend in connection with the toddler's death. Jan Ransom, John R. Ellement and Andy Rosen of the Boston Globe report that during an arraignment Monday, 40-year-old Rachelle Bond told the court that her 2 ½ -year-old daughter, Bella Bond, was killed one night in May after her boyfriend, 35-year-old Michael McCarthy, went to the girl's room to calm her down when she was refusing to go to bed. After Bella died McCarthy said to Bond that "She was a demon anyway. It was her time to die," and the two proceeded to put her body in the refrigerator and spend the next several days strung out on heroin. Another man who lived in the home shortly before the murder told investigators that the couple was overly harsh to the…
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Turner on Plea Bargaining and Disclosure in Germany and the United States
Jenia Iontcheva Turner (Southern Methodist University - Dedman School of Law) has posted Plea Bargaining and Disclosure in Germany and the United States: Comparative Lessons (William & Mary Law Review, 2016 Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article...
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Oregon State Police Investigate Misconduct Allegations against State Lab Analyst
Late last week, the Oregon State Police notified local district attorneys about potential problems with their cases as the law enforcement agency launched investigations into misconduct by one of its own forensic analysts. According to various news sources, the analyst is accused of tampering with drug evidence and potentially affecting the integrity of more than a thousand cases. According to the Oregonian, last Friday the Oregon State Police issued a statement on Friday that said that one of the agency’s criminal forensics analysts—who worked for the agency for eight years at labs in Bend, Pendleton and Ontario—is accused of stealing drugs sent to labs for analysis. In some cases, the analyst supposedly replaced the contents with over-the-counter pills so as to cover up the drugs she took. The Associated Press reports that the alleged misconduct raises doubt around many current criminal drug cases and convictions. Retesting and retrying cases could cost…
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Idaho State Police to Participate in Trooper on a Train Operation on Tuesday
IDAHO 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: 9/21/15 at 2:15 p.m. MERIDIAN - The Idaho State Police will be conducting "Trooper on a Train" and "Adopt a Crossing" enforcement operation in cooperation with Operation Lifesaver and the Boise, Meridian and Nampa Police Departments throughout the Treasure Valley on Tuesday, September 22, 2015. "ISP is once again participating in this important enforcement operation with a goal to increase public awareness of the potential dangers that exist at railroad intersections and to eliminate driver actions that can have tragic consequences," said Idaho State Police Sgt. Matt Smith. "We hope that by letting the public know that we are focusing on enforcing the traffic laws that pertain to these intersections that motorists will always be more careful near railways."…
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2 Vehicle crash near Mountain Home
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: Monday, September 21, 2015 3:00p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office On Monday, September 21, 2015, at 12:00 p.m., the Idaho State Police investigated a two-vehicle injury crash on I84 at milepost 80, west of Mountain Home. Johnny Blalack, 36, of Mountain Home, was driving eastbound in a 2007 Dodge Caliber. The vehicle collided with a trailer being towed by a 2008 Ford F350 pickup driven by Bryan Grover, 45, of Rexburg. All occupants were wearing seatbelts. Blalack was transported via ground ambulance to St. Lukes Medical Center in Mountain Home. The road was not blocked during the crash. The crash is under investigation by the Idaho State Police. HG/KB…
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What Does “Promptly” Mean Under Rule 1102?
Rule 1102 Allows Reliable Hearsay At Preliminary Hearings At a preliminary hearing the Utah Rules of Evidence allow for the admission of “reliable hearsay,” and further provides a definition of “reliable hearsay.” Part of that definition includes “a statement made by a child victim of physical abuse or a sexual offense which is promptly reported by the child victim and recorded in accordance with Rule 15.5 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure.” In child sexual abuse cases, the child rarely has to attend a preliminary hearing to testify because of this rule. Typically, the prosecution can simply play a video recording of the child interview. This gives the defense a disadvantage because there is no opportunity for cross examination of the child and no opportunity for discovering fats that only the child knows. So What Does “Promptly” Mean? No Utah appellate court has ever addressed the issue of what “promptly”…
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Posession of Marijuana in Michigan - Charges in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne Counties
Possession of marijuana without a medical marijuana card is still a crime in most Michigan cities. Beyond all the "what if?" and "what about?" questions you may have, if you have been charged with a possession offense, then there is no question about whether it's a crime or not in the city in which your charge has been brought. Most of the cases I handle involve someone being pulled over by the police and then found to be in possession of a small amount of pot. Likewise, most people who wind up facing a marijuana possession charge did not have a valid medical marijuana card at the time of their arrest. In the interests of keeping this article short, I will skip the discussion of a medical marijuana card, or the few, but complicated defenses that surround one's having had or otherwise being eligible for a card can bring, and look instead to how things play out for the average person charged with this offense who does not have a medical pot card.…
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Presidents are Granting Fewer and Fewer Clemency Claims
Executive clemency is the process in which an offender is granted a pardon by the President. Typically hundreds of cases were put in front of the President every year. However, a recent article by Slate.com claimed the pardon process is “broken” and the names of fewer and fewer candidates are appearing in the Oval Office. The percentage of pardons granted ... Read More The post Presidents are Granting Fewer and Fewer Clemency Claims appeared first on .
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St Louis Criminal Defense: Why Are Drugs Illegal To Use Anyway?
ONLY $375 ATTORNEY FEES FOR MOST ST LOUIS MISDEMEANORS Because we have determined as a society that is better to criminalize that conduct than to allow it to happen legally. However, attitudes have changed significantly over the years. Many states have not only made exceptions for medicinal usage, a lot of states are now legalizing the recreation use. But currently, most drugs are not only illegal, getting caught with them can result in significant penalties. Many people would argue that drugs (marijuana, or whatever) should be fully legalized. Instead of wasting billions of dollars each year to try and keep people from using and selling drugs, those funds could be reallocated to something far more worthwhile. On the other hand, there are a number of folks who think that no matter what, all drugs should remain illegal (and the consequences should increase). Regardless of where you stand on the subject, the fact of the matter is that right now, most drugs are considered to be…
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