Ohio

Retro Week

Posted on April 20, 2009
Yep, it’s time to stroll down Memory Lane this week at the Briefcase.  Because of those two nasty briefs still lingering on my desk, as I mentioned on Friday, I’m only going to have time for one, maybe two “real” posts this week...

Thanks for the mammaries

Posted on April 19, 2009
Back in October, the US Supreme Court heard oral argument in FCC v. Fox, concerning the FCC’s “fleeting expletives” policy; I discussed the lower court’s decision here, and the oral argument here.  The Court hasn’t ruled on the case yet, but when it does, it will also affect the FCC’s ruling in the famous Janet [...

Scheduling Conflicts

Posted on April 17, 2009
Well, here’s the deal, gang.  I’ve got briefs due in the Supreme Court and the 8th District next Friday, and despite my hopes to the contrary, it doesn’t look like they’re going to write themselves.  (If you’re waiting for me to do one of those self-help books, like “Eight Tips from Highly Organized and Successful People,” [...

Prosecutorial discretion

Posted on April 16, 2009
The lead opinion in State v. Ollison from the 8th District last week doesn’t give any clue that the case is out of the ordinary.  Ollison and his girlfriend, Barbara Williams, lived in a trailer in Cleveland.  They were acquainted with Moore, and let him sleep in a car on the property...

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Once more, with feeling: Post-release controls and stare decisis

Posted on April 15, 2009
When is a sentence not a sentence?  How does a court overrule a case without doing so?  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  The Ohio Supreme Court provided answers to two of these metaphysical conundrums last week; sadly, the chicken/egg one, which has always bedeviled me, was not one of them...

What’s up in the 8th

Posted on April 14, 2009
Eric “Big Willie” Wilson reacted the way one might expect a drug dealer who’s just been robbed to react:  he got out of his car and chased James Yhonquea, the guy who’d robbed him, down the street.  The two exchanged gunfire before Wilson caught up with Yongquea, shot him in the back, and retrieved his [...

Case Update

Posted on April 13, 2009
A light week.  Nothing notable from DC.  The Columbus Seven handed down a couple of significant decisions, which we’ll talk about on Wednesday.  The weekly spate of disciplinary cases features this one, in which the panel recommended suspension for six months, the board upped that to two years with one stayed, and the Supreme Court [...

A man’s home…

Posted on April 10, 2009
If you needed to know a single fact to give you insight into the American character, it is that John Wayne was still the most popular actor in this country twenty years after his death. This land is my land, this land your land, but it’s certainly not a land for the squeamish, and that’s reflected [...

Your lyin’ eyes

Posted on April 09, 2009
The cops did a pretty thorough job taking down Eddie Coleman for trafficking drugs.  Each of the search warrant affidavits for the two houses Eddie used is 27 paragraphs long.  The detective spends the first seven reciting his qualifications, and then gets down to business:  there’s a “confidential reliable informant” who’s told him that Eddie [...

Following the rules

Posted on April 08, 2009
If attorney malpractice insurance rates increase anytime soon, it won’t be because of the 8th District.  I’m not a stickler for rules, but it’s becoming increasingly clear, based on a couple of decisions last week, that the 8th isn’t, either...

What’s up in the 8th - Apocalypse Now

Posted on April 07, 2009
Yep,  Marlon Brando’s “the horror… the horror…”  accurately encapsulates the 8th’s criminal decisions last week.  Fourteen criminal decisions, and the best defendants can muster is a sentence vacated so that the trial court can tell the defendant that post-release controls are discretionary, not mandatory...

Case Update

Posted on April 06, 2009
A couple of decisions, though nothing major, from the banks of the Potomac:  in 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett, the Court held that collective bargaining agreements can require employees to submit age discrimination claims to arbitration, rather than filing suit, and in Harbison v...

Musings

Posted on April 03, 2009
We haven’t done a Friday Roundup for a while, where instead of launching into a jeremiad against some recent court decision, I’d simply surf the web and mail it in, extending myself only so far as to make some snarky comment or two.  Well, tough week, so that’s all the loving I’m showing today...

What 4th Amendment?

Posted on April 02, 2009
Just the facts, ma’am:  About 8:30 on a July evening last year, the cops spotted eight males “loitering on a vacant property.”   The officers approached the males and asked them for ID.  My client, who we’ll call Ralph, said he didn’t have any...

Old Chief and waivers at sentencing

Posted on April 01, 2009
Your client’s on trial for having  a weapon under disability.  No, that doesn’t mean he carries a Glock, but gets to park in the handicapped spots, it means that he’s been convicted of crimes involving drugs or violence, making it illegal for him to have a gun...

What’s up in the 8th

Posted on March 31, 2009
A St. Paddy’s day hangover, apparently.  Not surprising, given the plethora of Irish judges on the court, but this results in only nine decisions, less than half the normal workload.  Four are in criminal cases, and every one involves the validity of a plea, with defendants batting ...

Case Update

Posted on March 30, 2009
The Potomac 9 showed criminal defendants no love this past week.  In Knowles v. Mirzayance, it reversed the 9th Circuit (again) on a habeas case.  The opinion’s not worth a lengthy discussion, because the 9th Circuit’s ruling was a bad one, but lawyers who do habeas work should definitely give it a read, especially regarding ineffective [...

In all candor

Posted on March 27, 2009
On Wednesday I talked about a recent case I had involving whether a parent’s slapping a child constituted domestic violence, and mentioned that I’d filed a brief which included not only cases supporting my position, but also cases where the courts had held that the parent’s attempt at discipline had crossed the line...

What’s up in the 8th

Posted on March 26, 2009
Using the prosecutor’s office as a collection agency, reluctant domestic violence victims, and the metaphysical question of whether one can attempt an attempt featured prominently in the 8th District cases last week.  Let’s get down to it...

Spare the Rod…

Posted on March 25, 2009
It’s not a bad case, as domestic violence cases go.  My client Jorge discovered that his 17-year-old daughter had gone to the homecoming dance with someone he’d forbidden her to see, so he slapped her a few times.  He’s got a couple priors, though, which makes this a 3rd degree felony...

Medical miracles

Posted on March 24, 2009
Well, I made it.  Turns out that that I fell on the right side of the somewhat forbidding mortality rate at Rob & Emma’s Hospital and Tire Center.  Maybe it’s just me, but I did think it was bad form for the nurse, while she was escorting me down the hall to pre-op, to shout [...

Why I ? the 8th

Posted on March 20, 2009
Yes, I know, the 8th gets routinely reversed in civil cases, and I’ve lambasted it for its obsequious deference to trial judges in sentencing cases and for its cringeworthy hearsay jurisprudence.  But all is forgiven.  Last week, in State v. Acy, the 8th again proves itself the most 4th Amendment-friendly court in Ohio...

The latest on allied offenses

Posted on March 19, 2009
This week, anyway.  Back in October, I’d reviewed the oral argument in State v. Winn, the latest effort in the seeming Sisyphean task of articulating a coherent standard for determining allied offenses, the lack of which I’ve addressed ad nauseam (sample here)...

Never too late?

Posted on March 18, 2009
A couple weeks ago, in State v. Thomas, the 1st District granted Marlin Thomas’ motion to reopen his appeal.  They’d earlier held that his two convictions for felonious assault, one under the deadly weapon section and the other under the serious physical harm section, weren’t allied offenses...

What’s Up in the 8th

Posted on March 17, 2009
Take three sentencing cases, add two search decisions, toss in a couple of Colon issues and a pinch of some weird sex case, bring to boil, simmer for twenty minutes, and you’ve got the normal 8th District weekly stew.  Let’s take a look… The moral of State v...

Case Update

Posted on March 16, 2009
Apparently, the Columbus Seven were so disoriented by the recent redesign of the Supreme Court’s web site that they couldn’t bring themselves to write any opinions.  The best news about the redesign, of course, is that it offers the ability to download oral arguments through iTunes...

From the mailbag; shutting up

Posted on March 13, 2009
Ask the Briefcase.  Well, actually, not from the mailbag.  My buddy Paul is in trial this week.  Normally, about 30% of our conversations start out with the phrase, “Hey, Russ, can you find a case that says…”  When he’s in trial, the percentage approaches 80...

The Adam Walsh Act - the final straw?

Posted on March 12, 2009
Last year, in Hyle v. Porter, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the residency restrictions for sex offenders adopted by the legislature in 2003 couldn’t be applied retroactively to those who’d committed crimes prior to the effective date of the statute...

Memory Lane

Posted on March 11, 2009
Remember the good old days, when the courts would throw out a search, even if the police had a warrant?  Those days pretty much ended a quarter century ago, when the Supreme Court handed down US v. Leon, establishing a “good faith” exception to the warrant requirement:  the exclusionary rule wouldn’t be applied if the [...

What’s Up in the 8th

Posted on March 10, 2009
Two weeks worth of cases to look at, mostly criminal, so let’s get to it. One of the problems with the Cuyahoga courts handling 25,000 criminal cases a year is that some judges tend to speed the process up by taking shortcuts.  One of the favorites is the “group plea,” similar to the one shown  here...

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