Criminal Defense
Down by law for upskirting and downblousing
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) On the one hand, I think peeping camera laws have gone too far to to the point of chilling legitimate photography and other legitimate activities that have no lascivious intent and no intention of capturing intimate images. On the other...
To choose a lawyer
Many criminal defendants naturally wish to know an attorney’s fee — or at least a ballpark or fee range — over the phone or email before taking up to several hours to drive roundtrip to meet with the lawyer. Criminal cases often are scheduled for quickly-approaching...
The eternal mantra is “I want an attorney. I want an attorney…”
Police are well trained to break down people’s assertion of their Constitutional rights, including: – "If you are innocent, why do you need an attorney, and at such unnecessary expense?" – "If you have nothing to hide, why not pop open your trunk for me...
The canard of “I will never forget that face”
Imagine the dissonance felt by the victim of a serious crime not to be able to identify the perpetrator. If the perpetrator is not found and convicted, the victim may feel that the victim has been let down, the police have been let down, the...
The dissent gets it right in Supreme Court’s latest speedy trial decision
The United States Supreme Court ordinarily rejects criminal cases for review absent a material split of opinions in the state appellate courts, federal appellate courts, or both, unless the Court finds a compelling Constitutional question to justify review nonetheless. Apparently intended as a pre-emptive ruling...
Preserve the right to be let alone
NOTE: The current version of this blog entry constitutes a substantial rewrite of my original blog entry from earlier this morning, after I more closely read and sifted through the Fourth Circuit’s Whorley decision discussed below. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was one of...
Cops are not permitted to make up law as they go along
Cops can get touchy about suspects who put their hands in their pockets, lest they have a weapon in there. Imagine if cops were permitted to conduct searches on a hunch, just to increase their safety more, and to decimate individual liberty more in the...
Apprendi and safety valve sentencing
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. MI). Imagine pleading guilty when facing a high risk of a three-strikes non-parolable life term in prison. Why enter such a guilty plea unless such an approach is one’s only realistic hope not to die in prison,...
The jury is the thing. Petty offenses are the barrier
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) Yesterday I blogged on a recent marijuana bench trial victory in federal magistrates court. In my view, however, it is unconstitutional — absent the clear and informed consent of the criminal defendant on the record in court — to expose...
Judges: The Exclusionary Rule must even cover the countless police errors resulting from an overgrown criminal justice system
To my knowledge, when they were lawyers, no current Supreme Court justice prosecuted nor defended criminal cases in trial court, and none of them were police. Probably with few or no exceptions, the sitting justices’ law clerks are chosen not for previous law clerking experience...