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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...
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...
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...
To hell with annotations
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). When I started law school in 1986. my legal research class included researching weighty tomes with such titles as Supreme Court Digest, F.2d Digest, and A.2d Digest, which used key numbers to find various categories and...
Defending online copyright infringement
On September 19, 2008, I went to sentencing with my client for this online copyright infringement case. Fortunately, the judge varied substantially below the sentencing guidelines, saying that they are excessive for my client’s case, after having addressed such factors as the sentences of co-conspirators that...
When a Jailer Suffers the Justice System’s Injustices / How Prepared Should a Prosecutor Be?
When I started practicing criminal defense, I spoke with a very experienced criminal defense lawyer who told me that he had never prosecuted, but expected he would love it if he had such a job; this was a variation on a theme of some former...
Breathing life into the justification defense
A convicted felon confronts a handgun being waved in his face. He disarms the gun wielder, and acts as expeditiously as possible to turn the gun over to the police. He has been confronted by Hobson’s choices: (1) either seize the handgun and face violating...
April 2007 Recent Virginia Supreme Court Opinions
Image from Virginia Forestry Dept’s website. Virginia’s Supreme Court releases a package of appellate opinions about every seven to eight weeks. Following is an overview of some of the court’s recent key criminal decisions: A passenger’s possession of a bottle of illegal drugs — without...
Why does psychodrama work?
Here is an article about the powerful effect psychodrama can have on lawyers and on their ability to persuade; thanks to TalkLeft for covering this article. This article covers a training session by Don Clarkson, who is my favorite psychodramatist and an amazing psychological counselor...