Blog Update: If you are getting this blog post via email please note that clicking on the Blog post title (above in blue) will take you to the full blog website containing all past training updates and the one stop “Judicial Resource Library”. Question: In a jury trial how can you tell if your presiding judge is inexperienced, incompetent, simply lazy, or perhaps some combination of all three? Answer: In order to give this answer the attention it deserves, you must first understand the main difference between what an attorney does during trial and what a judge does? Trial attorneys TRY cases; Presiding judges MANAGE cases (and no matter how much a judge may want to meddle, never shall the two cross) All trials (jury, court, criminal, civil, family, juvenile, etc) are incredibly serious business. They represent the culmination of months of hard work for the attorneys; the moment defendants, victims and litigants finally get their…
IN A JURY TRIAL HOW CAN YOU TELL IF YOUR PRESIDING JUDGE IS INEXPERIENCED, INCOMPETENT OR SIMPLY LAZY?
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Rear ended by an 18 wheeler? What you need to do next
(Image Credit: Wikipedia.org) Being rear ended by an 18 wheeler can damage your vehicle beyond repair and cause serious injury. Compared to a car bumping into the back of you, an 18 wheeler is at least four times the size. When they’re pulling heavy cargo behind them, they can weigh several tons. Having a heavy weight crash into the back of your vehicle is a terrifying experience. If this causes a chain-reaction collision, there is a risk of drivers being trapped inside their cars until emergency services arrive. Continue reading
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You Can Run, But You Sure Can’t Hide in Clark County
It is understood that you can’t run from the police at an accident to avoid a ticket or arrest, not for any reason. Very few people are aware of how serious the consequences are to ignoring or evade a police vehicle with its lights flashing. In Clark County, you can be charged with evading or fleeing the scene with a resulting charge that would range from a misdemeanor to a category B Felony depending on the situation. The charge of misdemeanor evading, not pulling over when police lights are flashing from an easily identifiable vehicle, is found in NRS 484B.550(a). Most misdemeanors carry the same punishment, which is six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. But, this misdemeanor can become a much more serious charge. According to Nevada Law, if for the evading vehicle damages another’s property. the charge will become a felony. It doesn’t matter if the damage is large or small and or even if there was no actual damage throughout the chase according to NRS…
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The Lost Promise of Title VII
Katherine Turk, Equality on Trial: Gender and Rights in the Modern American Workplace (2016). Serena Mayeri Katherine Turk’s elegantly written, deftly argued study of Title VII’s first half-century spotlights working-class women’s distinctive legal activism, deepening our understanding of the promise and limitations of American antidiscrimination law in an era of increasing income and wealth inequality. Using fine-grained case studies as emblematic of larger themes, Turk takes us deep into ground-level campaigns and controversies in a diverse array of workplaces, organizations, and government agencies, from the New York Times and the National Organization for Women (NOW) to municipal employees’ unions to hospitals and hotels where women and men struggled for better and fairer conditions for all workers. Working women built cross-class and interracial coalitions with labor and feminist organizations to fight for pay equity, comparable worth, higher…
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Paul O’Neal, Dead But Not Recorded
It was only a couple days before that the Chicago Police Department was held up as a model of police progressiveness for having adopted the “procedural justice” approach to policing. Shooting Laquan McDonald in the street like a dog was old news. Concealing video of cops committing murder was the old way. There’s a cute new phrase in town, procedural justice,* and that changes everything! Then it all fell to shit, because a few, maybe a couple, Chi town cops went and killed another unarmed black kid. Oh why, oh why, must you go and ruin a good theory? Why must you bring reality crashing down around the voices of reform who are trying desperately to talk up good policing? Why did you have to go and kill another unarmed black kid? At least this time, the phonies caught a break. The shooting happened after officers chased a stolen Jaguar convertible through the South Side before it collided with a police cruiser on a residential street. Two officers opened…
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A White Polemic On Title IX And The Preponderance Standard
Announcing a “white paper” is about as sexy as a new law review article or a doctoral thesis on how icebergs are patriarchal. But trusted ally, Tyler Kingkade, the white knight for fragile women, was there for them, and he would not let the Feminist Lawprofs down. He never has before and it wasn’t going to start now. Integrity be damned. He had a job to do and he would not fail them. A group of more than 90 law professors from at least 50 different universities signed onto a white paper, released Sunday, defending the U.S. Department of Education’s guidance on how colleges should handle sexual assault cases. Specifically, the law professors focus on how much proof is needed to determine whether a student accused of sexual assault is guilty in the eyes of their college or university. A “Dear Colleague” letter released by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in April 2011 was considered a wake-up call for schools to…
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Roberts et al. on Criminal Process and Integrity
Paul Roberts, Jill Hunter, Simon N. M. Young and David Dixon (University of Nottingham, University of New South Wales (UNSW), The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law and University of New South Wales (UNSW) - Faculty of Law)...
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Just Off-Screen in Rio, a Community’s Homes Vanish in Olympic Shadow
By Robyn Shepherd, Deputy Press Secretary, AIUSA When you watch the Olympics this week, you will see plenty of Postcard Rio in between events. You’ll see the stunning natural beauty of the mountains that shoot dramatically up from the sugar sands of the coast. You’ll see people strolling the tiled seaside sidewalks in Copacabana. You’ll see shots of carefree Cariocas – residents of Rio – dancing to samba music or perusing colorful marketplaces. Were those postcard camera views to pan out just a bit more, you would see a fence dividing the tennis and aquatics complexes from what looks like a weedy patch of ground on a lagoon dotted with a few homes – some intact, some gouged apart by bulldozers. The gleaming Olympic media center literally throws a shadow over the area. Welcome to the once-thriving community of Vila Autodrómo. Vila Autódromo at one point was a favela of 600 families, many of whom worked fishing the lagoon.…
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Podcast Update: Episode 3 Now Available
The moment you have been anticipating has finally arrived! No, not the start of the Olympics, but the release of Episode 3 of our podcast, Beyond the Bench. It is now available on our podcast website and in the Apple and Android podcast stores. The episode features an interview with Superior Court Judge Carl Fox. Many readers will know that Judge Fox spent a year away from the bench while battling blood cancer. He recently returned to work, receiving a standing ovation from those present in the courtroom. In our interview, we talk a bit about his health, but also address his professional path and his view of some of the current controversies in criminal law. Among other interesting things, we discuss his early plans to be a corporate lawyer, his service as the first African-American district attorney in the state, and his love of nice cars. Give it a listen and let us know what you think. The post Podcast Update: Episode 3 Now Available appeared first on North Carolina Criminal…
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Premeditated Murder, the Laptop and “the Perfect Crime’”
This post examines a recent opinion from the Court of Appeals of Washington: State v. Rodgers, 2016 WL 4081156. It begins by explaining that “William Rodgers was charged and convicted of the premeditated murder of his wife.” State v. Rodgers, supra. You can, if you are interested, read more about the facts in the case in the news stories you can find here, here and here. The court begins the opinion by explaining thatWilliam Rodgers was married to Sheri Rodgers. Together, they had three children, Nicholas, Natasha, and Jeremiah.In 2011, Rodgers began having an affair with a coworker named Meighan Nichols. Rodgers asked his friend, Mark Thompson, to obtain a second telephone for him so that he could keep in contact with Nichols without Sheri finding out. Thompson reluctantly agreed. Rodgers told some friends that he was going through marital difficulties but intended to repair his marriage with Sheri.Rodgers' relationship with his…
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Bellefontaine Man Sees Second Ohio OVI And Other Charges Reduced
When an army veteran and new father’s ill-conceived joyride down a ski slope in Bellefontaine, Ohio ended with serious legal charges, he reached out to the lawyers at Luftman, Heck & Associates for help. Apparently, after he lost control of his car and crashed, officers arrived and charged him with an OVI along with resisting [...]The post Bellefontaine Man Sees Second Ohio OVI And Other Charges Reduced appeared first on Columbus Criminal Attorney.
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Broad perspectives on the narrowness of recent federal clemency and sentencing reform efforts
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Which is more dangerous? A Krispy Kreme Doughnut or Methamphetamine?
Sometimes drug evidence listed by local authorities as methamphetamine can turn out to be something else. This recent story from the Orlando Sentinel describes how one man got arrested due to this type of mistake. Daniel Rushing treats himself… The post Which is more dangerous? A Krispy Kreme Doughnut or Methamphetamine? appeared first on Chapman Criminal Defense Firm.
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Gabriela Alegria of Miami, Florida Arrested for Medicare Fraud and Performing Illegal Cosmetic Procedures
Gabriela Alegria of Miami, Florida was arrested last Friday for allegedly attempting to illegally inject an undercover agent with Botox. Before her arrest, Alegria, 43, was awaiting sentencing for her involvement in a Medicare fraud case. Alegria was ordered to be held in lieu of a $50,000 bond during her bond hearing last week with the added stipulation that she remain under house arrest should she manage to post bail. News sources did not specify an attorney for Alegria. According to the arrest report, Alegria was allegedly caught in the act at a home in West Kendall by an undercover Miami-Dade detective posing as a customer in need of a Botox fill in the forehead area. The prosecutor handling the case told a bond-court judge that Alegria had “prepared a syringe” filled what he hopes “was Botox,” implying that Alegria was using some other substance to perform the illegal cosmetic procedure. Before her arrest, Alegria was awaiting sentencing for a…
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California Lawsuits Allege That Suspension of Drivers' Licenses Violates Due Process
The Los Angeles Times reports:Civil rights lawyers filed suit Tuesday accusing the Los Angeles Superior Court of improperly suspending driving privileges for tens of thousands of poor people because they can’t afford to pay their traffic fines. The suit said the court triggers license suspensions by the Department of Motor Vehicles without determining whether the motorists “willfully” ignored fines or were too broke to pay the often exorbitant penalties. The suspensions disproportionately hurt black and Latino people, the suit alleged. “If they are poor and don’t have the money to pay, by definition, they cannot be found to have willfully failed to pay,” said Antionette Dozier of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, one of the lawyers on the case. “They are just poor.”The ACLU reports that they recently filed a similar lawsuit in Solano County:A lawsuit was filed today against Solano County Superior Court, challenging…
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EXTRADITION TO ILLINOIS: THE UNFINISHED CRIMINAL CASE
With ever-expanding access to information, police in one state can easily learn about any criminal charges you have open in another state. And that can lead to extradition. Extradition means you could be arrested in your current state and brought back to face charges in the original state. Whether you will be extradited is up to the county prosecutor, and it is impossible to predict their decision in any given case. Sometimes extradition is the result of unfinished business. Perhaps in your younger days you got into trouble with the law. You missed your court date, so the judge issued a warrant for your arrest. Or maybe you did go to court but failed to finish the terms of your sentence. For example, you may have been required to pay a fine or perform community service. In either case, the county where your original charges occurred may choose to extradite you once police learn your whereabouts, such as through a routine traffic stop. If you are at risk of extradition…
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Gallup reports that self-reports of marijuana use is up in United States ... though I wonder if numbers partially reflect more honest self-reporting
As reported in this new Gallup posting, "[t]hirteen percent of U.S. adults tell Gallup they currently smoke marijuana, nearly double the percentage who reported smoking marijuana only three years ago." Here is more on what Gallup has found and has to say about its most recent findings: Although use of...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/p3zmCdM6z2I" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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News Scan
Over 30 Drug Citations and No Felonies, Thanks to Prop 47: A Redlands, Calif, man has been cited by police nearly three dozen times, almost all of them drug offenses, since the November 2014 passage of Proposition 47, which reclassified several felonies to misdemeanors. Brian Rokos of the Press-Enterprise reports that Frankie Alvin Capetillo, 27, is what police describe as a prime example of someone who is "gaming the system," racking up citations and failing to show up for arraignments because he knows he won't face any consequences. Twelve of Capetillo's citations were for reclassified offenses, and he failed to show up for court in 11 of those cases. Warrants out on him still only resulted in citations from officers rather than jail time. San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Simon Umscheid says that cases like Capetillo's are "an absolute waste of resources" and would like to see Prop. 47 modified so…
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Split en banc Fifth Circuit limits reach of Johnson vagueness ruling while debating what makes for a "constitutional sockdolager"
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Bakhturina et al. on Sentences and Events Unrelated to Crime
Evelina Bakhturina, Nora Barry, Laura Buchanan and Daniel L. Chen (New York University (NYU) - Center for Data Science, Center for Data Science, NYU, New York University (NYU) - Center for Data Science and Toulouse School of Economics / The...
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