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Miller v. Alabama Applies Retroactively (and Then Some?)

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The Supreme Court held Monday that the rule from Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. __ (2012), applies retroactively. In Miller, the Court held that a sentencing regime that makes life without parole mandatory for a murder committed by a defendant under the age of 18 is cruel and unusual punishment. In Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. __ (2016), the Court said that rule likewise applies to defendants whose cases were final before Miller was decided on June 25, 2012. I originally discussed Miller here, and its specific implications for North Carolina here. Jessie set out the retroactivity issue here and recapped the Montgomery briefs here. In a nutshell, before Montgomery, courts across the country were divided on the question of whether Miller announced a new, substantive rule that applies retroactively, or a procedural rule that would not apply retroactively on collateral review. Miller did not, strictly speaking, categorically bar a sentence to life without parole…

Fatality Crash on SH25

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IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 4 Patrol 218 West Yakima, Jerome, ID 83338-5904 (208) 324-6000 Fax (208) 324-7897 For Immediate Release: 1/26/2016 4:20 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office ***Correction*** Chadwick Rosen, 60, was of Wendell, ID. AC/KS ***End of correction*** On Tuesday, January 26,2016, at approximately 12:48 P.M., Chadwick Rosen, 60, of Wendler, ID was driving westbound in a 1989 Ford Econoline on SH25 near milepost 1. His vehicle then went off the road and impacted a metal pole. Rosen was pronounced deceased at the scene for unknown reasons at this time. Next of kin has been notified. There was blockage for approximately twenty minutes. All lanes of travel are now open at this time. This case is currently under investigation by the Idaho State Police. NG / KL…

Multiple Vehicle Crash on US93

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IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 4 Patrol 218 West Yakima, Jerome, ID 83338-5904 (208) 324-6000 Fax (208) 324-7897 For Immediate Release: 01/26/2016 4:35 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office At this time, Idaho State Police is investigating a crash north bound on US93, near the Interstate 84 on ramp. The right lane of travel is currently being blocked. Crews are working to clear the scene. AC/KS -------------

Lawmakers consider bill to address sex offender registry removals

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1-26-16 New Hampshire: Supreme Court rules that some offenders can petition for removal CONCORD, N.H. —A landmark New Hampshire Supreme Court decision has opened the door for more than 800 registered sex offenders to petition to be removed from the list. In March, the court ruled that the lifetime registry requirement for crimes committed before 1994 was "overly punitive" but the ruling left

Big Brothers and Sisters pays $1.6 million for false claims allegations relating to federal grants

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On January 21, the Department of Justice announced that the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of American Corp. had agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle civil allegations that the organization submitted false claims to the Department for grants for assisting at-risk children. According to DOJ’s press release: Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Corporation (Big Brothers) has agreed to pay the United States $1.6 million to resolve allegations of false claims for funds under Department of Justice grants awarded to help children at risk, the Justice Department announced today.  Big Brothers is a not-for-profit organization that provides mentoring services to boys and girls throughout the United States.  The organization, originally based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is now headquartered in Tampa, Florida. *   *   * Big Brothers is a national organization that acts through approximately 300 independent affiliate agencies across the United…

Election Misconduct in the Second Degree (Voter Fraud) Charges in Iowa

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Election Misconduct in the Second Degree in Iowa, sometimes informally called voter fraud, is the crime defined by Iowa Code Section 39A.3 as follows: 1. A person commits the crime of election misconduct in the second degree if the person willfully commits any of the following acts: a.Interference with validity of election. (1) Possesses an official ballot outside of the voting room unless the person is an election official or other person authorized by law to possess such a ballot. … Continued

Why You Should Never Make a Statement to Law Enforcement, Ever

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One of the more frustrating aspects of being retained on a new case is learning that your client has already given a statement to the police or FBI.  Here’s a simple go-to guide on whether to speak to the police about your involvement in a crime: never, ever, never do it.  And here are the reasons why: 1) There is nothing you can say which will clear you.  No matter how badly you think you can convince the police that you are innocent, you can only hurt yourself by speaking to them.  When the police officer tells you that if you just explain yourself he’ll let you go – that’s not true, he’s bluffing.  He’s simply trying to get you to help him convict you.  If you’re truly innocent, let your lawyer lay out the reasons why – so that your innocence will be clear and there will be no misunderstanding of your position which will only cause more suspicion.  If you are guilty, by letting your attorney…

Bowman on Federal Sentencing Reform Legislation

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Frank O. Bowman III (University of Missouri School of Law) has posted Good Enough to Be Getting on With? The State of Federal Sentencing Reform Legislation, December 2015 (Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 28, No. 105, 2015) on SSRN. Here is...

Court of Criminal Appeals judges call out colleagues for judicial activism on TX junk science writ

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Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Elsa Alcala sounds hopping mad. She lambasted several of her fellow jurists on Texas' high criminal court for an extreme brand of judicial activism which "will, for a very long time, leave an indelible stain on this Court's reputation for providing a fair forum for all litigants." The Rick-Perry appointee chastised her colleagues in no uncertain terms: "This Court's judicial decisions should not give the appearance of indecision or manipulation for the achievement of a desired result." Ouch!Judge David Newell wasn't quite as harsh, but still scolded his colleagues for their outcome-oriented judicial approach: "We are not empowered to substitute what we believe is right or fair for what the Legislature has written, even if the statute seems unwise or unfair,"  he insisted. "Our job is to do our best to discover the Legislature's intent, not substitute our policy preferences for the…

News Scan

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CA Jailers Move to Improve Anti-Escape Measures:  As the manhunt intensifies for the three inmates who escaped an Orange County jail Friday, sheriff's officials at the nine jails in the Inland Empire region of Southern California hope to learn how the prisoners managed the daring breakout to help improve the security of their own lockups.  Brian Rokos of the Press Enterprise reports that to prevent escapes, some facilities have constructed better fences, situated a deputy at the front gate to greet all arrivals and now escort all inmates to various locations inside the jails, including the low-level offenders who were previously allowed to walk freely.  Jail officials point to AB 109, passed in 2011 to ease prison overcrowding, as part of the problem since there are now more dangerous felons serving longer sentences in county jails throughout the state, giving them more time to plot an escape.  "We knew our facilities were not ready for this kind…

Colorado’s Drug Laws Under Attack

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By now most everybody is familiar with Colorado’s lenient marijuana laws (or rather, Colorado’s abolition of marijuana restrictions). Whether we agree with their position or not, we generally understand that states can make their own laws and are free to govern themselves. But there are limitations on that idea, as a lawsuit against the State of Colorado is demonstrating. When States Can Regulate First, it is important to remember that states do not have the ability to make whatever laws they want about just anything. Generally, states do have the ability to create and enforce their own criminal laws. States cannot make laws that impede upon powers of the federal government. Anything that affects “interstate commerce” cannot be regulated by states, but must be regulated by the federal government. For example, a state could not declare that their residents do not have to pay federal income tax, or that their residents can become citizens of their state by…

Multiple Crashes On I-184 Durning Morning Commute

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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: 01/27/2016 1:20pm Please direct questions to the District Office On Wednesday, January 27, 2016, at 7:35 a.m., the Idaho State Police investigated a four vehicle, injury crash eastbound on I-184 at milepost 3, west of the River Street Exit in Boise. Cody J. McLees, 23, of New Plymouth, was traveling eastbound on I-184 in a 2012 Dodge R3500 pickup, when he failed to stop for slowing traffic ahead of him. McLees braked but struck a 2003 Dodge Durango, driven by Wesley D. Phillips, 56, of Boise. The impact caused a chain reaction involving two other vehicles, which were stopped in backed-up traffic. The other vehicles involved were a 2008 Ford F250 pickup, driven by…

FBI in the Child Pornography Business Again

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Several years ago we posted a piece about the FBI seizing and continuing to run a child pornography website between November 16, 2012 and December 2, 2012. The site, which had 5000 customers, was seized as part of a large scale investigation designed to ensnare users of the site sharing images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.   FBI Allows Websites to Remain Online to Ensnare Offenders   An FBI agent stated at the time that the site had 24,000 posts by 5,600 users who shared 10,000 photos of “children being posed nude, raped, or otherwise abused.”   That the FBI would allow child pornographers to share images of children being sexually exploited for 16 days seemed incongruous to us. As we pointed out in our 2013 post, federal prosecutors routinely tell juries and judges that each time the image of child being sexually abused is viewed that person is re-victimized, suffering real emotional damage.   Can’t Have it Both…

FinCEN Imposes New Reporting Requirements on New York and Miami Real Estate Markets

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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently announced two geographic targeting orders (GTOs) imposing new reporting and recordkeeping requirements on title insurance companies operating in New York City and Miami-Dade County. The requirements are effective beginning March 1, 2016, and continue in effect until August 27, 2016. GTOs are temporary measures that FinCEN imposes on businesses when it believes additional reporting or recordkeeping is needed to prevent evasions of the Bank Secrecy Act. They are typically directed at businesses FinCEN believes are at high risk of being used for money laundering. In the past year, FinCEN has issued or renewed GTOs to electronics exporters in South Florida, armored-car services and common carriers transporting currency in parts of Texas and southern California, and check-cashing businesses in South Florida when cashing tax refund checks. The new GTO requires each title insurance company to file a FinCEN Form 8300, commonly…

Raising Concerns about Wrongful Conviction, Washington Lawmakers Question Reliability of Jailhouse Informants

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A new bill making its way through the Washington state legislature seeks to reduce wrongful convictions caused by unreliable testimony of jailhouse informants by requiring judges to access the credibility of “incentivized” informants before they are allowed to testify. According to the AP, this would be the first such law in the nation. The initiative comes on the heels of the recent exoneration of Donovan Allen, a Washington man whose wrongful conviction was based, in part, on “incriminating statements from jailhouse informants who received light sentences or had criminal charges dropped after their testimony.” Allen ultimately served 15 years for his mother’s 2000 murder – a crime of which DNA evidence later proved he was innocent. “Without question, informant testimony is useful for law enforcement, and maybe sometimes it’s the only evidence in a serious case,” Lara Zarowsky, the policy director of the Innocence Project…

Wednesday Open Thread

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Meeker County Court Stays DWI Proceeding Pending Bernard and Trahan

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Today another Minnesota judge stayed a DWI proceeding pending the United States Supreme Court's decision in State v. Bernard. The judge ordered: "Based upon the United States Supreme Court review, this Court will stay this proceeding pending the outcome of the Bernard/Trahan decisions and, after decision is made, the Court will schedule this matter for a pretrial conference." Read the Court's Order. ramsayresults.com

The Oregon Occupiers

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The WaPo has several articles on the Oregon wildlife refuge occupiers:  Sarah Larimer and Niraj Chokski on the eight in custody, Michael Miller on LaVoy Finicum, who was killed, and Sarah Kaplan, Adam Goldman, and Mark Berman on efforts to recover the refuge from the remaining occupiers.  In the WSJ, Jim Carlton and Devlin Barrett also cover the latter point.Personally, I have little use for people who protest by occupying property that is not theirs and has nothing to do with the dispute.  That goes for the Occupy movement of a few years ago, the current protest, and all the way back to the Vietnam War when protesting students staged sit-ins at campus facilities that had nothing to do with the war.The sit-ins at segregated lunch counters during the civil rights movement were different.  The lunch counter operators were perpetrators of the injustice at issue.The main beef of the current occupiers is the violation of their constitutional right to graze cattle…

As a Nation, Are We Becoming More Aware of Issues Related to Criminal Law?

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It seems to me that, on the whole, the American Public is becoming more aware of, sensitive to, and more thoughtful regarding how we as a society view criminal trials and the criminal justice system in general. I can’t help but believe this is a good thing, as more people become aware of the inherent problems and injustices faced by the accused, and especially the poor accused, on a daily basis. In recent weeks, “Making a Murderer,” which chronicles the prosecution of felony cases and highlights weaknesses in the system, became a runaway sensation. The podcast “Serial,” which chronicles another problematic murder case which to that point had received little or no media attention has also been immensely popular. The President of the United States, for the first time in history, visited a Federal Prison. The US Supreme Court has made several rulings in the areas of juvenile justice and the death penalty that add rationality to the way that those…

DUI Stops & Checkpoint Flyer For Cops In Florida

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If you occasionally drink & drive, you really should have this checkpoint with you in your car or truck in case you are ever pulled over. Just hand it to the police officer. It can significantly help your attorney when it’s your day in court after a DUI arrest in Okaloosa County or Walton County, Florida, or anywhere else in the state for that matter. TO ALL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, OFFICERS, AND PERSONNEL: I WILL NOT CONSENT TO A SEARCH OF MY VEHICLE. I CAN SHOW MY DRIVER’S LICENSE THROUGH THE WINDOW. I AM NOT LEGALLY REQUIRED TO OPEN MY DOOR OR WINDOW. I WILL ABIDE BY ALL LAWFUL ORDERS AND COMMANDS. I INVOKE MY RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. I am invoking my rights as provided under the FIFTH, SIXTH, and FOURTEENTH Amendments to the United States and Constitution. I hereby invoke my right to legal counsel and I demand that my attorney be present during any and all police questioning: including, but not limited to, police seizures, detentions, and custodial…
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