Monday, January 5. 2009Judges: Time to distinguish between the smell of burnt and raw marijuana.
Bill of Rights (From public domain.)
How many judges have experience smoking marijuana, smelling others who have smoked marijuana, and smelling raw marijuana? At least one judge has such experience. Soon after the Senate bounced Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan nominated a then-forty-one-year-old Douglas Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. His nomination went up in smoke within days after his admission that he had smoked marijuana while a law school professor. He has remained all this time on the D.C. Circuit. Certainly, marijuana smoking should not disqualify one from the bench; nor should marijuana be illegal in the first place.
Whether or not it is a virtue for a judge to have had no direct experience with marijuana outside the courtroom, certainly judges should not be relying on other members of the bench to create judicial notice that marijuana smell provides sufficient probable cause for a search. Worse, judges should not permit unscientific and self-serving trial-level testimony of cops to create such a notion.
For one thing, when smoked, marijuana reeks, but, when unburnt, it can be very difficult to detect, despite the often flippant and probably downright lying claims of police to the contrary, and particularly when the raw marijuana quantities are small and not right under nor right inside the cop's nose. For another thing, there are different varieties of marijuana, and I would like to know if that can affect the stink of burnt and raw marijuana. Most importantly, for judges to take such judicial notice removes defendants and their own lay and expert witnesses from the factfinding equation. Conducting reliable scientific studies of people's ability to smell burnt and unburnt marijuana over the variables of distance, quantity and passage of time is expensive, which probably helps explain why I only know of one study thus far that debunks the notion that unburnt marijuana is easy enough to smell to provide probable cause to search. The study was conducted by Richard Doty, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, whom I have called before to the witness stand as a raw marijuana smell expert.
In any event, it appears that too many appellate cases finding marijuana odor as sufficient to justify searches fail to distinguish analytically, in their written opinions, or both, as to whether the marijuana is burnt or raw, of a high quantity or not, close or far from the smeller's nose, or interfered by wind, other odors, or even stuffed or dull noses. Consider the following appellate cases in that regard:
- Praised be the Indiana Court of Appeals for recently upholding suppression of a search conducted on the basis of a cop's claim of smelling a small quantity of unburnt marijuana. Indiana v. Holley, No. 02A03-0808-CR-406 (Dec. 23, 2008). In pertinent part, Holley says:
"There was no evidence that Officer Boles [the sole smelling officer] had any formal training regarding the detection of raw marijuana by odor or in distinguishing it from other substances. While there was evidence that he had encountered marijuana during the course of his duties, there was no evidence that he was qualified to know its odor or able to distinguish its odor from that of other substances.
"On the basis of this evidence, we cannot say that the State sustained its burden of proof justifying the warrantless search of Holley.s vehicle. The evidence of Officer Boles's qualifications to identify the presence of raw marijuana by odor alone was not without conflict and is insufficient to overturn the negative judgment of the trial court. While the testimony of a police officer shown to be qualified by training or experience to detect the odor of raw marijuana may be sufficient in a particular case to demonstrate the existence of probable cause as a matter of law, the State failed to make such a showing here." Indiana v. Holley. Thanks to John Wesley Hall for blogging on Holley.
- Last year, Virginia's Court of Appeals permitted a search based on the smell of raw marijuana, saying: "As many courts have held, 'if an officer smells the odor of marijuana in circumstances where the officer can localize its source to a person, the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed or is committing the crime of possession of marijuana.'" Bunch v. Virginia, 51 Va. App. 491, 496, 658 S.E.2d 724 (2008) (approvingly quoting U.S. v. Humphries, 372 F.3d 653, 660 (4th Cir. 2004)).
Aside from the deep flaw of such judicial notice as that proclaimed in Bunch v. Virginia, many of the raw marijuana cases referenced by cases cited by the foregoing U.S. v. Humphries -- as discussed below -- deal with large marijuana quantities, sometimes in the hundreds of pounds, and often reference specialized experience by the detecting cops, who often are Border Patrol police. A court must review the totality of the circumstances and assess the credibility and reliability of witnesses before permitting a search based on probable cause, Indiana v. Holley, and such an approach is shortchanged and distorted to permit such searches on the mere claim of a cop that s/he smelled marijuana, particularly in the absence of a basis for the cop's training and experience in distinguishing between the smell of raw marijuana, oregano, or a wide variety of other substances.
For instance, Humphries substantially relies on U.S. v. Scheetz, 293 F.3d 175 (4th Cir. 2002). In turn, Scheetz relies heavily on the Tenth Circuit decision in U.S. v. Morin, 949 F.2d 297 (10th Cir. 1991). Morin says: "This court has long recognized that marijuana has a distinct smell and that the odor of marijuana alone can satisfy the probable cause requirement to search a vehicle or baggage. United States v. Merryman, 630 F.2d 780, 785 (10th Cir. 1980); United States v. Sperow, 551 F.2d 808, 811 (10th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 930, 53 L. Ed. 2d 245 , 97 S. Ct. 2634 (1977); United States v. Bowman, 487 F.2d 1229, 1231 (10th Cir. 1973)." Morin, 949 F.2d at 300.
Morin failed to acknowledge that the Merryman case it relies upon involved 242 lbs. of marijuana. Merryman, 630 F.2d at 783. The foregoing Bowman case relied upon by Morin involved twenty-five bricks of marijuana smelled by a Border Patrol Agent who "had smelled marijuana while on duty and ... was familiar with its odor. The court below made the specific finding that Agent Goad did, in fact, detect the odor of marijuana." Bowman, 487 F.2d at 1230. As supported by Bowman, no probable cause to search can exist without the trial judge finding that the smelling officer was sufficiently trained and familiar with the distinction between the odor of raw marijuana and the odor of other substances. Id. Consequently, no judicial notice should be taken that a police officer may search a suspect on the mere claim of smelling marijuana.
Bowman, upon which Morin relies, states: "In our disposition of this issue, we do not write on a clean judicial slate. It is well settled within the Ninth Circuit that smell alone is sufficient to constitute probable cause for a subsequent search for marijuana. United States v. Barron, 9 Cir., 472 F.2d 1215, cert. den., 413 U.S. 920, 93 S. Ct. 3063, 37 L. Ed. 2d 1041 (1973); United States v. Campos, 9 Cir., 471 F.2d 296; Fernandez v. United States, 9 Cir., 321 F.2d 283." Bowman, 487 F.2d at 1230. However, although Bowman relies in part on the Ninth Circuit's Fernandez case to justify its foregoing pronouncement, Fernandez involved "five packages of marihuana wrapped in brown paper." Fernandez, 321 F.2d at 285.
Consequently, enough is enough. Judges need to stop promoting and accepting the deeply flawed notion that a police officer's mere claim of smelling marijuana translates into probable cause to search. A case-by-case inquiry is necessary, to consider the totality of the circumstances that led to the search. Marijuana smell should not create any exception to that rule. Jon Katz.Sunday, November 23. 2008When a new generation arises early Saturday to fight the drug war.
Bill of Rights (From public domain.)
A marijuana defense client one day suggested I not clump all frequent marijuana users as stereotypical laidback potheads. Knowing that frequent potsmokers come in all different shapes and flavors, I used the stereotype in an effort to figure out why my frequent-potsmoking client was so highstrung. Of course, he would have been more highstrung had he not been a marijuana smoker; this was his medicine.
Are legalization efforts for medicinal and recreational marijuana moving more slowly because of stereotypes of potheads of the variety of Cheech and Chong in Up in Smoke? (What do you think of this clip?) I would hope not. For one thing plenty of medicinal and recreational potsmokers smash such stereotypes. For another thing, even if every potsmoker matched such a stereotype, that would be much preferable to the violence and other damage caused by so many people who abuse alcohol.
Helping further to smash such stereotypes were the approximately 150 to 200 people who appeared before 10:00 a.m. yesterday morning for the second day of the tenth national conference of Students for Sensible Drug Policy at the University of Maryland. When I was in college, it was tough to get me anywhere that early on a Saturday morning.
I only got to stay at the conference less than two hours, because I was with my young son. However, for a boy as active as he is, I was taken at how attentive he was to the events, for the first half hour. The speakers I heard addressed matters that I mainly had heard before, but these were important talking points for the attendees to know for spreading the word of drug policy reform.
At the conference, I met and re-mat the following folks:
I re-spoke with Kris Krane, who heads the SSDP. Catch Kris here, debunking any value in parents forcing drug tests on their children.
First and foremost, for the first time I met fellow blogger Pete Guither of DrugWarRant. Yesterday, Pete entered some blog entries about he SSDP conference as events unfolded. His drive from Illinois to Maryland was slowed by accidents and snow in western Maryland. but he made it. I would have liked to have talked to Pete longer than exchanging some pleasantries, but I was due back home. Speaking of blogs, check out the SSDP's Dare Generation Diary.
I met Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelman, who is a very good spokesperson for drug policy reform.
I again bumped into Kevin Zeese, who heads Common Sense for Drug Policy. Kevin co-founded the then-named Drug Policy Foundation.
I also again bumped into my business neighbor Eric Sterling, who heads the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.
As an entertainment bonus, I met late-night infomercial huckster Matthew Lesko, who never leaves home without a custom-made suit laden with question marks. It seems that his son is involved in the SSDP. Jon Katz. Tuesday, November 18. 2008Marijuana is great medicine .
Image from public domain.
Marijuana is great medicine. It is natural and green, and lacks the very undesirable side effects of so many other medicines, including anti-depressants. It can be ingested in brownies and cookies, to avoid being smoked. Pharmaceutical companies have no financial interest in having marijuana legalized, because if it becomes legal, people can grow their own quality marijuana weed.
Here are some good links I recently found by medical professionals that detail the medicinal benefits of marijuana:
- Taped interview with Donald Abrams, M.D., on medical marijuana.
"Short Term Effects of Cannabinoids in HIV Infection." This title relates to a study that is outlined here at the website for the Multidiscipliary Association for Psychedelic Studies. More details on the study are here.
"Cannabis in painful HIV-associated sensory neuropathy." This is an abstract. The full text is available by subscription here.
Marijuana, the AIDS Wasting Syndrome, and the U.S. Government: Letter to the editor for New England Journal of Medicine.
"Medical marijuana and the Supreme Court."
Here is a link to an article suggesting possible dangers from marijuana, but advocating further study.
- "Adverse effects of medical cannabinoids: a systematic review." The report says, in part:
"Short-term use of existing medical cannabinoids appeared to increase the risk of nonserious adverse events. The risks associated with long-term use were poorly characterized in published clinical trials and observational studies. High-quality trials of long-term exposure are required to further characterize safety issues related to the use of medical cannabinoids." Tuesday, November 11. 2008Jon Gettman on Marijuana Image from public domain.
A wonderful fringe benefit of my marijuana defense work has involved meeting key players who bring sense to overcome so much of the nonsense of anti-marijuana crusaders. In addition to meeting such players through NORML annual meetings, I have worked with marijuana smell expert Richard Doty, and marijuana grow experts Chris Conrad and Jon Gettman. I have met medical marijuana M.D. Lester Grinspoon by phone, which was a real trip, as his was one of the first names I learned of in the ongoing movement to legalize marijuana. It has also been an honor to know NORML founder Keith Stroup and the late Don Fiedler, who was both a great criminal defense lawyer and past NORML national director.
Teaming with marijuana cultivation experts Chris Conrad and Jon Gettman, I won a Maryland medical marijuana sentence of just a fine followed by a probation before judgment (which means my client has no conviction in the case) on a prosecution for over thirty marijuana plants.
In addition to being a marijuana grow expert, Jon Gettman is a former NORML national director. Jon and I spoke recently, and he graciously permitted me to upload his 2002 article with Virginia caselaw to beat intent to distribute prosecutions in favor of simple possession convictions, which carry drastically lower sentencing exposure. Jon. who lives in Lovettsville, Virginia, also provided me his updated resume. Check out his webpage entitled DrugScience.org.
Thanks, Jon, Chris, Keith, Don, Lester, Richard, and the rest of you who have poured your heart and souls into replacing myth with facts about marijuana. Jon Katz. Sunday, November 9. 2008The tight economy demands a smaller criminal justice system.
Image from Bureau of Engraving and Printing's website.
What are the United States' largest socialist programs? This year's nearly trillion dollar bailout of AIG and other financial institutions is one. The social security system is another. Certainly, the criminal justice system is a major socialist enterprise, as well, which helps explain why so many economic conservatives want to downsize or eliminate the drug war.
In these belt-tightening times, the criminal justice system is particularly overgrown. The system needs to be shrunk substantially, in large part through legalizing marijuana, gambling and prostitution, and by heavily decriminalizing all other drugs. Drug prosecutions occupy a huge chunk of court, police, and prosecutorial time, so marijuana legalization and heavy drug decriminalization already will help to heavily shrink the nation's criminal justice system.
How expensive is the criminal justice system? As the ACLU blog points out on November 7, 2008:
The introduction to "Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress." -- produced by an organization that includes the ACLU -- "ends with a prescient reminder that during these very challenging economic times, there are critical cost savings that can come from reforming a system that incarcerates 2.3 million people (that’s more than 1 out of every 100 adults in the U.S.) at a staggering cost of more than $60 billion per year."
The ACLU blog quotes as follows from the foregoing "Smart on Crime" study:
On the indigent defense side alone, public defender offices are so overburdened with criminal defense cases that seven such offices have been turning away many people who otherwise would be qualified for their services.
Consequently, the criminal justice system must be substantially shrunk. Jon Katz Wednesday, October 1. 2008The dragnet of drug arrests. DEA image in the public domain.
In college, on-campus drug use -- and sometimes drug sales, apparently -- ran rampant. I would sometimes be right in the room or in the dorm hallway as others smoked pot or, in one instance, snorted cocaine. If I did not want to be a hermit, it was hard to avoid being with people who smoked pot; this was the early Eighties, and both pot and beer were very popular (and also unlawful for those under twenty-one to purchase). This also having been the Eighties, for small quantities of drugs, drug enforcement, criminal penalties, and collateral consequences were less harsh.
Welcome to 2008, where few politicians and prosecutors have enough backbone to support legalizing marijuana, heavily decriminalizing all other drugs, and reducing the penalties for drugs, except that I credit those lawmakers and prosecutors who are at least willing to put some first-time drug cases (I only know of marijuana cases) into diversion to give a chance to avoid convictions, and to enable no convictions or less serious convictions for people who use marijuana for medical necessity.
Back to my college experience being around people smoking marijuana, By merely being next to these people -- not even touching nor ingesting the substances -- I was risking arrest, prosecution, and possible conviction, because a drug possession conviction requires nothing more than proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed (defined as knowledge, dominion and control over the drugs) drugs (the prosecutor has the burden to prove the substance was the alleged controlled dangerous substance, ordinarily by bringing in the chemist if any drugs are left and seized). I could have testified until I was blue in the face that I had nothing to do with the drugs, but if I was not believed by the judge or jury, I would have been convicted.
Fortunately, neither I nor the others around me were busted for drug possession. So-called controlled dangerous substances remain illegal, often with harsh penalties and tough collateral consequences for convictions, including risks to student financial aid, government security clearances, and risks to immigration status. If anyone needs a reminder about the risks of being a bystander when drugs are possessed, used or sold, just read this September 9, 2008, opinion from Virginia's Court of Appeals finding sufficient evidence to convict a woman for possessing methamphetamines and marijuana with the intent to distribute by having been present in the house where her fiance sold the items. Dunn v. Virginia, __ Va. App. _ (Sept. 9, 2008). The evidence may have been sufficient to prosecute Ms. Dunn for simple possession of the substances -- including where a small amount of methamphetamines was found in her jewelry or personal bag -- but the concept of allowing a conviction for intent to distribute just because she knows her fiance is distributing should be a sobering wake-up call to otherwise innocent people who hang around with people possessing or distributing drugs. Curiously, after a three-judge Virginia Court of Appeals panel ruled in Ms. Dunn's favor (by as little as a 2-1 vote), only one judge dissented in this en banc opinion. Query: What made the remaining judge(s) in Ms. Dunn's favor change their minds?
It will be a boring world if people choose to avoid arrests by only associating with people as bland as Neil Sedaka, Lawrence Welk, and Pat Sajak hosting Wheel of Fortune. That may be enough of a good reason for legalizing marijuana and heavily decriminalizing all other drugs. Jon Katz. Sunday, August 24. 2008From protecting drug addicts to sealing criminal records.
Image from Library of Congress's website.
Here are some useful links that are destined for addition to my links page.
- British Columbia's Supreme Court gives protections against drug laws to drug-addicted people. PHS Community Services Society v.
- An excellent sample Freedom of Information Act request letter, from the American Civil Liberties Union.
- The District of Columbia's Criminal Record Sealing Act of 2006. The D.C. Public Defender Service has a free information packet with sample motions for those wishing to file pro se, by calling or visiting PDS. For sealing in jurisdictions bordering D.C., Maryland's expungement application process is the simplest, generally requiring the completion of two triplicate one page forms. Virginia's sealing procedure requires filing an entirely new lawsuit for such relief. An attorney should be consulted before applying to seal or expunge criminal records, particularly by people who are not United States citizens and who need to have their criminal records reviewed periodically for such matters as security clearances. Jon Katz. Friday, August 15. 2008How can a proper Terry patdown find crack cocaine?
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)
Recently during a suppression hearing in a drug case, the police officer testified that controlled dangerous substances fell to the ground from my client's pants as the cop conducted a patdown for weapons, on the cop's claimed belief that this was a valid Terry stop.
During cross examination at the suppression hearing, I asked the cop to show how my client was frisked, by putting me into the role of the client, which gave the judge a good bellylaugh as he proclaimed that I would be responsible for any contraband found during the cop's patdown of me in court. This so-called patdown demonstration revealed the very manipulation that is prohibited with Terry patdowns. The judge later indicated he tended to agree with me that the cop had demonstrated an unlawful Terry patdown, but the judge had concluded that the officer had probable cause to search based on the alleged odor of unburnt marijuana (I join the argument here that unburnt marijuana ordinarily is too hard to distinguish from lawful substances). Probable cause does in fact permit squeezing and sliding of suspected contraband, but a Terry stop does not allow that.
About the limits of a Terry frisk, in Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 378 (1993), the Supreme Court upheld the suppression of the drugs seized from Mr. Dickerson's pocket, the Supreme Court explained: "Where, as here, 'an officer who is executing a valid search for one item seizes a different item,' this Court rightly 'has been sensitive to the danger . . . that officers will enlarge a specific authorization, furnished by a warrant or an exigency, into the equivalent of a general warrant to rummage and seize at will.' Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. at 748 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). Here, the officer's continued exploration of respondent's pocket after having concluded that it contained no weapon was unrelated to 'the sole justification of the search [under Terry:] . . . the protection of the police officer and others nearby.' 392 U.S. at 29. It therefore amounted to the sort of evidentiary search that Terry expressly refused to authorize, see id at 26, and that we have condemned in subsequent cases. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. at 1049, n.14; Sibron, 392 U.S. at 65-66." Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378.
How, then, can a proper Terry frisk -- which is not permitted to involve manipulation, sliding or squeezing -- determine the presence of crack cocaine in one's pocket? If the crack rock is the typical small one-dose size, it sounds particularly farfetched. Nevertheless, in one Virginia criminal case, a police officer claimed to have felt apparent crack cocaine in Mr. Dickerson's pocket during a Terry patdown. The trial judge refused to suppress, and so did Virginia's intermediate appellate court, the Court of Appeals. See Bandy v, Virginia, _ Va. App. _ (August 12, 2008). Something sounds seriously wrong here, and I hope the defense seeks appellate relief. Jon Katz. Tuesday, July 8. 2008Drug defenses and the opposition.
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)
Drug prosecutions consume a huge percentage of felony court dockets. (If I have my way with heavily decriminalizing drugs, clogged court dockets will be quickly unclogged.) Once suppression motions are lost in such cases, what defenses do defendants have left? They include the following:
- The defendant did not possess the drugs. Possession is generally defined as knowledge, dominion and control. Livingston v. State, 317 Md. 408 (1989).
- The defendant possessed the drugs, but only for personal use, and not with the intent to distribute.
- Somebody else committed the crime.
-- This defense is more common where the arresting police officer neither finds drugs on the defendant's person nor receives drugs from the defendant. For instance, an undercover cop might buy drugs from a suspect and then radio a description of the suspect to the arresting cops; this raises misidentification issues. Cops may try to weaken a misidentification issue by using pre-recorded or marked currency to buy the drugs; however, this does not eliminate the possibility that the arrestee has received the money from the seller in a legitimate way (e.g.. where the seller gives the suspect gas money for a ride by the suspect, or pays back a legitimate debt).
-- This defense also is available where cops dragnet several suspects into a mass arrest, where no drugs are found on the defendant but are found on other nearby suspects or in the nearby vicinity.
- The cop or undercover purchaser (often a criminal suspect himself or herself) are lying about the situation and/or are mistaken about the defendant's identity.
- The cop planted drugs on or near the defendant.
- The defendant received a package of drugs in the mail, but had no involvement with arranging the delivery nor receipt.
- The prosecutor has not proven that the alleged drugs are actually controlled dangerous substances, and has not proven chain of custody of the drugs. Challenging the chemist can be risky before the jury, unless it is done without presenting inconsistent case theories to the jury (e.g., the chemist might be cross examined to show that the analysis is consistent with simple possession, or to show that the analysis did not connect the drugs to the defendant).
What does the prosecution do when the defendant claims s/he only possessed the drugs for personal use? The prosecution sometimes presents the testimony of a police officer to testify as an expert in possession with intent to distribute drugs. It is junk science, but that does no automatically prevent the witnesses from testifying. An example of such junk testimony is found in Ricky Williams v. Com., __ Va. App. _ (June 24, 2008). Each jurisdiction's rules of evidence, statutory law and caselaw need to be consulted in moving to exclude such "experts".
What happens when the chemist only test-checks some of the alleged controlled dangerous substances? In Ricky Williams v. Com., __ Va. App. _ (June 24, 2008), the chemist only tested one of ten alleged methadone tablets and opined that the remaining nine tablets looked similar to the tablet that tested positive for methadone. Nevertheless, the appellate court permitted the factfinding judge (this was a bench trial) to reach a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had possessed the methadone with intent to distribute it. Id. Williams quoted favorably from the Fifth Circuit, which said that: "Random sampling [of controlled dangerous substances] is generally accepted as a method of identifying the entire substance whose quantity has been measured." U.S. v. Fitzgerald, 89 F.3d 218, 223 n.5 (5th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 987 (1996). The chemist had the alleged drugs available to test; it is not too much to insist that a possession with intent to distribute conviction for methadone be precluded without testing each pill, or at least over half the pills.
Further about Williams since when is a chemist permitted to testify that a pill looks like a methadone tablet? With a defendant's liberty on the line, the chemist should either test each tablet -- particularly when there are so few tablets -- or else should keep quiet about the untested tablets. Jon Katz. Monday, June 9. 2008In praise of Tod Mikuriya.
As I became more knowledgeable over the years about the marijuana legalization movement, from time to time I would hear about Tod Mikuriya, M.D. As the May 29, 2007, New York Times tells it, Mikuriya "was an architect of Proposition 215, the state ballot measure that in 1996 made it legal for California doctors to recommend marijuana for seriously ill patients. He was also a founder of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group and its offshoot, the Society of Cannabis Clinicians."
The above-referenced New York Times article is Dr. Mikuriya's obituary, one of the many I miss in the course of each year. Only two months earlier, I linked to his webpage supporting the rescheduling of marijuana to make it available for medicinal use. It seems better late than never to sing Dr. Mikuriya's praises after his departure from this planet. His good karma will continue for a long time, and certainly infects me in the most positive of ways. A belated thanks to Tod Mikuriya. Jon Katz. |
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Wednesday, January 7 2009 Refusal of a search is inadmissible at trial. Tuesday, January 6 2009 Judges: Time to distinguish between the smell of burnt and raw marijuana. Monday, January 5 2009 Praised be our support staff. Monday, January 5 2009 What makes David Lynch tick? Sunday, January 4 2009 Trial skills must be developed in tandem with maintaining a strong body and calm mind. Friday, January 2 2009 Nonviolence starts with each of us. Wednesday, December 31 2008 Forfeiting confrontation rights through wrongdoing. Tuesday, December 30 2008 Freddie Hubbard departs the planet. Monday, December 29 2008 Does waiting tables make one a better trial lawyer? Sunday, December 28 2008 Comments welcomed.Your comments are encouraged. Our comment software only works by accepting cookies, and possibly only by using Internet Explorer. Here's why we moderate comments, which are usually approved in less than one business day. CategoriesBlogrollLimited to relevant, updated blogs. Criminal DefenseAbolish the Death Penalty Prosecutors/Cops/Narcs - Know the Opposition |
