Criminal Law

ACLU suit targets Sheriff's Department

Posted on September 09, 2008
A lawsuit filed Friday in federal court accuses the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department of unlawful detentions and racial profiling of Latinos suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Committee for Immigrant Rights of...

Executing Justice in the Texas Courts

Posted on September 09, 2008
By Lawrence J. Fox Word count: 668 They did not execute Charles Hood on June 17. On that night, the State of Texas did the right thing for the wrong reason. The execution was postponed not to cure a grave...

Eighth Circuit Rejects Second Amendment Claim

Posted on September 09, 2008
A machine gun and a sawed-off shotgun borne pursuant to membership in an informal militia unaffiliated with the state militia is not activity protected by the Second Amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held Aug. 13...

Mixed Verdict in London Terror Trial

Posted on September 09, 2008
A lengthy trial centering on what Scotland Yard called a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners ended Monday when the jury convicted three of eight defendants of conspiracy to commit murder. But the jury failed to reach verdicts on the...

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Beyond guilt or innocence, remember public safety

Posted on September 08, 2008
THE shooting rampage in Skagit County raises basic issues of public safety. The tragedy is a blatant challenge to assumptions of how well civil society can protect its citizens, and isolate those who are a danger to themselves and others....

Groups protest DNA collection law

Posted on September 08, 2008
The Legislative Black Caucus and civil rights activists criticized yesterday Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan for implementing a new program for collecting DNA samples from crime suspects, accusing the administration of turning its back on hard-fought compromises for safeguards and oversight...

Towns demand N.J. pay State Police bill

Posted on September 08, 2008
TRENTON ? More than 125 local elected officials from mostly rural New Jersey towns signed up to attend a meeting Thursday night to demand that the state continue to pay for State Police services in rural communities without police departments....

"Watch the Detectives" on A&E

Posted on September 08, 2008
There are a million stories in the naked city - and NYPD detectives are finally getting a chance to tell their favorites. Some 50 retired sleuths will give voice to their oddest or most haunting cases in an 11-week series,...

Fernand N. Dutile Professor of Criminal Law

Posted on September 07, 2008
Fernand N. ?Tex? Dutile earned his A.B. from Assumption College in 1962, and his J.D. from Notre Dame in 1965, where he served as the articles editor for the law review, The Notre Dame Lawyer. Admitted to the Maine Bar...

Impeachable Offenses?: Why Civil Parties in Quasi-Criminal Cases Should Be Treated Like Criminal Defendants Under the Felony Impeachment Rule

Posted on September 06, 2008
Colin Miller John Marshall Law School With one exception, every Federal Rule of Evidence dealing with propensity character evidence or evidence which can be misused as propensity character evidence makes it either: (a) as difficult to admit such evidence in...

Democratic and Republican Party Platforms Address Crime

Posted on September 05, 2008
As part of the presidential nominating process, the Democratic and Republican parties have ratified their party platforms, laying out for the electorate their priorities and vision for the country. Overall, the 94 page Democratic platform document puts a heavy emphasis...

Report: US drug use shows little change in 2007

Posted on September 05, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Cocaine and methamphetamine use among young adults declined significantly last year as supplies dried up, leading to higher prices and reduced purity, the government reports. Overall use of illicit drugs showed little change. About one in five young...

Utah has high reported-rape rate, but most victims silent

Posted on September 05, 2008
Utah's reported-rape rate - already higher than the national average - drastically underestimates the actual incidence of rape, a new report indicates. In a 2007 phone survey of more than 1,800 women, nearly 13 percent said they had been forcibly...

Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses

Posted on September 04, 2008
Law enforcement officers throughout the country regularly respond to calls for service that involve people with mental illnesses?often without needed supports, resources, or specialized training These encounters can have significant consequences for the officers, people with mental illnesses and their...

Students free life-term prisoner

Posted on September 04, 2008
The Post-Conviction Justice Project at USC Law recently prevailed in a defining case for the California parole system for long-time client Sandra Davis-Lawrence. USC Law students argued ? and the California Supreme Court agreed ? that a life-term prisoner is...

Miami judge rules poor defense caseload crushing

Posted on September 04, 2008
[From Eric Freedman] The public defender's office that represents Miami-Dade County's poorest criminal defendants is overburdened by a crushing caseload and will stop accepting thousands of lesser felony cases until the situation improves, a judge ruled Wednesday...

Report Faults Handling of Wiretap Notes

Posted on September 03, 2008
Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales improperly handled classified information about some of the government's most sensitive national security programs, but authorities will not recommend that he face criminal sanctions, according to officials familiar with an investigative report to be...

Program gives inmates chance to stay clean

Posted on September 03, 2008
TRENTON - New Jersey is in the midst of an ambitious pilot program to find out what combination of services works best at keeping ex-inmates from returning to state prisons. The $2 million program, called Another Chance, is part of...

State Supreme Court to look at 'no-retreat' self-defense law

Posted on September 03, 2008
FRANKFORT ? The Kentucky Supreme Court plans to review two cases involving the state's new self-defense law that allows people to shoot dangerous home invaders without fear of prosecution. The National Rifle Association had championed the measure enacted in 2006,...

Criminal Law, Public Health and HIV Transmission

Posted on September 02, 2008
A number of cases have been reported in which people living with HIV have been criminally charged for a variety of acts that transmit HIV or risk transmission. In some cases, criminal charges have been laid for conduct that is...

Gonzales aides politicized hirings, investigators find

Posted on September 02, 2008
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Aides to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales improperly considered political affiliations and ideologies in hiring, but Gonzales was unaware of those actions, according to results of an investigation released Monday by the Justice Department internal watchdog...

New DTA, habeas troubles

Posted on September 02, 2008
The Justice Department, frustrated in its ability to get free of one level of court review of Guantanamo Bay detainee cases, and unable at the other level to keep to is own schedule for turning out reports to justify detention,...

Petition Preview: Enya, the Death Penalty, and Video Victim Impact Evidence

Posted on September 02, 2008
Nearly two decades ago, in Payne v. Tennessee (1991), the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment did not bar the introduction of ?victim impact evidence? at the penalty phase of capital trials. The Court held that just as the...

"Preppy Killer" Sentenced to 19 Years on Drug Charges

Posted on September 02, 2008
Preppie killer Robert Chambers was sentenced today to 19 years in prison for drug-dealing - more time than he got for strangling Jennifer Levin in 1986. The 42-year-old prep school grad agreed to the long stretch as part of a...

California prisons prepare for gay weddings

Posted on September 01, 2008
No prisoners so far have sought to arrange weddings with same-sex partners since the state Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to wed as of mid-June, according to Michele Kane, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation...

Were Estefano jurors under the `CSI Effect'?

Posted on September 01, 2008
Jurors in the trial of the man accused of shooting songwriter Estefano say prosecutors did not show enough evidence to prove their case. When Latin songwriter Estefano testified against the handyman accused of shooting him, it wasn't that his story...

Sex assaults that leave victims pregnant can warrant tougher penalties, court rules

Posted on September 01, 2008
A sexual assault that leaves a victim pregnant may be punished more severely than one that does not result in pregnancy, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday. The state high court said a pregnancy may be considered "great bodily...

Geoffrey S. Corn South Texas Criminal Law Professor

Posted on August 31, 2008
Geoffrey S. Corn Associate Professor of Law Education: BA, Hartwick College JD, George Washington University Law School LLM, The Judge Advocate General's School, United States Army Bio Geoffrey S. Corn joined the faculty of South Texas College of Law in...

To reduce prostitution, cities try shaming clients

Posted on August 30, 2008
Tired of arresting and re-arresting prostitutes, police in communities across the nation are increasingly targeting their clients with an old technique ? shame. A two-year study for the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, led by researcher Michael Shively...

Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting

Posted on August 29, 2008
One recent spring day, two cops in the Newark Police Dept. watched a shoot-out erupt in broad daylight. Two suspected drug dealers started blasting away at each other in the middle of an apartment complex. The cops didn't witness the...

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