Source: Herald & Review (27 Nov 2015) http://herald-review.com/news/world/asia/vietnam-passes-law-abolishing-death-penalty-for-crimes/article_1e1ce2c5-adeb-5ab4-a4ee-7885ecccb1ae.htmlHANOI, Vietnam (AP) ― Death sentences imposed on corrupt Vietnamese officials will now be commuted to life in prison if they pay back at least 75 percent of the illegal money they made.The online newspaper VnExpress said the new regulation was part of the revised Penal Code that an overwhelmingly majority passed in the National Assembly on Friday.Under the revision, which takes effect July 1, 2016, the country also will abolish the death penalty for seven crimes: surrendering to the enemy, opposing order, destruction of projects of national security importance, robbery, drug possession, drug appropriation, and the production and trade of fake food.The revised law will also spare the lives of those who are 75 years old or older.The ruling Communist Party has made fighting corruption one of…
Vietnam passes law abolishing death penalty for 7 crimes
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When is falsifying records a big deal? A brief primer
Just so we're clear, because sometimes it can be confusing: Let's review when falsifying records might result in serious prison time.Cops in Houston in a ticket rigging scam get probation for falsifying information on traffic tickets which real people had to pay. A Hill County Sheriff and his subordinates who falsified training and other records also all got probation. But a self-styled "sovereign citizen" filing phony "liens" against a judge that no one would ever conceive he might actually have to pay: That guy gets 10 years, federal.Because, when the public are victims and police are perpetrators, it's a small-ish, excusable offense. When the victim is an Important Person, we throw the book at them. Grits harbors little sympathy for the sovereign citizen folk but the fake liens they file are worthless and there's no chance any court at this point would take them seriously. (Some of the documents are in fact laughably funny - I used to…
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Subscribe to Grits on your phone
More than 1,800 readers already subscribe to Grits' daily email of headlines via the signup form in the right column. My service just created the ability to subscribe on your phone. Text 79553 to 781.262.3877 to get a link to a sign-up form.Grits needs to memorize that number, it'll be useful at speaking events or just whenever folks ask how to sign up; people can pull out their phone and send a text right then.
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Latest USSC retroctivity data suggest prison savings over $1.4 billion from drugs-2 guideline amendment retroactivity
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Grits' Holiday Reading List
Having recently mentioned law review articles by Sasha Natapoff and Grits' own Jennifer Laurin, I realized there were essays by both which should go on my reading list, and a few others, too, which I'll compile here in case anybody else finds them useful. For newly minted Grits contributor UT Law Prof. Jennifer Laurin, see her academic oeuvre here. Grits mentioned I've been re-reading her Gideon by the Numbers. Here are a few more of her greatest hits for those not hip to her work:Still Convicting the InnocentProsecutorial Exceptionalism: Remedial Skepticism, and the Legacy of Connick v. ThompsonPolicing Police Technology: The False Hope of Fourth Amendment Adjudicatory OversightRemapping the Path Forward: Toward a Systemic View of Forensic Science Reform and OversightWhen Santa finishes his rounds he likesto catch up on his criminal-justice policy readingYour correspondent has found Prof. Laurin's writing immensely helpful as I've confronted some of…
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Can and will Prez Obama effectively help get a federal sentencing reform bill to his desk?
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Nurse Accused of Hitting State Trooper while Drunk after Patriots Game
According to a recent news article from the Boston Herald, a nurse from Beverly, Massachusetts is accused of drunk driving while being involved in a car crash in which she allegedly crashed into a Massachusetts State Police Trooper following a Patriots game. Troopers say the 29-year-old nurse was leaving Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts just after midnight, when she allegedly hit a state trooper on Route 1. The trooper was directing traffic following the game at the time she was hit. When authorities approached her to investigate, they claim they could immediately detect a strong odor of alcohol, she had slurred speech, and she was unsteady on her feet. She apparently told troopers that she had only one glass of wine during the Patriots game, but during the arraignment, the judge said that must been a very large glass of wine, before releasing her on $1,000 cash bail. Prior to placing her under arrest, troopers asked suspect to perform a standardized field sobriety…
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Top 3 Ways to Get Your Disorderly Conduct Arrest in Stamford Connecticut Dismissed
Getting arrested in Stamford or Greenwich Connecticut for Disorderly Conduct under CGS 53a-182 can seem like a no-win situation. If you try to defend yourself without a lawyer, the prosecutor or judge may arm-twist you into pleading guilty for a small fine and a permanent criminal record. While a Connecticut Disorderly Conduct arrest is one of the least serious crimes in the books, it’s also one the peskiest, as prosecutors will often want to plead you out quickly to this misdemeanor, or a Connecticut Creating a Public Disturbance infraction, which will stain your record forever. Just ask any of the best Stamford, Greenwich or Norwalk Connecticut criminal lawyers or attorneys…if you just got arrested for Disorderly Conduct in Stamford, Darien, Greenwich or Westport Connecticut, then you will be tossed into the vortex of the Stamford or Norwalk Superior Courts with little idea of what’s going on or how to get your Connecticut Disorderly Conduct arrest…
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Supreme Court takes up Montana case to resolve applicability of Sixth Amendment speedy trial right to sentencing
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“Democracia – Aseguradoras y la plata les llega sola” La democracia tiene como su pilar fundamental la “libertad” en todas sus manifestaciones, en el Perú este sistema de convivencia humana, felizmente no el único, tiene su propia interpretación y aplicación práctica. En la clausura de la CADE 2015, escuchamos al Presidente peruano hablar de democracia, los que lo antecedieron y los candidatos “invitados” se bañaban en democracia, sin embargo, el evento distaba mucho de serlo, pero no voy a comentar tal circunstancia, sí, por ejemplo, la posición de un candidato frente a los regímenes existentes en países vecinos y hermanos a los que les imputó ausencia democrática, pidiéndole al pueblo de una nación en particular terminar con el oprobio que significan las dictaduras (no hay democracia, por ende, sin libertad), naturalmente desde su…
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Mass Shootings, Fact-Checking, Studies, and Experts
WaPo fact checker Michelle Ye Hee Lee had this article Thursday on President Obama's various statements after mass shootings, which are not fully consistent with each other or with the facts. The article also has a cautionary nugget about what "experts say" and what "studies show."Mr. Obama gets the maximum Four Pinocchios (reserved for "whoppers") for his December 1 statement in Paris, "I say this every time we've got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn't happen in other countries." Wow.The President's other, more nuanced statements about the relative frequency of such incidents get the milder Two Pinocchio rating ("significant omissions and/or exaggerations"). To check the facts, Ms. Lee consults experts Adam Lankford and John Lott and gets very different answers.Astute readers might notice how Lankford and Lott both compared the United States to grouped European countries, but…
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Friday's criminal law/procedure cert grant
Issue summary is from ScotusBlog, which also links to papers: Betterman v. Montana: Whether the Sixth Amendment’s Speedy Trial Clause applies to the sentencing phase of a criminal prosecution, protecting a criminal defendant from inordinate delay in final disposition of...
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NFL 2015 GUN EDITION
In honor of the NY Times putting an editorial on gun violence on the front page- the Times hasn't put an editorial on the front page since 1920- we present our NFL picks in firearm fashion, noting that there are more guns than people in the US. Indeed the second amendment states "There must be more guns than people in the country." And lets not forget the famous statement of George Washington as he crossed the Potomac river on Christmas Eve to save the Capital from marauding Muslims hordes: "They'll get my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands." And of course the bible, which states "And thou shall go forth and multiply and all the lands and all the seas shall belong to your people so long as they shall each keep a firearm in their homes for the days of their lives, for on this day I say unto you 'guns don't kill people, people who don't believe in the lord kill people.' And you…
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How to Beat a Drug Dog Search?
How to Beat a Drug Dog Search?What Does the Supreme Court say about Threats of a Drug Dog Search? Traffic cops and sometimes other law enforcement try to scare citizens by threatening to call in a dog, if they do not consent to a search. Sometimes a defense to drug crimes and seizures of property can be based upon continued detention by police, who are waiting for the drug dog to show up. "Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures." Rodriguez v US , 575 U. S. ____ (2015).What happens when the Cop Threatens to Call a Drug Dog Handler?Here is a typical pattern used by the police. The traffic cop will ask for permission for the drug dog to sniff around the vehicle. If the driver says "no" the cop may order the driver to "turn off the ignition, exit the vehicle, and stand in front of the patrol car to wait for the…
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IRS Goes After Small Time Tax Cheaters but Massive Tax Avoiders Escape
On December 3, 2015, the Internal Revenue Service released its 2015 Annual Investigation Report (Report). The Criminal Investigation unit (CI) focused its investigative efforts at terrorist financing, identity theft, cybercrime, public corruption, and money laundering. The number of investigations in Fiscal Year 2015 (3,853) were down from the number reported in Fiscal Year 2014 (4,297). IRS Criminal Investigations Down That decrease can be attributed to the 51 CI investigators lost during FY 2015 because of budget cuts, a 6 percent decrease. Since 2010, the CI has lost 445 investigators, reducing the agency’s ability to initiate and follow through with investigations. “The report reflects the extremely high level of commitment that CI agents bring to the job and the great case work accomplished this past year,” said Richard Weber, Chief of the CI unit in a press release accompanying the report. “But the story that the report tells…
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Studies, Experts, and Other Baloney
Kent posted an admonition to take with a grain of salt (or maybe ten grains) any solemn pronouncement you hear or read in which "experts" release a "study" that shows X.As usual, Kent nails it. Academia, including legal academia, is chock full of largely self-annointed (and media-annointed) "experts" with one thing in common: a Leftist and pro-criminal bias. This is not uniformly true (for example, see Prof. John Pfaff's work noted by Steve Erickson here, or Campbell Law Prof. Zach Bolitho), but a pro-criminal bias is endemic in both law schools and think tanks.What this brought to mind was a bunch of "experts" often cited in the liberal press, such as the Washington Post (just today) and the New York Times. That would be the Brennan Center operating out of New York City.The Brennan Center is to incarceration what the DPIC is to the death penalty: An organization that fronts itself as a source of…
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Killers By Any Other Name
Stephen Castle in the Times.A knife attack in a London subway station on Saturday was being treated as a “terrorist incident,” the police said after they arrested a 29-year-old man suspected of the assault.A 56-year-old victim sustained serious, but nonlife-threatening injuries, and two others were wounded less seriously at the Leytonstone station in East London. The suspect was detained after officers used a Taser on him.An ugly story. A horrible thing. "Absolutely shocking," said Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition. The only good news is that nobody died. Still.“I would urge the public to remain calm, but alert and vigilant,” Cmdr. Richard Walton, who leads the Counter Terrorism Command of London’s Metropolitan Police, said in a statement. “The threat from terrorism remains at severe, which means that a terrorist attack is highly likely.”Of course. It's Britain. The Blitz.…
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Over-Reacting to ISIS Threat
From Foreign Policy Magazine: Ten truths about terrorism: No. 1: We can’t keep the bad guys out. No. 2: The threat is already inside. No. 3: More surveillance won’t get rid of terrorism. No. 4: Defeating the Islamic State... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Hallevy on National Security Under Liberal Substantive Criminal Law
Gabriel Hallevy (Ono Academic College, Faculty of Law) has posted National Security Under Liberal Substantive Criminal Law – When Do National Security Issues Become Criminal? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This is a common dilemma most Western democracies face...
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Seeking Justice for All: The Texas F-5 Report
A client recently came to my firm needing legal help to resolve a situation affecting his career and reputation in law enforcement. This client was somewhat unusual for my firm because more typically, we defend people facing criminal charges made by overzealous law enforcement officers. We have represented some very good folks who had horrendous experiences when they were targeted for criminal investigations. Here, however, the client was a small-town police officer who wanted to devote his career to honorably helping the community. I reviewed the facts surrounding his separation from the police force and concluded that he had done absolutely nothing that justified his being branded with a scarlet letter, so I accepted him as a client. In Texas, when a police officer resigns or is fired, the police chief must send what is called an “F-5 Report” to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education (TCLEOSE). This F-5 Report characterizes an…
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