July 6, 2015
On June 18th the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ohio v. Clark, 576 U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 2173 (2015), holding that a child abuse victim’s statements to his preschool teachers […]
June 16, 2015
Don’t call the School of Government next week. We’ll all be out. Next week is conference-time for many of the court officials we serve, and we will be traversing the state (driving […]
June 1, 2015
The state supreme court recently reversed a death sentence and a first-degree murder conviction because the State presented “an excessive amount” of otherwise admissible Rule 404(b) evidence. How much is […]
April 29, 2015
In most DWI cases, the State obtains evidence of a defendant’s alcohol concentration from a breath-testing machine. In order for the results of such a breath test to be admissible […]
April 28, 2015
I’m happy to announce that my book on digital evidence is now available. There are five chapters, covering (1) search warrants for digital devices, (2) warrantless searches of digital devices, (3) […]
April 20, 2015
Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran a story that begins as follows: The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic […]
April 7, 2015
Author’s Note: This post has been modified from its original version in response to a helpful comment by a reader. An officer sees a man drink from a can of […]
April 1, 2015
Prosecuting impaired drivers in Georgia just got a little bit harder. The Georgia Supreme Court held last week in Williams v. State, __ S.E.2d __ (Ga. 2015) that the mere […]
March 30, 2015
I’ve had several questions about the role of drug dogs at motor vehicle checkpoints. The details are below, but a quick summary of the law is as follows: (1) Officers […]
March 25, 2015
The rules of thumb about expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases are (1) that an expert can’t testify that a child was, in fact, abused absent physical evidence, and […]