James Corden nails the Tony's. What a great opening. He brings such energy, positivity and glee to everything he does. I think he's so great. This is a Tony's thread, I'll put up an open thread soon. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
The Tony Awards
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Orlando: Another Lone or Looney American Wolf
I have no patience with the moronic comments of Donald Trump. The Orlando attacker, Omar Mateen, was born in New York -- he's an American. Nonetheless, Donald Trump used today's tragedy as an occasion to renew his idiotic call for a ban... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Documents in Stanford sexual assault case
An article in The New York Times includes links to the probation department's recommendation and a sentencing memo filed by the district attorney.
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Bail bondsmen aggressively fight forfeitures
One of the dirty little secrets about the Texas bail bond industry is that loopholes exist by which they routinely get out of paying bond money they owe when defendants skip town. Though you'll hear bail industry folks say the system works well because it privatizes the costs of pretrial monitoring, that's not entirely accurate. Really it privatizes revenue, but quite often it socializes costs. As a practical matter, by far most defendants who skip and are later recaptured are arrested by law enforcement, not bounty hunters. If the cops don't catch bail skips, generally nobody does. Take, for example, this case out of Edinburg, reported by the McAllen Monitor (June 7):It has been more than three years since Omar Guerrero failed to appear in District Judge Aida Salinas Flores’ courtroom for his scheduled arraignment in connection with a second-degree felony drug charge.Since then, flawed paperwork and other court delays caused the subsequent bond…
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EDÖB veröffentlicht Erläuterungen zu Datenschutzaspekten beim Internetprotokoll IPv6
In seinen Erläuterungen vom 7. Juni 2016 äussert sich der Eidgenössische Datenschutz- und Öffentlichkeitsbeauftragte (EDÖB) zu Datenschutzaspekten des neuen Internet Protokolls Version 6 (IPv6). Der EDÖB hebt darin u.a. hervor, dass IPv6 "128-Bit-Adressen" verwende „was weit in die Zukunft hinein erlaubt, jedem Gerät eine eigene Adresse zuzuweisen“. Ferner ergeben sich „wegen der grundsätzlich möglichen Nachverfolgbarkeit der IP-Adressen (...) verschiedene Datenschutzrisiken, die es (...) zu kontrollieren gilt“. Diese „direkte Adressierbarkeit“ bringe auch Gefahren, „insbesondere von Hackerangriffen“. Im Zusammenhang mit IPv6 gibt der EDÖB folgende Empfehlungen ab: (i) "Zur Vermeidung von Datenschutzproblemen bei der Einführung von IPv6 ist eine vorausschauende Planung wichtig (prüfen, ob die Privacy Extentions im Betriebssystem gesetzt sind, betroffene…
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Notable new commentary at The Federalist talks through conservative support and opposition to federl statutory sentencing reform
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"Taking Dignity Seriously: Excavating the Backdrop of the Eighth Amendment"
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"Ban the Box" does more harm than good
Jennifer Doleac, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, has this post with the above title on Brookings' site.Life in prison is meant to be difficult. But it doesn't always get better once you're out. Re-entering offenders often have a tough time finding employment, even when they are motivated and able to work. But "ban the box" - a popular policy aimed at helping ex-offenders find jobs - doesn't help many ex-offenders, and actually decreases employment for black and Hispanic men who don't have criminal records. This is a classic case of unintended consequences. We should repeal "ban the box" and focus on better alternatives. The core purpose of civil rights laws, too many people too often forget, is for people to be judged on the content of their character and not on the color of their skin or other irrelevant characteristics. Recent research indicates that banning the box is causing a…
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The Sorry State of Wages for an Appointed Counsel
Henry Martin is the federal public defender for the Middle District of Tennessee. In today's Tennessean, Mr. Martin wrote a very thoughtful letter to the editor about the duty of a public defender. One of his comments was about the pay of new lawyers. One New York law firm recently announced that new hires would get $180,000.00. The starting pay is way above the salary of public defenders and Tennessee state court judges. The bigger issue is the pay scale to appointed counsel for indigent defendants. In some cases, the courts must appoint counsel to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases. The Constitution demands that all folks are entitled to a lawyer. Conflicts arise where a lawyer must be appointed to represent one accused of a crime. The problem is the pay is lousy. Currently, an attorney for an appointed counsel gets paid $40.00 per hour in court and $50.00 for in court time. There is a cap on the amount of time one can charge on each case. Some folks reading…
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Prison Economics Prevails over Public Safety, Again
California Gov. Jerry Brown is doing violence to the parole system, says John Phillips of the OC Register.Did you know that assault with a deadly weapon isn't a violent crime? How about injuring a police officer? Brutal child abuse or elder abuse? Or even killing someone? If California Gov. Jerry Brown gets his way, I guess we will have to redefine the word "violent" in the dictionary, because thousands of people convicted of those crimes, which he calls "nonviolent," will be eligible for parole. Brown is selling an initiative, which will likely be appearing on your November ballot, as a smart way of reducing the state's prison population by granting early release to these allegedly "nonviolent" offenders.CJLF analyzed the initiative's verbiage, after which we estimated that, if passed, about 42,000 "nonviolent" inmates would become eligible for release.Brown is once again "putting politics ahead of public…
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AMBER Alert Issued for Three Caldwell Children - Last Spotted in Nevada and California
The Idaho State Police has issued an AMBER Alert for three Caldwell children that are believed to be traveling with Jason "Travis" Simon, 37 of Caldwell, who is wanted for questioning in a child sexual abuse case. This alert was issued today at the request of the Caldwell Police Department after new circumstances arose in the investigation concerning the missing children. Two of the children, Lewis "Louie" Dunn, age 10, Kaylee Dunn, age 9, are the children of Sarah Joy VanOcker-Dunn, 38 of Nampa, and Jesse Dunn. VanOcker-Dunn fled Idaho on June 2nd with Simon and his child, Kadyn Simon, age 6. A change in circumstances arose which allowed the issuance of the AMBER Alert outside of the normal guidelines for an AMBER Alert when a felony arrest warrant for custodial interference for VanOcker-Dunn was issued. VanOcker-Dunn, the mother of Louie and Kaylee, did not have Jesse Dunn’s permission to leave the Idaho with the…
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How Expert Witness and Eyewitness Testimony for Your Injury Case
Witness testimony is an important component of every personal injury case, no matter what type of injury you have suffered. Eyewitness testimony can help the jury visualize what happened when the injury occurred, while expert witness testimony provides specialized background information and can formulate opinions on what the long-term complications of your injury may be.Both types of witness testimony can help you gain credibility with the jury. This is important because the jury ultimately decides the amount of damages to which you are entitled.Though it is a necessary component of proving negligence, it is oftentimes difficult to prove fault after an incident has occurred. This is especially true as injury claims can become a heated battle of “he said, she said.” In this instance, it is important to have witnesses that can supply details about what happened so that the jury can visualize how the accident actually occurred.Types of Witness Testimony As mentioned…
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Kay on Risk of Intellectual Disability in Capital Cases
David H. Kaye (Pennsylvania State University, Penn State Law) has posted Deadly Statistics: Quantifying an 'Unacceptable Risk' in Capital Punishment (Law, Probability & Risk, Vol. 15, No. 4, Dec. 2016) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Atkins v. Virginia,...
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CAN I GET A DUI IF I AM DRIVING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY?
Here’s a DUI arrest scenario I occasionally encounter in my practice: A client is arrested for driving under the influence in a private parking lot, for example, or on a street in a gated community, or even in the client’s own driveway and wants to fight the DUI arrest by arguing that the traffic stop and arrest did not occur on a public road. Many people are incorrectly informed that the driving under the influence laws require that the vehicle was being driven on a public street or highway. That misunderstanding is not without some foundation; until the early 1980’s the California Vehicle Code made it illegal to drive under the influence “upon a highway or upon other than a highway areas in which are open to the general public.” But that wording has long since been removed from the DUI statutes. The scenario will sometimes go something like this: The police, following behind the driver, turned on their lights and sirens to initiate a stop but the…
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DEA Rescheduling Marijuana Can Affect Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Industry
In April, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) announced that it was reviewing the possibility of reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule II drug. Since 1970, marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I drug, which means it has no currently accepted medical treatment use. Schedule I drugs include, in addition to marijuana, heroin, LSD, bath salts, cocaine, and other substances that have high abuse potential. If marijuana is rescheduled as a Schedule II drugs, it would be in a category of drugs including oxycodone, Adderal, and Ritalin. While marijuana is currently classified as a substance with no currently accepted medical treatment use, ironically it is permitted for medical use in some form across 24 states in the U.S., including Michigan. Experts claim that the rescheduling of marijuana could have a far-reaching impact on how it is used in medical settings.How could changing the classification of marijuana affect Michigan’s medical…
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Law Enforcement Use of GPS Tracking Devices
Law enforcement officers have different measures to obtain information about a potential suspect including the use of “slap-on” GPS tracking devices attached to vehicles. Without a warrant however, this practice may constitute a violation of the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights regarding unreasonable searches. GPS tracking devices The “slap-on” GPS tracking devices are mechanisms that can […] The post Law Enforcement Use of GPS Tracking Devices appeared first on Salt Lake Criminal Defense Attorney.
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Austin PD crime lab DNA section screwed the pooch
Austin has closed the DNA division of its crime lab because of problems with their processes testing DNA mixtures dating to 2010, reported the Austin Statesman:The Austin Police Department has temporarily suspended operations at its DNA lab because of concerns raised by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, a lack of properly trained supervision and the need to allow staff to learn a new federally required way of verifying evidence, the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV have learned.The decision means that hundreds of DNA samples — often crucial evidence in crimes such as homicides and sexual assaults — will either be shipped to the Texas Department of Public Safety lab or to private labs for analysis, possibly delaying the outcome of pending cases in already backlogged Travis County criminal courts. The article mentioned that "comes at a time when DNA labs nationally are adapting to new federally required procedures." However, when I emailed the…
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Cover on Death Qualifications and Evolving Standards of Decency
Aliza Plener Cover (University of Idaho College of Law) has posted The Eighth Amendment's Lost Jurors: Death Qualification and Evolving Standards of Decency (Indiana Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court’s inquiry into the constitutionality...
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"Michigan Senate passes bill compensating the exonerated for wrongful imprisonment"
From Jurist: The Michigan Senate [official website] on Thursday passed a bill (SB 291) [text, PDF] that would compensate people who were wrongfully convicted of crimes once they are exonerated[Daily Tribune report]. SB 291, also known as the Wrongful Imprisonment...
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2016.017: I’m The Asshole the Robs Deserve
“Rob” commented: An investment banker closing a factory that has been a small town’s economic lifeblood and shipping those jobs off to Indonesia is creating value for the shareholders, and thus doing what is ethical and appropriate within the context of how he chooses to make his living. It’s choosing to make his living this way which makes him an asshole. A CIA operative who waterboards a terror suspect is doing what is correct and expected within the context of how he chooses to make his living. It’s choosing to make his living this way that makes him an asshole. Someone who chooses to make his living destroying rape victims on the stand is an asshole, or at least has a mean streak a mile wide. Some of you might expect me to argue with this. Surprise!: Rob is right in the end.1 “Say please, say thank you, take your turn, don’t cuss in church, respect authority”: A society has agreed behavioral norms, which help people to live…
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