Probable Cause:
- Federal judge: Drinking tea, shopping at a gardening store is probable cause for a SWAT raid on your home.
In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. The couple, both former CIA analysts, awoke to pounding at the door. When Robert Harte answered, SWAT agents flooded the home. He was told to lie on the floor. When Addie Harte came out to see what was going on, she saw her husband on his stomach as SWAT cop stood over him with a gun. The family was then held at gunpoint for more than two hours while the police searched their home. Though they claimed to be looking for evidence of a major marijuana growing operation, they later stated that they knew within about 20 minutes that they wouldn't find any such operation. So they switched to search for evidence of "personal use." They found no evidence of any criminal activity.
Search Warrants:
- U.S. Supreme Court considers legality of DUI breath tests.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a person can be charged with a crime for refusing a breath, blood or alcohol test if the police do not have a search warrant in what could have huge implications for drunk driving cases.
Aaron Delgado, a criminal defense attorney in Daytona Beach, said that he is anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling is going to benefit about 50 clients he is defending in DUI cases. Delgado said a breath, blood or urine test is a search and people are protected against searches by the Fourth Amendment. “If the police came to your house and wanted to search and you said, ‘Gosh no, I’m sorry. You can’t come in without a warrant and I’m not going to answer any questions without a lawyer,’ they couldn’t use that against you,” Delgado said. “But in the case of a DUI they can and there’s no real difference legally between those two.”
Grand Jury Indictments:
- Backlash against Tamir Rice shooting decision. Are grand jury reforms ahead?
After the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office announced on Monday that a grand jury did not indict the officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice, age 12, online backlash was immediate, reflecting deep divides over the fairness of the US justice system for African Americans.
"Tamir Rice was not on trial, but he might as well have been," the Huffington Post's Daniel Marans wrote, reflecting many observers' view that the boy's size and race fueled officers' decision to shoot him within two seconds of arriving at a park, where they were responding to a 911 call about a young man pointing a "probably fake" gun at others.
Self Incrimination:
- Defendant’s Platinum Teeth Not Protected by Self-Incrimination Clause.
Ramon Gonzalez was required to show the jury his platinum teeth during his trial for battery against a fellow jail inmate. Recently, the state Supreme Court rejected Gonzalez’s argument that this violated his right against self-incrimination. The victim had testified that one of his attackers had platinum teeth. In general, defendants have a constitutional right to avoid “testifying” in response to questions that could self-incriminate, a right under both the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions. Although Gonzalez was not “testifying” when he showed the jury his teeth, he argued that his teeth had a testimonial aspect – they conveyed a negative message by looking “fierce” – and physical evidence with a testimonial aspect is constitutionally protected.
Due Process:
- Here's Why the ACLU Is Suing the Government over the No-Fly List—and Winning.
Last night, President Barack Obama made it abundantly clear in his speech that his administration is behind the push to deny guns to those who show up on federal no-fly lists. He said, "Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security."
Obama, a constitutional scholar, knows full well about this little thing called "due process," which prohibits the government from simply depriving people of their rights on the basis of just official suspicion. And he also knows full well that the lack of due process with the no-fly list is causing the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security some serious legal headaches. It's not the National Rifle Association (NRA) that's keeping the administration from depriving people on the no-fly list their rights; it's the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Double Jeopardy:
- 'Affluenza' teen caught, but will he get off easy?
Couch drew the ire of many after a judge sentenced the then 16-year-old to 10 years of probation for a 2013 drunk driving crash that killed four people. Those who felt the sentence too lenient felt validated when Couch violated his probation and fled. He was detained Monday in Mexico. But if you are expecting a judge to throw the book at him, be warned that the book might not be too heavy. As of now, the most severe punishment Couch could face is 120 days in adult jail, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said at a press conference Tuesday.
. . . The judge who hears the case "will throw the book at him, but the book is only a few more months because he turns 19," said Larry Seidlin, a former state court and juvenile court judge in Florida. "So the legal issue is: Can the prosecutor move this case to adult court and try to get adult sanctions, get some state prison time. It's a close question because double jeopardy is going to take effect. We've already gone through his case. We've already done a plea bargain."
Takings Clause:
- SCOTUS Orders Just Compensation for a Regulatory Taking: Agency Regulations Could Endanger the Public Fisc.
The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) today ruled inHorne v. Department of Agriculture that the government must give just compensation for personal property actually taken in agency price support programs. Horne clarifies how the United States Constitution’s “Just Compensation” or “Takings” clause limits one regulatory program. Future litigation applyingHorne’s teachings to other agency regulations may foist the government on the horns of a regulatory or fiscal dilemma.
Confrontation Clause:
- The Supreme Court Splinters Apart Over the Confrontation Clause.
The United States Supreme Court Monday morning, in a relatively simple case about the scope of the Confrontation Clause, displayed virtually all the dysfunction the justices' most vocal and powerful critics ever could realistically contemplate.
The case, styled Williams v. Illinois, generated no fewer than four separate opinions, no clear and meaningful majority ruling, and another plain-spoken dissent from Justice Elena Kagan, who called out her colleagues for "endorsing a prosecutorial dodge."
Here's the dodge: At Sandy Williams' Illinois rape trial in 2006, a trial held without a jury, prosecutors got an expert witness to testify that there was, indeed, a DNA "match" between samples from Williams and from the victim. However, the witness against Williams that day was not the laboratory analyst who had compiled the scientific information upon which the testimony was based. The incriminating trial testimony came instead from a "state-employed scientist" who had no relationship whatsoever with the contents of the report.
Right to Counsel:
- Right to counsel doesn't require 'perfect advocacy,' SCOTUS says; murder conviction is reinstated.
Lawyers for a criminal defendant were not constitutionally required to predict the demise of bullet analysis that was once widely accepted, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week in a per curiam opinion.
The Oct. 5 decision (PDF) reinstates the murder conviction of James Kulbicki, convicted for the 1993 fatal shooting of his mistress, the Baltimore Sun reports. Maryland’s top court had cited ineffective assistance of counsel when it overturned Kulbicki’s conviction.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment:
- Cruel and Unusual Punishments Before the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court heard cases involving the two most extreme punishments in the American criminal justice system: life without the possibility of parole and the death penalty. The capital case comes to the justices, as it often does, from Florida. Only last year the court struck down the state’s rigid, unscientific law that tried to skirt around the court’s ban on executing intellectually disabled people.
This time the issue is the jury’s role in capital sentencing. Florida, alone among the states and the federal government, allows a non-unanimous jury to vote for a death sentence — which is why a man named Timothy Lee Hurst sits on the state’s death row even though five of the 12 jurors in his case voted against the death penalty.
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